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Dawn Of The Grateful Dead: Watch Jerry Garcia Recall Meeting Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan

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In early 1962, Jerry Garcia met Ron “Pigpen” McKernan when they were budding musicians in California’s Bay Area “on the San Mateo Peninsula coffeehouse circuit.” The pair would go on to co-found the seminal psychedelic rock band the Grateful Dead, remaining bandmates until shortly before Pigpen’s untimely death at age 27 on this date 50 years ago.

Garcia sat for a lengthy interview with the Silicon Valley Historical Association on April 28, 1995. Held at the Dead’s headquarters in San Rafael, California, the interview, which was Garcia’s final before his death on August 9, 1995, at age 53, touched on a variety of topics related to Garcia’s early years growing up in the Bay Area.

Garcia was asked about the first time he met fellow Bay Area local and future Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann.

I met him when he was working with a friend of mine named Troy Weidenheimer. We played the band together. I forget what the name of the band was, but we played the band together. I played bass and he played drums. He was 17 years old. He was a teenager, just a kid.

The band whose name escaped Garcia was the short-lived group called The Zodiacs, which was formed by Kreutzmann in 1963 along with Weidenheimer on guitar, Garcia (as he mentioned) on bass, and Pigpen on harmonica. In the spring of 1964, Pigpen joined Garcia and another young musician who Garcia recently met, Bob Weir, in forming another short-lived group, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, which would eventually evolve into The Warlocks. According to JerryGarcia.com:

The Warlocks were formed in Palo Alto at the end of 1964 when Jerry Garcia, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and Bob Weir — the original members of Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions — decided to “plug in” at the urging of McKernan. They added a rhythm section: Dana Morgan Jr. on bass and Bill Kreutzmann on drums. Their first performance was in May of 1965 at Magoo’s Pizza in Menlo Park. After a handful of performances, Phil Lesh replaced Dana Morgan.

In December 1965, The Warlocks got word of another band with the same name (who later became known as The Velvet Underground) and started calling themselves the Grateful Dead. Pigpen, who suffered from several health ailments throughout his lifetime, played his final show with the Dead on June 17, 1972. As often noted, his gravestone at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto, California reads, “Pigpen was and is now forever one of the Grateful Dead.”

During the aforementioned interview with the Silicon Valley Historical Association, Garcia was asked about his initial memories of Pigpen. At the time looking back three decades, Garcia stated:

When I met him, he was like 14. He was like a grubby little kid, you know, that lived down there near Los Altos. He played a little harmonica and a little guitar. He used to ask me to show him some guitar licks – blues licks – and I would show him stuff. He picked up the guitar by himself and in about a month, a couple of months, he was playing pretty nice.

He had a real feeling for the music. It was in his ears. His father was the first rhythm and blues disc jockey in the Bay Area. So he’d been hearing the music all his life and he had a real feel for it. It was very natural to him.

He was a great guy. He was very funny too. Pigpen had a real pixie quality. It was just really lovable, really fun. He was a sweetheart.

Watch Jerry share his memories of meeting Pigpen in the video below beginning at 38:47:

https://www.facebook.com/jerrygarciaofficial/posts/1711955862270787/

Source: JamBase.com