Speaker 1: Double Elvis Club is the production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Double Elvis Ron. Pigpen mccernan died at the age
Speaker 1: of and he lived the life that seemed to always
Speaker 1: be running a little late. I can give you twenty
Speaker 1: seven reasons why that statement is true. Five would be
Speaker 1: the number of years he obsorbed the blues and R
Speaker 1: and B music that is disc jockey father Spawn, helping
Speaker 1: Pigpen develop a love for music that was decades before
Speaker 1: his time. Another twelve would be the age he was
Speaker 1: when he became a fixture in blues clubs in and
Speaker 1: around Paulo, Alto, where it wouldn't be too long before
Speaker 1: he was consuming more than music. Three more would be
Speaker 1: the number of years he'd study under a nine fingered
Speaker 1: banjo wizard, honing his craft and becoming a fully realized musician.
Speaker 1: Another six would be the numb umber of Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: members not named pig Pen who were tripping out during
Speaker 1: the bad vibrations of the band set at Woodstock before
Speaker 1: Pigpen came to their rescue. And one would be the
Speaker 1: number of decades that would elapse between Pigpen's first appearance
Speaker 1: on stage and last appearance on Earth. All totally on
Speaker 1: this our first episode of season five, A disc jockey
Speaker 1: Dad a nine fingered wizard, Bad Vibrations at Woodstock and
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead's Ron Pigpen mccarnew. I'm Jake Brennan in
Speaker 1: this is the Seven Club, Yeah, m M. I fucking
Speaker 1: told him it wouldn't work. It was the second night
Speaker 1: of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, and Augustus Osley Stanley,
Speaker 1: the third a k. A Bear was furious. The Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead's audio engineer and the creator and purveyor of some
Speaker 1: of the finest LSD produced on the planet, stopped his
Speaker 1: way towards the stage. He moved past the mud pit
Speaker 1: that had formed up front, past the dirt stained blankets,
Speaker 1: peace sign banners and American flags, past the roaming docks
Speaker 1: to see if ty dyed trippers, some of them completely nude,
Speaker 1: some underage, and almost all wide eyed from the acid
Speaker 1: that was being distributed by hand. What a fucking scene.
Speaker 1: Bare thought. It was impressive, or reveren and inspirational all
Speaker 1: at once, was also becoming somewhat disturbing. The entire three
Speaker 1: day concert had been mismanaged. Tickets have been monumentally oversold,
Speaker 1: and there were ten mile traffic backups that forced the
Speaker 1: groups that were playing to be airlifted into the venue
Speaker 1: by helicopters, and the driving rain the night before was lingering,
Speaker 1: causing constant delays. The audience was soaked to the bone.
Speaker 1: Oh in the forty ft rotating circle of a stage
Speaker 1: that the Woodstock stage hands had been championing all day,
Speaker 1: the one that was built to make things move faster,
Speaker 1: the one they had assured Bear would work, wasn't and
Speaker 1: now it was getting dark. The equipment had been carefully
Speaker 1: set up, prepared for the Dead, and just moments after
Speaker 1: the stage began to rotate, it all came crashing down.
Speaker 1: Everything had to be reset. Bear had just about enough
Speaker 1: of the stage ants. Fund Did they know about the
Speaker 1: Dead's gear, he told them. If he told him that
Speaker 1: the Dead didn't travel with the ordinary amount of equipment,
Speaker 1: he told them that as soon as the instruments and
Speaker 1: amplifiers had been put into place, stage wouldn't stand a chance.
Speaker 1: And now here they were a busted stage, a piste
Speaker 1: off band, and yet another delay. Baar didn't care about
Speaker 1: peace and love. He just wanted the ship to work.
Speaker 1: The Dead who had arrived the night before were also
Speaker 1: becoming more than a little disquieted by the scenes surrounding them.
Speaker 1: They had to be flown into old man Yasker's farm
Speaker 1: via helicopter. In the free spirited commune they had seen
Speaker 1: the previous day was now a sea of mud covered freaks.
