The Adventures of Pigpen, part 2

Summary

GOOD OL’ GRATEFUL DEADCAST

“The Adventures of Pigpen, Part 2”

Date: March 16, 2023
Hosts: Rich Mahan & Jesse Jarnow

---

Episode Overview

This episode concludes a two-part tribute to Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, the original frontman of the Grateful Dead, on the 50th anniversary of his passing. Drawing deeply from Pigpen’s personal archives (thanks to the McKernan family and archivist Jim Sullivan), original interviews, and rare recordings, the hosts chronicle Pigpen’s journey with the Dead—from the Palo Alto folk scene through the Acid Tests, deep friendships, dynamic stage performances, songwriting, struggles with alcoholism, and his lasting legacy as both an anchor and innovator in the band and broader Dead scene.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Days and Formation of the Dead

• From Jug Band to Rock Band

  • Origins in Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions (w/ Jerry Garcia).
    • [03:59] Audio of "She's on the Road Again," 1964, Pigpen on harmonica and backup vocals.
  • Pigpen’s pivotal role in “going electric.”

    “It was Pigpen who suggested the members of the jug band grab some electric instruments and try playing some rock and roll.” – Rich Mahan [04:00]

  • Early setlists reveal heavy blues, Chuck Berry, Beatles; found in Pigpen’s handwriting.

• Pigpen’s Worldliness and Social Circle

  • Stories from Palo Alto days: Pigpen was “much more worldly” than his young peers, able to buy alcohol for the group. [07:41]
  • Never interested in psychedelics; always a "juicer."

• Transition to the Warlocks/Grateful Dead

  • Early days at Magoo’s Pizza, influence of the folk/blues community, and connection to the Merry Pranksters.

2. Scene, Myths, and the King Neptune Legend

• Map of the World, Head Culture:
  • Pigpen depicted as King Neptune on Rick Shub’s iconic ’60s head-shop map because they lived together. [10:21]

3. Pigpen’s Stage Power and Musical Anchoring

• First Impressions

  • Phil Lesh describes hearing the band:

    “Pigpen ate my mind. He just ate my mind with the harp. Singing the blues, man.” – Phil Lesh [10:48]

• Personality and Contrast

  • Pigpen as grounding force—didn’t indulge in acid but was essential to the band’s vibe and provided a “reality check.”

    “He was our anchor ... You could rely on Pigpen for a reality check.” – Jerry Garcia, via Blair Jackson [22:09]

  • Pigpen as “warm fire, a cozy fire,” taking care of others during trips, including Hell’s Angels.

• Pigpen Among the Merry Pranksters/Acid Tests

  • Rich storytelling from Pigpen describing incidents with Neal Cassady, the Acid Tests, including technical mayhem and wild rides. [15:25–18:16]
  • Pigpen’s non-tripping role at the legendary Watts Acid Test: he preserves order, soothes “freak outs,” and becomes the unofficial “purveyor of good vibes.” [20:22–22:35]

4. Songwriting & Musical Contributions

• Songs and Stage Numbers

  • Range of signature performances—King Bee, Turn On Your Lovelight, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Caution, etc., highlighted with live audio snippets and recommended versions. [36:02–40:26]
    • “King Bee” (Fillmore East, 4/28/71)
    • “Turn On Your Lovelight” (Live/Dead, various, final version May 24, 1972)

• Limits and Inclusion

  • Musical arrangements structured to include Pigpen—his limitations pushed the band’s inclusivity.

    "Pigpen represented sort of like the low-water mark ... If we came up with anything that was too complicated for him, he couldn't play it. So everything was structured to be able, at least includable, in Pigpen’s, or else he wouldn’t play." – Jerry Garcia [25:05]

• Songwriting & Collaborations

  • "Operator" (on American Beauty), "Easy Wind," "Mr. Charlie," "Empty Pages," “Taste Bud,” and others.
  • Pigpen’s notebook and lost song drafts: 15–20 seemingly finished songs, many never performed or released. ("Back Home," "I Can Sell...," etc.) [68:04–68:53]

5. Personality, Relationships, and Reputation

• Gentleness Behind the Myth

  • Multiple friends describe Pigpen as shy, kind, and thoughtful—contradicting the biker-pirate/raunchy image.
  • Anecdotes: Tending to friends, matchmaking from the stage, washing his thick hair, covering a friend with a blanket. [30:55–31:34]

    “He walks over, covers her up with a blanket and then walks away. That was Pigpen. Such a sweet man.” – Sue Swanson [30:55]

• Veronica "V" Grant

  • Longtime romantic partner; moved in at 710 Ashbury. Their room was a hangout spot.
  • Supported her through a brain aneurysm recovery (1968).

