WEBVTT - Ron “Pigpen” McKernan Episode 1: Fueled by Thunderbird, Taught by a Nine-Fingered Wizard, and Saving Woodstock 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:10.400 Double Elvis Club is the production of I Heart Radio 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:17.120 and Double Elvis Ron. Pigpen mccernan died at the age 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.520 of and he lived the life that seemed to always 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.520 be running a little late. I can give you twenty 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.440 seven reasons why that statement is true. Five would be 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.440 the number of years he obsorbed the blues and R 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.839 and B music that is disc jockey father Spawn, helping 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.400 Pigpen develop a love for music that was decades before 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.839 his time. Another twelve would be the age he was 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:42.479 when he became a fixture in blues clubs in and 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.200 around Paulo, Alto, where it wouldn't be too long before 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.159 he was consuming more than music. Three more would be 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.040 the number of years he'd study under a nine fingered 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.560 banjo wizard, honing his craft and becoming a fully realized musician. 0:00:58.560 --> 0:01:01.040 Another six would be the numb umber of Grateful Dead 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.399 members not named pig Pen who were tripping out during 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.040 the bad vibrations of the band set at Woodstock before 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.600 Pigpen came to their rescue. And one would be the 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.640 number of decades that would elapse between Pigpen's first appearance 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:21.920 on stage and last appearance on Earth. All totally on 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.200 this our first episode of season five, A disc jockey 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:30.880 Dad a nine fingered wizard, Bad Vibrations at Woodstock and 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:36.600 the Grateful Dead's Ron Pigpen mccarnew. I'm Jake Brennan in 0:01:36.680 --> 0:02:23.239 this is the Seven Club, Yeah, m M. I fucking 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.120 told him it wouldn't work. It was the second night 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.919 of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, and Augustus Osley Stanley, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:35.040 the third a k. A Bear was furious. The Grateful 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.320 Dead's audio engineer and the creator and purveyor of some 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.880 of the finest LSD produced on the planet, stopped his 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.240 way towards the stage. He moved past the mud pit 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.799 that had formed up front, past the dirt stained blankets, 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.040 peace sign banners and American flags, past the roaming docks 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.040 to see if ty dyed trippers, some of them completely nude, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.760 some underage, and almost all wide eyed from the acid 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:04.000 that was being distributed by hand. What a fucking scene. 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.320 Bare thought. It was impressive, or reveren and inspirational all 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:13.359 at once, was also becoming somewhat disturbing. The entire three 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.960 day concert had been mismanaged. Tickets have been monumentally oversold, 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.600 and there were ten mile traffic backups that forced the 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:23.120 groups that were playing to be airlifted into the venue 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.560 by helicopters, and the driving rain the night before was lingering, 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.200 causing constant delays. The audience was soaked to the bone. 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.040 Oh in the forty ft rotating circle of a stage 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:37.840 that the Woodstock stage hands had been championing all day, 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.560 the one that was built to make things move faster, 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:44.880 the one they had assured Bear would work, wasn't and 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:49.080 now it was getting dark. The equipment had been carefully 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.000 set up, prepared for the Dead, and just moments after 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.280 the stage began to rotate, it all came crashing down. 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.400 Everything had to be reset. Bear had just about enough 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:01.360 of the stage ants. Fund Did they know about the 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.240 Dead's gear, he told them. If he told him that 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.720 the Dead didn't travel with the ordinary amount of equipment, 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:08.560 he told them that as soon as the instruments and 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.760 amplifiers had been put into place, stage wouldn't stand a chance. 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.480 And now here they were a busted stage, a piste 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.080 off band, and yet another delay. Baar didn't care about 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:21.400 peace and love. He just wanted the ship to work. 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.400 The Dead who had arrived the night before were also 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.200 becoming more than a little disquieted by the scenes surrounding them. 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.960 They had to be flown into old man Yasker's farm 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.839 via helicopter. In the free spirited commune they had seen 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:41.320 the previous day was now a sea of mud covered freaks. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.320 Save for the organist and singer pig Pen, the band 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.400 had all immersed themselves on the drug of choice, high 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.880 quality LSD. Pig never touched the stuff, who wasn't about 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.520 to start now, and the rest of the band were 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:59.280 flying high, compounding the intensity of the situation, and they 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:03.320 did all. However, insists that Bear rewire everything and the 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.040 sound had to be perfect, and they weren't about to 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.440 blow another major gig, not after their epic whiff at 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:14.480 the Monterey Pop Festival two summers earlier, so Bear Owsley 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.560 went to work. He determined that the p A provided 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:22.320 was insufficient and made some choice alterations, including removing a 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.720 fifty ft electrical grounding that was no longer actually grounded 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.760 in any semblance of dry earth. Amongst the muddy mess 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.680 at the six acres of the festival's side had become 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.919 and by the time the dad's friend Ken Babs the 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.360 Mary Prankster who had arrived on can Kesi's further bus 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.280 and who had most definitely been drinking the kool aid, 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.280 took the stage to introduce The Dead. The show was 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.760 once again well behind schedule. The crowd had been treated 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:49.919 to the booge rock of Can't Heat in the driving 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.720 blues of Mountain, and they were in desperate need of 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:58.240 a nice mellow out. As the Grateful Dead tuned their 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.919 guitars and checked over their equipment, Ken Babs tried to 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:05.560 calm the crowd, commenting on how far out and beautiful 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.800 it was that so many people could come together like this. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.559 Crowd knew what the scene was. They had created the scene. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.280 They didn't give a ship what Ken id to say 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.080 about the scene. This wasn't Kesi's acid test. They just 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.240 wanted the music to start again. They wanted to hear 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.040 the Grateful Dead mid peak. They were ready right now. 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.359 The crowd, in their agitated state, grew louder as The 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.000 Dead prepared to play. Now a full forty five minutes 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.040 behind schedule, things were already off to a bad start. 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.240 Just that a voice boomed over the p A A 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.920 voice not from anyone on stage, a voice from somewhere 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.880 dark Hidden. Would everybody please sit down, let the people 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.159 behind you have a chance to see the show. Just 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.200 relax those muscles in your legs and sit down for 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:58.279 a few minutes. Please. Where was this intervention coming from? 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.320 Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead's rhythm guitars, stepped to his 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.840 microphone and felt an electric shock surged straight to his core. 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.440 The mic was ungrounded. Bob jumped back five ft and 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.480 hollered in pain. The power went out on the entire 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.480 stage and the band was shook. This wasn't supposed to 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.520 be a bad trip. This was supposed to be a celebration, conquest, 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:23.680 a culmination of the last few years of free love 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:27.560 and free music. This trip hadn't been all that long yet, 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:34.160 but it was already plenty strange. When the power finally returned, 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.760 Ken Babbs tried once more to calm the delirious crowd, 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.600 and this time the Dead were mercifully ready. It was 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.400 about ten thirty on a Saturday night. One of the 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.200 best fucking rock groups in the world, the Grateful Dead. 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:52.840 The Dead fell right into the cosmic opening chords of 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.480 their newest single, Sat Stephen and to the Rain, Soaked 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.840 and Acid, So crowd of four thousand tie died freaks 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.800 and front of them it sounded like heaven. This is 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:06.800 what they have been waiting for. But the Dead weren't 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.320 quite as excited about the prospect of what was to 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.800 come next. As they got into a groove, their gear 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.680 buzzed and tinkled. It was like Russian roulette with their instruments. 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:18.680 Who would be the next member of the group to 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.080 get fried by an errand fault of electricity. The weather 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.480 wasn't getting any better either. In the stage, which sat 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.400 on a foundation of mud, now seemed to be sliding 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.440 forward like an apathetic glacier, ready to indiscriminately crush the 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.199 people packed like sardines in front of it. The Dead 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.920 cut Saints even short to calm the negative vibrations, instead 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.120 deciding to run for the safety of one of their 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:45.199 go to cover tun Tomorrow, Haggard's Mamma tried blazing through 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.080 the country classic with perfectly placed harmonies. The Dead seemed 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.719 to have the show back on track, but as they 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.160 prepared for their third song, their amps lost power one 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.760 by one, and then the lights went out. That same 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.559 mysterious voice floated out over the crowd via the p 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:06.080 a system speaking and indistinguishable sentences. What the hell was 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.480 going on? Was everyone on this trip? Where did the 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.960 Dead get some of that brown acid that was going around? 