Speaker 1: Save for the organist and singer pig Pen, the band
Speaker 1: had all immersed themselves on the drug of choice, high
Speaker 1: quality LSD. Pig never touched the stuff, who wasn't about
Speaker 1: to start now, and the rest of the band were
Speaker 1: flying high, compounding the intensity of the situation, and they
Speaker 1: did all. However, insists that Bear rewire everything and the
Speaker 1: sound had to be perfect, and they weren't about to
Speaker 1: blow another major gig, not after their epic whiff at
Speaker 1: the Monterey Pop Festival two summers earlier, so Bear Owsley
Speaker 1: went to work. He determined that the p A provided
Speaker 1: was insufficient and made some choice alterations, including removing a
Speaker 1: fifty ft electrical grounding that was no longer actually grounded
Speaker 1: in any semblance of dry earth. Amongst the muddy mess
Speaker 1: at the six acres of the festival's side had become
Speaker 1: and by the time the dad's friend Ken Babs the
Speaker 1: Mary Prankster who had arrived on can Kesi's further bus
Speaker 1: and who had most definitely been drinking the kool aid,
Speaker 1: took the stage to introduce The Dead. The show was
Speaker 1: once again well behind schedule. The crowd had been treated
Speaker 1: to the booge rock of Can't Heat in the driving
Speaker 1: blues of Mountain, and they were in desperate need of
Speaker 1: a nice mellow out. As the Grateful Dead tuned their
Speaker 1: guitars and checked over their equipment, Ken Babs tried to
Speaker 1: calm the crowd, commenting on how far out and beautiful
Speaker 1: it was that so many people could come together like this.
Speaker 1: Crowd knew what the scene was. They had created the scene.
Speaker 1: They didn't give a ship what Ken id to say
Speaker 1: about the scene. This wasn't Kesi's acid test. They just
Speaker 1: wanted the music to start again. They wanted to hear
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead mid peak. They were ready right now.
Speaker 1: The crowd, in their agitated state, grew louder as The
Speaker 1: Dead prepared to play. Now a full forty five minutes
Speaker 1: behind schedule, things were already off to a bad start.
Speaker 1: Just that a voice boomed over the p A A
Speaker 1: voice not from anyone on stage, a voice from somewhere
Speaker 1: dark Hidden. Would everybody please sit down, let the people
Speaker 1: behind you have a chance to see the show. Just
Speaker 1: relax those muscles in your legs and sit down for
Speaker 1: a few minutes. Please. Where was this intervention coming from?
Speaker 1: Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead's rhythm guitars, stepped to his
Speaker 1: microphone and felt an electric shock surged straight to his core.
Speaker 1: The mic was ungrounded. Bob jumped back five ft and
Speaker 1: hollered in pain. The power went out on the entire
Speaker 1: stage and the band was shook. This wasn't supposed to
Speaker 1: be a bad trip. This was supposed to be a celebration, conquest,
Speaker 1: a culmination of the last few years of free love
Speaker 1: and free music. This trip hadn't been all that long yet,
Speaker 1: but it was already plenty strange. When the power finally returned,
Speaker 1: Ken Babbs tried once more to calm the delirious crowd,
Speaker 1: and this time the Dead were mercifully ready. It was
Speaker 1: about ten thirty on a Saturday night. One of the
Speaker 1: best fucking rock groups in the world, the Grateful Dead.
Speaker 1: The Dead fell right into the cosmic opening chords of
Speaker 1: their newest single, Sat Stephen and to the Rain, Soaked
Speaker 1: and Acid, So crowd of four thousand tie died freaks
Speaker 1: and front of them it sounded like heaven. This is
Speaker 1: what they have been waiting for. But the Dead weren't
Speaker 1: quite as excited about the prospect of what was to
Speaker 1: come next. As they got into a groove, their gear
Speaker 1: buzzed and tinkled. It was like Russian roulette with their instruments.
Speaker 1: Who would be the next member of the group to
Speaker 1: get fried by an errand fault of electricity. The weather
Speaker 1: wasn't getting any better either. In the stage, which sat
Speaker 1: on a foundation of mud, now seemed to be sliding
Speaker 1: forward like an apathetic glacier, ready to indiscriminately crush the
Speaker 1: people packed like sardines in front of it. The Dead
Speaker 1: cut Saints even short to calm the negative vibrations, instead
Speaker 1: deciding to run for the safety of one of their
Speaker 1: go to cover tun Tomorrow, Haggard's Mamma tried blazing through
Speaker 1: the country classic with perfectly placed harmonies. The Dead seemed
Speaker 1: to have the show back on track, but as they
Speaker 1: prepared for their third song, their amps lost power one
Speaker 1: by one, and then the lights went out. That same
Speaker 1: mysterious voice floated out over the crowd via the p
Speaker 1: a system speaking and indistinguishable sentences. What the hell was
Speaker 1: going on? Was everyone on this trip? Where did the
Speaker 1: Dead get some of that brown acid that was going around?