• Feminist/Ethical Perspective

  • Kay Alexander’s research: Pigpen’s stage persona was mutual and celebratory, never coercive.

    “The women he sings about are strong, independent, passionate women... He is handing them a type of equity that was atypical for male points of view during the era.” – Kay Alexander [51:27]

6. Challenges and the Endgame

• Struggles with Alcohol

  • Health declines: hospitalized for a perforated ulcer and hepatitis in late 1971; possibly Crohn’s disease per family speculation. [63:40–64:36]

    "He drank himself to death ... not so much into escape, as just into drinking." – Bob Weir [64:36]

• Continuing to Contribute

  • Returns to perform (looking frail, sounding strong), keeps writing songs.
  • Records cassette demos, works on potential solo album—some tapes remain unreleased (“Pigpen’s Last Tape,” "So Long," "Maybe She’s a Bluebird").

• Europe ‘72 Tour

  • Performs despite illness; creative, energetic, and beloved by bandmates. [70:11–71:59]

    “He was really sick. But his vocals and his ad libs and his freestyling on that Europe tour were just spot on.” – Donna Jean Godchaux [70:37]

• Passing and Aftermath

  • Dies March 1973, age 27, from internal bleeding brought on by years of abuse and illness.
  • Band and community deeply affected; informal “wake/riot” hosted by Bob Weir.
  • Father’s poignant letter to the band; archivist work to preserve Pigpen’s legacy. [75:50–81:01]

7. Legacy

• Archival Material

  • Pigpen's father, Phil McKernan, meticulously catalogued tapes and setlists, envisioning an LP—much remains to be uncovered.
  • Part of his “lost album” circulates, but is only a “non-definitive assortment.”

    "Page after page of stuff. Obviously I only have a fraction. A lot of the stuff, I have no idea where it ended up." – Jim Sullivan [81:01]

• Lasting Impact

  • Band dynamic “forever changed.” The song “He’s Gone,” played as tribute; poems written in Pigpen’s memory.
  • Owsley Stanley’s emotional reaction to Pigpen's final tape:

    “He started crying like little tears rolling down his face... He loved Pigpen so, so deeply. It was just, just a horrible loss for him.” – Starfinder Stanley [83:21]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Pigpen’s Role:

  “We’d be out of our minds just. And we’d be tethered to Pigpen. You could rely on Pigpen for a reality check.” – Jerry Garcia [22:09]

• Defying His Image:

  “He was very different than the image of the biker pirate. Very gentle, very intellectual, very thoughtful.” – Tom Constanten [47:05]

• On His Relationship With Veronica:

  “They’d be partners for the rest of Pigpen’s life. Their room became its own hangout, with Pigpen acting as genial Southern Comfort drinking host.” – Rich Mahan [31:51]

• Feminist Lens on Pigpen:

  “I talked with a few women who were young and saw Pigpen and asked them how they felt about him... they all felt that this was somebody they kind of wanted to be ravished by. It made them feel adventurous and empowered. It didn’t make them feel alienated or intimidated.” – Kay Alexander [51:27]

• Father’s Acknowledgment:

  “You gave him, or perhaps he found with you, something which many of us never—a purpose and meaning for life.” – Phil McKernan’s letter to the Dead [75:50]

• Owsley’s Grief:

  “He started crying... He loved Pigpen so, so deeply. It was just a horrible loss for him.” – Starfinder Stanley [83:21]