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.920 Bear Owsley scrambled around the stage, resetting the amps. Eventually 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.800 the Dead were back on track and powered forward with 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.560 an inspired fourteen minute version of Dark Star, and didn't 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.400 stop even when Phil Lush's basse amp began to pick 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:30.400 up muffled helicopter chap. The Dead were desponded another big 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.520 show and another bust. There was only one man who 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:37.800 could take the boys home now and what time they 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:42.440 had left in their set? Ron Pigpen mccernitt. Pig step 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.559 forward with his cowboy hat pulled low, a cigarette in 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.000 his hand, wearing the same leather vest he seemingly hadn't 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:53.680 changed in four years. The real McCoy Phil thumped out 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.880 the opening baseline of Bobby Bland's Turn on Your Lovelight. 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.760 Jerry and Bob joined our guitar, then Tom Constantant on keyboards, 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:04.960 and then Mickey Hard and Bill Krutzman on drums and 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.520 Justice pig Pen was about to step up to the mic. 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.480 An audience member absolutely fried from too much sun and 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.000 too many drugs, got up on stage, commandeered the mic 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.000 and started rapping over the Deads groove. The Dead didn't 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.880 give a ship at this point, screw it. Let the 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:24.480 guy in the audience do his thing. He was vibing, 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.000 and honestly, his rap was pretty far out. Nothing was 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.319 in the band's control anymore, and they were ready to 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:32.560 get off stage, getting the helicopter and get the funk 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:37.240 out of Dodge. That is until Pigpens deep soulful voice 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:42.440 began to vibrate through the amplifiers on stage. Pigpen led 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:46.320 the band through an intoxicating forty seven minute jam, complete 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.600 with solos from Jerry, duets with Bob, and too many 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.680 improvised verses to count. Pig turned the bad vibes good. 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:55.960 He enticed the crab to get up and dance, and 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.280 he pulled the rest of the band out of their haze. 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.640 The Near Our Jam mended the Dead's un even set 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.240 with a triumphant, joyous down and dirty roots rock flourish. 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.200 Nobody in the Dead but pig Pen could have turned 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.840 the mood around that night. Pig Pen was the lifeblood 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:15.880 of the Grateful Dead, their substant soul and spiritual Center. 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:18.920 And even though we didn't dig the LSD, he dug 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.440 the scene, he dugged the music, and most of all, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:25.160 he dug the blues. The enigma that was pig Pen 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.000 didn't just save the group in their moment of peril 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.920 at Woodstock. He had also sparked the birth of the 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.160 greatest jam band to ever exist, which gave birth to 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.040 an entire community of fans who called themselves Deadheads and 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.040 kicked off fifty plus years of concerts and classic albums. 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:47.520 And it all started from humble beginnings somewhere oh in 0:11:47.679 --> 0:12:18.040 northern California. Phil Lesh was drawn to the voice. It 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:19.920 was coming from the next room at the party, and 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.360 Paul Alto sounded like lightning Hopkins mixed with TBone Walker, 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.439 smooth and sensitive torture, longing the real deal, honest, authentic. 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.720 Surely it was the voice of a season blues musician, 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.240 a true blue blues man from somewhere far away from California, 0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:40.439 a voice that had traveled from way down south. Phil's 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:43.760 eyes scanned the party, He followed the sound of the voice, 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:45.920 and he was surprised to find out that everything he 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.200 thought about the man behind the voice was not what 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:54.160 he had expected. In nineteen Phil Leash, the future basis 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.559 of The Grateful Dead, was volunteering as a recording engineer 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:02.440 for KPF A out of San Francisco. Phil was constantly 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:05.680 attending parties and immersing themselves in the various music hot 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.480 spots around the city, one of which happened to be 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.880 thirty miles due south and Paalolato. Several music venues had 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.240 turned the small city into a vibrant scene, a scene 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.800 that served as a response to the buttoned up, leave 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.000 it to beaver vibe of the nineteen fifties, a scene 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.719 where a younger generation could discuss ideas that mattered to them. 