Speaker 1: Bear Owsley scrambled around the stage, resetting the amps. Eventually
Speaker 1: the Dead were back on track and powered forward with
Speaker 1: an inspired fourteen minute version of Dark Star, and didn't
Speaker 1: stop even when Phil Lush's basse amp began to pick
Speaker 1: up muffled helicopter chap. The Dead were desponded another big
Speaker 1: show and another bust. There was only one man who
Speaker 1: could take the boys home now and what time they
Speaker 1: had left in their set? Ron Pigpen mccernitt. Pig step
Speaker 1: forward with his cowboy hat pulled low, a cigarette in
Speaker 1: his hand, wearing the same leather vest he seemingly hadn't
Speaker 1: changed in four years. The real McCoy Phil thumped out
Speaker 1: the opening baseline of Bobby Bland's Turn on Your Lovelight.
Speaker 1: Jerry and Bob joined our guitar, then Tom Constantant on keyboards,
Speaker 1: and then Mickey Hard and Bill Krutzman on drums and
Speaker 1: Justice pig Pen was about to step up to the mic.
Speaker 1: An audience member absolutely fried from too much sun and
Speaker 1: too many drugs, got up on stage, commandeered the mic
Speaker 1: and started rapping over the Deads groove. The Dead didn't
Speaker 1: give a ship at this point, screw it. Let the
Speaker 1: guy in the audience do his thing. He was vibing,
Speaker 1: and honestly, his rap was pretty far out. Nothing was
Speaker 1: in the band's control anymore, and they were ready to
Speaker 1: get off stage, getting the helicopter and get the funk
Speaker 1: out of Dodge. That is until Pigpens deep soulful voice
Speaker 1: began to vibrate through the amplifiers on stage. Pigpen led
Speaker 1: the band through an intoxicating forty seven minute jam, complete
Speaker 1: with solos from Jerry, duets with Bob, and too many
Speaker 1: improvised verses to count. Pig turned the bad vibes good.
Speaker 1: He enticed the crab to get up and dance, and
Speaker 1: he pulled the rest of the band out of their haze.
Speaker 1: The Near Our Jam mended the Dead's un even set
Speaker 1: with a triumphant, joyous down and dirty roots rock flourish.
Speaker 1: Nobody in the Dead but pig Pen could have turned
Speaker 1: the mood around that night. Pig Pen was the lifeblood
Speaker 1: of the Grateful Dead, their substant soul and spiritual Center.
Speaker 1: And even though we didn't dig the LSD, he dug
Speaker 1: the scene, he dugged the music, and most of all,
Speaker 1: he dug the blues. The enigma that was pig Pen
Speaker 1: didn't just save the group in their moment of peril
Speaker 1: at Woodstock. He had also sparked the birth of the
Speaker 1: greatest jam band to ever exist, which gave birth to
Speaker 1: an entire community of fans who called themselves Deadheads and
Speaker 1: kicked off fifty plus years of concerts and classic albums.
Speaker 1: And it all started from humble beginnings somewhere oh in
Speaker 1: northern California. Phil Lesh was drawn to the voice. It
Speaker 1: was coming from the next room at the party, and
Speaker 1: Paul Alto sounded like lightning Hopkins mixed with TBone Walker,
Speaker 1: smooth and sensitive torture, longing the real deal, honest, authentic.
Speaker 1: Surely it was the voice of a season blues musician,
Speaker 1: a true blue blues man from somewhere far away from California,
Speaker 1: a voice that had traveled from way down south. Phil's
Speaker 1: eyes scanned the party, He followed the sound of the voice,
Speaker 1: and he was surprised to find out that everything he
Speaker 1: thought about the man behind the voice was not what
Speaker 1: he had expected. In nineteen Phil Leash, the future basis
Speaker 1: of The Grateful Dead, was volunteering as a recording engineer
Speaker 1: for KPF A out of San Francisco. Phil was constantly
Speaker 1: attending parties and immersing themselves in the various music hot
Speaker 1: spots around the city, one of which happened to be
Speaker 1: thirty miles due south and Paalolato. Several music venues had
Speaker 1: turned the small city into a vibrant scene, a scene
Speaker 1: that served as a response to the buttoned up, leave
Speaker 1: it to beaver vibe of the nineteen fifties, a scene
Speaker 1: where a younger generation could discuss ideas that mattered to them.