---

Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:59 – Pigpen’s early harmonica and vocal work
• 07:41 – Tales of Pigpen’s worldliness as a teenager
• 10:48 – Phil Lesh’s first encounter with Pigpen’s stage presence
• 14:49 – Legendary Acid Test banter clip with Ken Babs
• 15:25–18:16 – Pigpen retells road stories with the Merry Pranksters
• 22:09 – Jerry Garcia describes Pigpen as the Dead’s anchor
• 30:55 – Anecdotes highlighting Pigpen’s kindness
• 36:02–40:26 – Core Pigpen live classics highlighted
• 51:27 – Kay Alexander’s feminist analysis on Pigpen’s persona
• 68:04 – Unreleased Pigpen songs read from his notebook
• 70:11 – Introduction to "Chinatown Shuffle" at Paris show
• 73:13 – Final months, Pigpen’s declining health and continued creativity
• 75:50 – Phil McKernan’s letter and the impact of Pigpen’s death on the band
• 83:21 – Owsley’s reaction to Pigpen’s final tape

---

Concluding Thoughts

Pigpen’s life and contributions continue to ripple through the Dead’s music, lore, and fan culture. Both “committed” Deadheads and the “curious” will find resonance in his legacy—a genuine bluesman, soulful performer, and gentle, anchoring spirit whose artistry and presence profoundly shaped the Grateful Dead’s mythos, community, and sound.

Transcript

[Rich Mahan]

Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to season seven of the Good Old Grateful Dead cast. I'm your co host Rich Mahan. Thank you very much for tuning in. This episode is the second in a two part series on Ron Pigpen McKernan as we commemorate the life of the original Grateful Dead frontman on the 50th anniversary of his passing. Head on over to dead.netdeadcast and check out all of our past episodes including complete seasons one through six and you can link from there to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how you like to listen. Please help this podcast subscribe. Hit that like button and if the spirit moves you, leave us a review. Thank you very much, very kind of you. Have you checked out the transcripts we now have available for many of your favorite Deadcast episodes? Well, head over to dead.netdeadcast index and click the transcript link on the episode you want to explore, including the recently uploaded Season 6 transcripts. Timing is everything and as we salute Pigpen in this episode, it's only appropriate there be some music to come along.

[Jesse Jarno]

With us on this trip.

[Rich Mahan]

Announcing History of The Grateful Dead Volume 1 Bear's Choice 50th Anniversary Remaster this is the original album, newly remastered by Grammy Award winning engineer David Glasser using plangent processes from the original analog two track tapes recorded live by Owsley Bear Stanley at the famed Fillmore east along on February 13th and 14th, 1970. There's two versions, a black 180 gram vinyl edition and a limited edition custom vinyl version available [e-mail] you can pre order any and all of the Bears Choice 50th anniversary remaster releases and merch [e-mail] thanks to everyone who's left their stories [e-mail] we're now asking you to share your stories of serendipity, miracles and the most Unbelievable. Craziest stories ever told. Share those stories [e-mail] and you just may hear yourself on the Dead cast. Today's episode continues our deep dive into the life of Ron Pigpen McKernan, thanks in great part to the generosity of the McKernan family and Jim Sullivan, who has taken great care to preserve Pigpen's archive and many priceless McKernan family keepsakes. Welcome back to the good old Grateful Dead cast. Here's Jesse Giorno.

[Jesse Jarno]

I went to my door and my door was locked I went to my window and my window was blocked I jumped right back I shook my head Great big rounder in my folding bed I shot through the window, broke the glass I never seen a little run around so fast he's on the road again Joy Levon Looking at your bone and he been on the road again he's on the road again Joy Levon.

[Rich Mahan]

That was Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions performing at the top of the tangent in Palo Alto, California, in the summer of 1964, doing she's on the Road Again, originally recorded by the Memphis Jug band. Ron Pighead McKernan is playing harmonica and singing back up there, Jerry Garcia on lead vocal. Sometime later in 1964, or maybe early in 1965, it was Pigpen who suggested that the members of the jug band grab some electric instruments off the wall at Dana Morgan Music and try playing some rock and roll.