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.040 The kids weren't worried about the bomb or McCarthy is um. Sure, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.720 they were political and read the news, but the people 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.760 in this scene didn't have time to be fatalistic. They 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:37.840 drowned out all that doom and gloom with positive sounds. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.959 Paolato was a cross pollination of folk music, jazz, and 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.600 R and B in depending on where your taste, laying 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.920 good music was readily available at any time of day. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:50.920 On this evening, Phil and his girlfriend made their way 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.920 to a party across the highway in East Paalolato, a 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:58.199 neighborhood lovingly referred to as the Ghetto. The party was 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.040 cramped but happening with live music in the front room, 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.839 and that's where the voice was coming from. It called 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.760 out to Phil, so Phil followed Phil around the corner 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:10.839 into the front room and was shocked at what he saw. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.640 A white kid strumming an acoustic guitar and pouring the 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.600 music out of his soul, as if he were channeling 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:20.480 Charlie Patton himself. Phil thought the kids bushy black hair 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.200 made him look a little like Claude Devacy, But unlike Devacy, 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:27.200 this kid was clad in dirty jeans and a leather vest, 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.840 singing the blues. His skin was dry and blotching. He 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.080 looked as if he hadn't bathed in days. God damn 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.560 at that voice. Kid looked around thirty years old due 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.600 to a long standing relationship with alcohol, but was actually 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.560 hovering right around sixteen. The kid's name was Ron McKernan, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.440 but everyone called him Pigpen. Phil had seen pig Pen 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.760 hanging around Paul Alzo was Jerry Garcia, but he had 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:55.400 no idea he could sing, not like this. How the 0:14:55.440 --> 0:15:01.000 hell did that voice get inside that body, and that 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:05.080 body entered the world on September eight and a small 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.680 suburb outside of San Francisco called San Bruno to Esther 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.880 Nelson and Phil McKernan. Phil was a Boogey Wiggy penist 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.200 and under the name DJ Cool Breeze, was one of 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.880 the first white disc jockeys for the local black radio 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:21.920 station kr E. Cool Breeze spent this block spinning R 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.200 and B and blues music. His son, young Ron was 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:27.640 just six years old at the time, and he didn't 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:29.840 know it, but when he laid by the speakers and 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:33.280 the warm, smooth sounds of his father's record collection filled 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:36.080 his ears, he was being steeped in a tradition of 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.080 music that would end up coursing through his veins throughout 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.760 all of his short life. Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker, 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.920 Big Joe Turner, Male Rainey pig Pen, by proxy, observed 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.760 the essence of the soulful and uplifting music of Black America, 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:56.160 as Jerry Garcia would later stay, pig Pen grew up 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.240 with that music in his ear, so it was real 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.720 natural form. The blue was the music that had been 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:03.960 born in the nineteenth century in the cotton fields of 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:07.680 the American South, involved out of African American spirituals mixed 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.600 with European folk music and instrumentation, blending influence from different regions, races, 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.760 and continents, and by the turn of the twentieth century, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.720 blues and mature taking a more fixed form in the 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.000 unrelenting heat of the Mississippi Delta, Southern Texas, and the 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.160 Deep South, with the first blues music being committed to 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:29.000 sheet music in nineteen o eight. It exploded with the 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.920 advent of the electric guitar or the early nineteen thirties 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.080 and expanded its influence to every corner of the country, 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.160 with hotbeds in both Chicago and on the West Coast, 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.880 kickstarting the careers of titans such as Holland Wolf, Muddy Waters, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:45.600 and Jimmy Reid. As blues music found a water audience, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.720 it found a whiter audience, and the beats dug it. 