Speaker 1: The kids weren't worried about the bomb or McCarthy is um. Sure,
Speaker 1: they were political and read the news, but the people
Speaker 1: in this scene didn't have time to be fatalistic. They
Speaker 1: drowned out all that doom and gloom with positive sounds.
Speaker 1: Paolato was a cross pollination of folk music, jazz, and
Speaker 1: R and B in depending on where your taste, laying
Speaker 1: good music was readily available at any time of day.
Speaker 1: On this evening, Phil and his girlfriend made their way
Speaker 1: to a party across the highway in East Paalolato, a
Speaker 1: neighborhood lovingly referred to as the Ghetto. The party was
Speaker 1: cramped but happening with live music in the front room,
Speaker 1: and that's where the voice was coming from. It called
Speaker 1: out to Phil, so Phil followed Phil around the corner
Speaker 1: into the front room and was shocked at what he saw.
Speaker 1: A white kid strumming an acoustic guitar and pouring the
Speaker 1: music out of his soul, as if he were channeling
Speaker 1: Charlie Patton himself. Phil thought the kids bushy black hair
Speaker 1: made him look a little like Claude Devacy, But unlike Devacy,
Speaker 1: this kid was clad in dirty jeans and a leather vest,
Speaker 1: singing the blues. His skin was dry and blotching. He
Speaker 1: looked as if he hadn't bathed in days. God damn
Speaker 1: at that voice. Kid looked around thirty years old due
Speaker 1: to a long standing relationship with alcohol, but was actually
Speaker 1: hovering right around sixteen. The kid's name was Ron McKernan,
Speaker 1: but everyone called him Pigpen. Phil had seen pig Pen
Speaker 1: hanging around Paul Alzo was Jerry Garcia, but he had
Speaker 1: no idea he could sing, not like this. How the
Speaker 1: hell did that voice get inside that body, and that
Speaker 1: body entered the world on September eight and a small
Speaker 1: suburb outside of San Francisco called San Bruno to Esther
Speaker 1: Nelson and Phil McKernan. Phil was a Boogey Wiggy penist
Speaker 1: and under the name DJ Cool Breeze, was one of
Speaker 1: the first white disc jockeys for the local black radio
Speaker 1: station kr E. Cool Breeze spent this block spinning R
Speaker 1: and B and blues music. His son, young Ron was
Speaker 1: just six years old at the time, and he didn't
Speaker 1: know it, but when he laid by the speakers and
Speaker 1: the warm, smooth sounds of his father's record collection filled
Speaker 1: his ears, he was being steeped in a tradition of
Speaker 1: music that would end up coursing through his veins throughout
Speaker 1: all of his short life. Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker,
Speaker 1: Big Joe Turner, Male Rainey pig Pen, by proxy, observed
Speaker 1: the essence of the soulful and uplifting music of Black America,
Speaker 1: as Jerry Garcia would later stay, pig Pen grew up
Speaker 1: with that music in his ear, so it was real
Speaker 1: natural form. The blue was the music that had been
Speaker 1: born in the nineteenth century in the cotton fields of
Speaker 1: the American South, involved out of African American spirituals mixed
Speaker 1: with European folk music and instrumentation, blending influence from different regions, races,
Speaker 1: and continents, and by the turn of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: blues and mature taking a more fixed form in the
Speaker 1: unrelenting heat of the Mississippi Delta, Southern Texas, and the
Speaker 1: Deep South, with the first blues music being committed to
Speaker 1: sheet music in nineteen o eight. It exploded with the
Speaker 1: advent of the electric guitar or the early nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: and expanded its influence to every corner of the country,
Speaker 1: with hotbeds in both Chicago and on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: kickstarting the careers of titans such as Holland Wolf, Muddy Waters,
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Reid. As blues music found a water audience,
Speaker 1: it found a whiter audience, and the beats dug it.
Speaker 1: Jack Carroac even wrote some of his own as he
Speaker 1: hopped rail cars and trolleys on the busy streets of
Speaker 1: San Francisco. San Francisco was the same place where Cool
Speaker 1: Breeze discovered it and the same place he passed it
Speaker 1: on to his son pig Pen from nineteen fifty one
Speaker 1: to nineteen fifty six, Cool Breeze spawn those records, schooling
Speaker 1: pig Pen on the history of the genre and creating
Speaker 1: a passion and love for the good vibrations, the history
Speaker 1: and the culture. Pigs sang along to the records his
Speaker 1: dad played, and the feeling, the mood, the vibe embedded
Speaker 1: itself squarely in the center of his eternal being. It
Speaker 1: was the only thing that seemed to matter to him.
Speaker 1: Pig Pen was a fixture in the blues clubs by
Speaker 1: twelve years old and was drinking by thirteen. It was
Speaker 1: part of the scene. If it's what the great blues
Speaker 1: men did well, ship pig Pen would do it too.
Speaker 1: But music that was the main thing. He saw the
Speaker 1: cats on stage every night, hearts bled dry, singing that
Speaker 1: music that would overthrow your soul with joy, only to
Speaker 1: spin around and punch you in the gut. Listening to
Speaker 1: the blues was a religious experience, and pig Pen was
Speaker 1: all about kneeling at that altar. He deeply entrenched him
Speaker 1: self and the pol Alto scene, attending parties, learning guitar
Speaker 1: and blues heart from anyone who would take the time
Speaker 1: to teach him and That's where he met Jerry Garcia.
Speaker 1: Jerry Garcia had been knocking around town for a while now.
Speaker 1: It was the only guy who really took any interest
Speaker 1: in playing the blues on guitar. Pig wasn't throw. Pig
Speaker 1: attended parties with Jerry and watched closely as Jerry effortlessly
Speaker 1: picked out the blues. He studied the way Jerry's hands
Speaker 1: glided across the neck of the guitar, the patterns, the precision. Wait,
Speaker 1: what was that guy of missing a finger on his
Speaker 1: picking hand. Later, when pig was alone, he pulled out
Speaker 1: his guitar on a bottle of Thunderbird wine and spend
Speaker 1: hours trying to recreate the sounds he'd heard earlier that night.
Speaker 1: But pig Pen didn't have the confidence it took to
Speaker 1: get up on stage like Jerry Garcia did, and pig
Speaker 1: Pen didn't yet have the skills for an instrument to
Speaker 1: feel at home there either. He sure had a heart,
Speaker 1: So Jerry Garcia took Pigpen under his wing taught him
Speaker 1: how to pick up the blues on guitar. Music worked.
Speaker 1: Months turned into years as Pigpen learned from Jerry Honey's craft,
Speaker 1: until he was proficient enough to bang out Lightning Hopkins
Speaker 1: and Robert Johnson tunes with ease, and by the time
Speaker 1: he was ready to take the stage and sing and
Speaker 1: play for an audience pig Pen Blue people's minds. He
Speaker 1: already had the attitude and the voice, but now he
Speaker 1: had some real instrumental chops too. Nobody in the Palazo
Speaker 1: scene really played or sang the blues, and as feel
Speaker 1: less experienced in the front room of that party that
Speaker 1: night in pig Pens bluesy Graw shook the scene like
Speaker 1: a tug of thunderbirds straight out of the bottle. Pig
Speaker 1: already had the knowledge in the natural talent, but now
Speaker 1: he had the confidence to really deliver. Maybe one day,
Speaker 1: he thought, get have his own record that could go
Speaker 1: up on the shelf next to those of his heroes.
Speaker 1: He was on an irreversible course that it was all
Speaker 1: thanks to that beating nick guitar player with shaggy hair,
Speaker 1: the one with the cool, calm demeanor, the one with
Speaker 1: not only the musical ability but intellectual prowess to match,
Speaker 1: the one who could play anything on the banjo or guitar,
Speaker 1: even if he was missing the middle finger of his
Speaker 1: right hand. It was all thanks to Jerry Garcia. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back after this word. We were New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: Bob Weir and his two friends, Bob Matthews and Rich macaulay,
Speaker 1: were roaming the streets of Paol Alto. They struck out
Speaker 1: at every bar they tried to get into, and no
Speaker 1: one would let them in, and the night was a
Speaker 1: total bust. It wasn't surprising, given that the three friends
Speaker 1: were just sixteen and definitely looked their age, but now
Speaker 1: they were resigned to the fruitless venture of window shopping
Speaker 1: at closed stores. Bob was on holiday break from boarding
Speaker 1: school in Colorado and was just looking for a good time,
Speaker 1: but this night was turning into a colossal bummer. They
Speaker 1: couldn't escape the muffled roar of New Year's Eve festivities
Speaker 1: from the establishments they had been turned away from. That
Speaker 1: We're about to pack it in and head home when
Speaker 1: they heard another sound in the air. The sweet sound
Speaker 1: of a banjo floated out of what seemed to be
Speaker 1: the only open shop in the entire town, Dana Morgan's
Speaker 1: Music Store. Just so happened, Bob and his friends were irregulars.