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.320 Jack Carroac even wrote some of his own as he 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.760 hopped rail cars and trolleys on the busy streets of 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:58.280 San Francisco. San Francisco was the same place where Cool 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.040 Breeze discovered it and the same place he passed it 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.560 on to his son pig Pen from nineteen fifty one 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.680 to nineteen fifty six, Cool Breeze spawn those records, schooling 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.439 pig Pen on the history of the genre and creating 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.520 a passion and love for the good vibrations, the history 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.960 and the culture. Pigs sang along to the records his 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.800 dad played, and the feeling, the mood, the vibe embedded 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:23.800 itself squarely in the center of his eternal being. It 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:30.280 was the only thing that seemed to matter to him. 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.800 Pig Pen was a fixture in the blues clubs by 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:36.280 twelve years old and was drinking by thirteen. It was 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.600 part of the scene. If it's what the great blues 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.320 men did well, ship pig Pen would do it too. 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.560 But music that was the main thing. He saw the 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:47.320 cats on stage every night, hearts bled dry, singing that 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.200 music that would overthrow your soul with joy, only to 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.000 spin around and punch you in the gut. Listening to 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.840 the blues was a religious experience, and pig Pen was 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:00.000 all about kneeling at that altar. He deeply entrenched him 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.439 self and the pol Alto scene, attending parties, learning guitar 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:05.680 and blues heart from anyone who would take the time 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.159 to teach him and That's where he met Jerry Garcia. 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:13.320 Jerry Garcia had been knocking around town for a while now. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:16.000 It was the only guy who really took any interest 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:20.000 in playing the blues on guitar. Pig wasn't throw. Pig 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.480 attended parties with Jerry and watched closely as Jerry effortlessly 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.680 picked out the blues. He studied the way Jerry's hands 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:30.960 glided across the neck of the guitar, the patterns, the precision. Wait, 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:32.760 what was that guy of missing a finger on his 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.239 picking hand. Later, when pig was alone, he pulled out 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.879 his guitar on a bottle of Thunderbird wine and spend 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.400 hours trying to recreate the sounds he'd heard earlier that night. 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.600 But pig Pen didn't have the confidence it took to 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.720 get up on stage like Jerry Garcia did, and pig 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.119 Pen didn't yet have the skills for an instrument to 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.000 feel at home there either. He sure had a heart, 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.199 So Jerry Garcia took Pigpen under his wing taught him 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.919 how to pick up the blues on guitar. Music worked. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:05.200 Months turned into years as Pigpen learned from Jerry Honey's craft, 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.080 until he was proficient enough to bang out Lightning Hopkins 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.120 and Robert Johnson tunes with ease, and by the time 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.119 he was ready to take the stage and sing and 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:17.720 play for an audience pig Pen Blue people's minds. He 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.399 already had the attitude and the voice, but now he 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:24.600 had some real instrumental chops too. Nobody in the Palazo 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.960 scene really played or sang the blues, and as feel 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.439 less experienced in the front room of that party that 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:35.119 night in pig Pens bluesy Graw shook the scene like 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.520 a tug of thunderbirds straight out of the bottle. Pig 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.399 already had the knowledge in the natural talent, but now 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.000 he had the confidence to really deliver. Maybe one day, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.159 he thought, get have his own record that could go 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.440 up on the shelf next to those of his heroes. 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.240 He was on an irreversible course that it was all 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.240 thanks to that beating nick guitar player with shaggy hair, 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.480 the one with the cool, calm demeanor, the one with 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.800 not only the musical ability but intellectual prowess to match, 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.879 the one who could play anything on the banjo or guitar, 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.359 even if he was missing the middle finger of his 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:15.480 right hand. It was all thanks to Jerry Garcia. We'll 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:26.720 be right back after this word. We were New Year's Eve, 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:32.040 Bob Weir and his two friends, Bob Matthews and Rich macaulay, 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.440 were roaming the streets of Paol Alto. They struck out 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:37.560 at every bar they tried to get into, and no 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:39.960 one would let them in, and the night was a 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.760 total bust. It wasn't surprising, given that the three friends 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.280 