Speaker 1: They poked their heads inside and saw a goatee dude
Speaker 1: with jet black hair. Wielding a banjo, he hammered away
Speaker 1: on the instrument prodigiously, like some sort of mystic who
Speaker 1: Rich mcaulay was a banjo student at the Dude and
Speaker 1: Jerry Garcia had no idea it was New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1: He was fixated on the bluegrass he was playing, waiting
Speaker 1: for a pair of students who would never arrive for
Speaker 1: their lesson, and oblivious to all else in the world,
Speaker 1: including the celebrations taking place all around him. Bob and
Speaker 1: his friends, having nothing better to do, suggested an improp
Speaker 1: to jam session. Come on, man, let's play something Jerry
Speaker 1: was has didn't. What if his students showed up. It's
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve, Jerry. Bob explained, no one's coming tonight
Speaker 1: except for us. Jerry acquiesced. He grabbed some extra guitars,
Speaker 1: and the four began king out tunes, traditional folk from
Speaker 1: that old, weird America, the kind of stuff both Jerry
Speaker 1: and Bob vibe. A few songs led to a dozen,
Speaker 1: and before they knew it, they had picked their way
Speaker 1: right out of nineteen sixty three and into nineteen sixty four.
Speaker 1: Who was impossible to deny the musical fusion Jerry and
Speaker 1: Bob created together. Rich suggested that with the folk craze
Speaker 1: going on at the moment, the two should start a
Speaker 1: jug band. Bob and Jerry locked eyes. What would become
Speaker 1: the original model for the Dead started out as Mother
Speaker 1: mccree's Uptown jug Champions. Jerry recruited his friends Tom Stone
Speaker 1: and Dave Parker to play banjo and washboard, respectively, and
Speaker 1: knew exactly who the final piece of the puzzle would be.
Speaker 1: When Bob showed up for the first meeting with the
Speaker 1: other band members, he was unnerved by only one of them.
Speaker 1: The guy was heavy bill with a leather shirt and
Speaker 1: dark eyes. His unkempt hair spilled out in every direction,
Speaker 1: his jet black mustache laid over a pockmarked face. He
Speaker 1: didn't look like the kind of guy Bob usually associated with.
Speaker 1: This guy looked fierce dangerous. Bob meet pig Pen. Pig Pen,
Speaker 1: now eighteen, had been steadily improving his skills under Jerry
Speaker 1: Garcia's tutelage for a few years and as a result,
Speaker 1: had secured steady work gigging in the area, adding proficiency
Speaker 1: on guitar and keys to his harmonica and vocal chops.
Speaker 1: He landed spots and a couple of country blues bands,
Speaker 1: played gigs with Jerry, gigs solo, and even fronted an
Speaker 1: electric blues band called the Zodiacs thanks to Jerry, the
Speaker 1: kid who washed out of high school and washed up
Speaker 1: on the pole out. Though seen was no longer an amateur,
Speaker 1: Bob would come to find out that pig pens biker,
Speaker 1: garb blues man's exterior didn't match his personality. He'd learned
Speaker 1: the pig was sweet, sensitive and his only real interests
Speaker 1: were in the music that he was making and hooch.
Speaker 1: Three weeks later, Mother mccreeze Uptown jug Champions started playing
Speaker 1: shows all over the San Francisco Peninsula, and they took
Speaker 1: gigs wherever they could and always kept the music loose
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere, lively in the mood, light and fun. Jerry,
Speaker 1: who can now break away from the dogmatic rigidness of
Speaker 1: bluegrass playing, seemed to be thriving in a free flowing state,
Speaker 1: joyously filling the space with the serene sounds of his guitar. Bob,
Speaker 1: not yet up to par on guitar, chugged along on
Speaker 1: bass while Tom spilled out intricate banjo patterns, and Dave
Speaker 1: added color with his washboard, and then there was a
Speaker 1: pig Pen. The other members of the band agreed pig
Speaker 1: was simply the best singer amongst them. Before the band
Speaker 1: would take the stage, pig Pen would get a little
Speaker 1: buzz on and then he let loose with a rip,
Speaker 1: roaring down on, get down, growling on the mic with
Speaker 1: his gravelly and endearing voice, and the group made every
Speaker 1: venue they play feel like a honky tonk. Eventually, Dave
Speaker 1: and Tom cycled out and different musicians took their place,
Speaker 1: and this kept Mother mccreaeys a fresh act that would
Speaker 1: never be the same live experience twice. This unique group dynamic,
Speaker 1: mixed with their combination of blue standards and old timey folk,
Speaker 1: made them a favorite on the local circuit. However, after
Speaker 1: a few months of playing the standards, the tune seen,
Speaker 1: even by the group's own admission, a little bit dated.
Speaker 1: This was especially true with what was going on across
Speaker 1: the pond in England, some five thousand miles away, where
Speaker 1: four mop tops from Liverpool, we're turning the world of
Speaker 1: popular music on its head. Pig Pen had an idea,
Speaker 1: let's get some drums man and the Beatles were changing
Speaker 1: pop music from black and white to technicolor, and the
Speaker 1: conservatism of the yearly sixties was morphing into something entirely different.
Speaker 1: Pig thought Mother mccree's Uptown jug band Champions should hop
Speaker 1: aboard the training before it left the station. What pig
Speaker 1: Pen didn't know is that this new desire to plug
Speaker 1: in to crank out some electric blues would eventually put
Speaker 1: his group at the center of a burgeoning counterculture. It
Speaker 1: would change their lives forever. The room was filled with
Speaker 1: smoke and the sound of clinking bottles. It smelled like
Speaker 1: whiskey and stale beer. A group of men sat at
Speaker 1: a table dealing card It's muttering to each other, serious players,
Speaker 1: not the kind of guys you mess around with, not
Speaker 1: if you were smart. But when the back door opened,
Speaker 1: the table fell silent to A bluesman entered, guitar cases
Speaker 1: in hand. They tipped their hats to the gamblers as
Speaker 1: they walked past, moving through another door and into the
Speaker 1: main room of the club. The gamblers watched them closely.
Speaker 1: One of the gamblers leaned in, whispering the rumors he
Speaker 1: was sure were true about the man in the front.
Speaker 1: The one it was unmatched on the acoustic guitar. The
Speaker 1: one who made the blue sound like a symphony, like
Speaker 1: it was from another world. The one, it was said,
Speaker 1: who had sold his soul to the devil for the
Speaker 1: ability to do so. The man was Robert Johnson. In
Speaker 1: August of ninety eight, he was working a circuit of
Speaker 1: Mississippi juke joints, playing the blues, making a paycheck, and
Speaker 1: at each stop, shacking up with whichever woman he wooed,
Speaker 1: of which there was no shortage. However, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: Robert was a nice guy. He didn't have the inherent
Speaker 1: rowdedness that came along with most musicians of the day.
Speaker 1: He simply showed up, played his cosmic blues music, and
Speaker 1: moved it on down the road a piece. But in
Speaker 1: his travels, Robert had picked up a bad whiskey habit,
Speaker 1: and while it didn't inhibit his seemingly possessed finger picking,
Speaker 1: it severely altered his common sense, especially when it came
Speaker 1: to choosing which women to woo. On this night in
Speaker 1: Greenwood County, Robert had fixed his sight on a darling
Speaker 1: of the Delta, a woman with long flowing hair that
Speaker 1: danced alongside his intoxicating twelve bar blues. He couldn't take
Speaker 1: his eyes off of her the entire set, and she
Speaker 1: made no indication, as she wasn't interested. The problem, of course,
Speaker 1: was that she was a married woman, and she wasn't
Speaker 1: married to just anyone. She was married to one of
Speaker 1: the men who had been sitting at the gambling table
Speaker 1: in the back room, the club's owner. He was the
Speaker 1: man who had hired Robert Johnson, who was paying him
Speaker 1: and providing free drinks, and now he was making moves
Speaker 1: on his wife. Fat fucking chance. The owner left the
Speaker 1: gambling table and was now fixed firmly behind the bar,
Speaker 1: watching his wife make eyes at the bluesman on stage.