were just sixteen and definitely looked their age, but now 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.120 they were resigned to the fruitless venture of window shopping 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.560 at closed stores. Bob was on holiday break from boarding 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.280 school in Colorado and was just looking for a good time, 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.199 but this night was turning into a colossal bummer. They 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.160 couldn't escape the muffled roar of New Year's Eve festivities 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.920 from the establishments they had been turned away from. That 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.400 We're about to pack it in and head home when 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.639 they heard another sound in the air. The sweet sound 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.879 of a banjo floated out of what seemed to be 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:17.600 the only open shop in the entire town, Dana Morgan's 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:21.680 Music Store. Just so happened, Bob and his friends were irregulars. 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.560 They poked their heads inside and saw a goatee dude 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.080 with jet black hair. Wielding a banjo, he hammered away 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:32.480 on the instrument prodigiously, like some sort of mystic who 0:21:32.560 --> 0:21:35.639 Rich mcaulay was a banjo student at the Dude and 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:38.680 Jerry Garcia had no idea it was New Year's Eve. 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.359 He was fixated on the bluegrass he was playing, waiting 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:44.560 for a pair of students who would never arrive for 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.639 their lesson, and oblivious to all else in the world, 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:52.280 including the celebrations taking place all around him. Bob and 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.280 his friends, having nothing better to do, suggested an improp 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:59.320 to jam session. Come on, man, let's play something Jerry 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:01.920 was has didn't. What if his students showed up. It's 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.600 New Year's Eve, Jerry. Bob explained, no one's coming tonight 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:11.200 except for us. Jerry acquiesced. He grabbed some extra guitars, 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.359 and the four began king out tunes, traditional folk from 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.480 that old, weird America, the kind of stuff both Jerry 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.480 and Bob vibe. A few songs led to a dozen, 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:22.640 and before they knew it, they had picked their way 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:26.280 right out of nineteen sixty three and into nineteen sixty four. 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.320 Who was impossible to deny the musical fusion Jerry and 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.159 Bob created together. Rich suggested that with the folk craze 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:35.920 going on at the moment, the two should start a 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:39.960 jug band. Bob and Jerry locked eyes. What would become 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.680 the original model for the Dead started out as Mother 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:47.439 mccree's Uptown jug Champions. Jerry recruited his friends Tom Stone 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.960 and Dave Parker to play banjo and washboard, respectively, and 0:22:51.040 --> 0:22:53.800 knew exactly who the final piece of the puzzle would be. 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:56.760 When Bob showed up for the first meeting with the 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.119 other band members, he was unnerved by only one of them. 0:23:00.160 --> 0:23:02.680 The guy was heavy bill with a leather shirt and 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.800 dark eyes. His unkempt hair spilled out in every direction, 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:10.679 his jet black mustache laid over a pockmarked face. He 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.960 didn't look like the kind of guy Bob usually associated with. 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:22.720 This guy looked fierce dangerous. Bob meet pig Pen. Pig Pen, 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.040 now eighteen, had been steadily improving his skills under Jerry 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:29.040 Garcia's tutelage for a few years and as a result, 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:33.159 had secured steady work gigging in the area, adding proficiency 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.240 on guitar and keys to his harmonica and vocal chops. 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.200 He landed spots and a couple of country blues bands, 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:42.359 played gigs with Jerry, gigs solo, and even fronted an 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.600 electric blues band called the Zodiacs thanks to Jerry, the 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:48.760 kid who washed out of high school and washed up 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.840 on the pole out. Though seen was no longer an amateur, 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:55.240 Bob would come to find out that pig pens biker, 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:59.680 garb blues man's exterior didn't match his personality. He'd learned 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:03.040 the pig was sweet, sensitive and his only real interests 0:24:03.040 --> 0:24:05.879 were in the music that he was making and hooch. 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.840 Three weeks later, Mother mccreeze Uptown jug Champions started playing 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:14.240 shows all over the San Francisco Peninsula, and they took 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.159 gigs wherever they could and always kept the music loose 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:21.479 in the atmosphere, lively in the mood, light and fun. Jerry, 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:24.560 who can now break away from the dogmatic rigidness of 0:24:24.600 --> 0:24:28.240 bluegrass playing, seemed to be thriving in a free flowing state, 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:33.080 joyously filling the space with the serene sounds of his guitar. Bob, 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:35.639 not yet up to par on guitar, chugged along on 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:39.320