Speaker 1: He had a susp bisis heard. It was nothing new
Speaker 1: that Robert had moved on this woman the last time
Speaker 1: through town, but now it was all but confirmed. The
Speaker 1: man disappeared into the back room and returned with an
Speaker 1: unmarked bottle of white powder. He poured a glass of
Speaker 1: whiskey and stirred in a spoonful of the stuff. But
Speaker 1: when his wife arrived at the bar to clench the thirst,
Speaker 1: she worked up on the dance floor. Her husband slid
Speaker 1: the tincture to her and motioned to the stage. None
Speaker 1: the wiser. The woman carried the glass straight to Robert Johnson.
Speaker 1: As he finished a tune, she stepped up under the stage,
Speaker 1: handed in the glass and brushed his inner thighs. She
Speaker 1: stepped away with a smile. Robert flashed a devilish grin.
Speaker 1: He had no idea what he was actually in for
Speaker 1: that night. As Robert Johnson worked through the rest of
Speaker 1: the set and the rest of the whiskey, he began
Speaker 1: to feel sick, and there was a strange pain deep
Speaker 1: in his stomach, and that wasn't just whiskey in the glass.
Speaker 1: He cut the set short and went back to the
Speaker 1: place he was staying. But this would be one hangover
Speaker 1: he wouldn't sleep off. The toxins found their way to
Speaker 1: a recently diagnosed ulcer and quickly ate at Robert's insides.
Speaker 1: Within three days, Robert Johnson was dead on the floor
Speaker 1: of a shack in Greenwood, Mississippi. Like Pigpen, the hard
Speaker 1: edge of Robert Johnson's lifestyle was divorced from his personality. Also,
Speaker 1: like pig Pen, Robert was the talent that burned too
Speaker 1: bright for the world, and they were blues men with
Speaker 1: a soft side, light hearted, warm, amicable, and joyous. Both
Speaker 1: took their music very seriously, spending hours, months, even years
Speaker 1: perfecting their craft, and despite the rumors of a deal
Speaker 1: to Crossroads, there was no demonic intervention. Robert Johnson and
Speaker 1: pig Pen made honest, genuine music by their commitment to
Speaker 1: their craft. However, the good times often came with a
Speaker 1: lifestyle and good intentions stirred and shaken with those good
Speaker 1: times don't always meet with good outcomes. As Robert groaned
Speaker 1: his way through his last hours on Earth and that
Speaker 1: Mississippi shack writhing in pain, it was clear that the
Speaker 1: good times were coming to an end all too soon.
Speaker 1: He was buried the same day he died. Robert Johnson
Speaker 1: was not a mythical being. He was a real person.
Speaker 1: His time on Earth ran out August. He was twenty
Speaker 1: seven years old. Thirty one years later, Robert Hunter would
Speaker 1: pen the lyrics to The Grateful Dead's Easy Wind, Influenced
Speaker 1: by Robert Johnson's immaculate blues. The track would appeared on
Speaker 1: The Grateful Dad's seventy album Working Man's Dead, sung by
Speaker 1: the only member of the group who could authentically deliver
Speaker 1: the gravelly vocals and punchy harmonica necessary to pay homage
Speaker 1: to the tradition of the music pig Pan. The result
Speaker 1: it was four minutes and fifty nine seconds of pure,
Speaker 1: unadulterated blues. Like Robert Johnson, pig Pen felt most at
Speaker 1: home playing the blues, balancing the joy and the pain
Speaker 1: of music and life. Also, like Robert Johnson, that lifestyle
Speaker 1: quickly snuck up on pig Pen. Three years after the
Speaker 1: release of the record working Man's Dead, Ron pig Pen
Speaker 1: mccernin would also be dead at um. Jake Brennan in
Speaker 1: This is the seven Club Club is hosted and produced
Speaker 1: by me Jake Brennan for Double Elvis in partnership with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Zeth Lundie is the lead writer and
Speaker 1: co producer. This episode was mixed by Joel Edinburgh. Additional
Speaker 1: music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker and Henry Luneta.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Ted Omo, story and call
Speaker 1: be ending by Pata Healy. Sources for this episode are
Speaker 1: available at Double Elvis dot com on the twenty seven
Speaker 1: Club series page, talk to me on Social Act, disgrace
Speaker 1: Land pod, and hang out with me live on my
Speaker 1: Twitch channel disgrace Land Talks For more news on your
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Speaker 1: what's up for your is