[Jesse Jarno]

Well, you'll fake up your house in his stencil hat. I want to know where your husband's at center. I don't know. He's on the way to the pin and come on mama, get on the road again she's on the road Jolly Bo, Natural bone He's been on the road again she's on the road.

[Rich Mahan]

And that was an early Grateful Dead version of she's on the Road Again, probably from May of 1966. That's the band we'll be talking about today, the Palo Alto folk and blues freaks who transformed into psychedelic rock heroes. Before we get going, we wanted to shout out Blair Jackson and Reagan McMahon's tremendous pigpen oral history from the final issue of the Golden Road in 1993. It was an enormous help. As a jumping off point for researching Pigpen's life, we've posted a [e-mail] deadcast in our last episode, we went pretty deep into the McKernan family archives. We'll be doing a little bit more of that today. One document there is a scrap of paper that seems to be a Song list in Ron McKernan's handwriting. Please welcome back Sully, the guide and guardian of the Pigpen archives.

[Jesse Jarno]

Too much monkey business, you know, who do you love? I'm a man walking the dog. Yeah, a lot of Chuck Berry, you know, Follow the Sun, there's some Beatles in there, you know, and it had to be, you know, right around that time. Can't Buy me Love. There was really no provenance, but it's obviously really early. I mean, you can tell it's all folded up. And he just folded it up and stuck it in his pocket. And then when he got home, he probably just shoved it in a drawer. So where and when lost to time, I don't know.

[Rich Mahan]

We poked into it a little more in our operator episode in 2020 as musicians around the local folk clubs. The former Jug Band was already at least a little popular. Even before they'd played their first show. The band had a built in fan base from the social scene they'd found around folk music, which included some places to practice. This is From David Ganz's 1992 interview with Bob Matthews, Sue Swanson and Connie Bonner.

[Jesse Jarno]

In the very early days prior to really playing anywhere, there was a lot of rehearsal and they played at Sue's backyard a few times. And they played in my living room one time, I think when my parents weren't there. Undoubtedly I think that was a prerequisite. But the parents found out and to this day my mother still reminds me of about the Ripple bottles in the garden. Was it Ripple, not Thunderbirds? No, you're right. Come on. Remember the aluminum screw on top? And of course he was so mean looking that you could take him anywhere. Even, you know, he was the same age we were, which was barely 18 at that point. Probably more like 17. Very worldly. We could run over to East Palo Alto to Barone's liquor store and buy anything, man. Send him in with money and he'd come out with whatever he asked for.

[Rich Mahan]

Much more worldly than we were.

[Jesse Jarno]

Green Death, Rainier. If we paid for Pig's Thunderbird, he'd go in and buy us two or three big bottles of Green Death.

[Rich Mahan]

Yeah, looked at one way, there was a split occurring inside the Warlocks. We spoke a bunch with Eric Thompson in our last episode. He was part of Jerry Garcia's picking circle as part of the Black Mountain Boys and a late period member of the Jug band.

[Jesse Jarno]

May of 65, a whole bunch of us moved into this one house on Gilman street in Palo Alto. And so Jerry was still With Sarah. But mostly he was hanging out. There was this house and Nelson lived there. I lived there. Pig Pen lives there. Rick Shove lived there. This is the house where the day we moved in, we all had our first acid trip. Pig Pen did not take any lsd, nor he was not into any of the drugs. He was always a juicer. He was not interested in the other thing at all.

[Rich Mahan]

It was less than a week later that the new band the Warlocks, opened their weekly residency at Magoo's Pizza in Menlo Park. Even though pot and LSD would become major parts of the local music landscape, and that of the Warlocks most especially, Pigpen had found his new home, even if he didn't last too long, on Gilman Street.

[Jesse Jarno]

Pigpen was part of that scene at that house on Gilman Street. Even though he wasn't into the drugs bar, he was into the scene part. Rick Shub lived there too. And you know about the map of the world?

[Rich Mahan]

I most certainly do. Humbeed's revised map of the world hangs on the wall next to my desk. It also plays a major role in my book, a biography of Psychedelic America, available from Hachette. Wherever you get your books or audiobooks, most people know Rick Shub as the inventor and still the proprietor of Shub Guitar Capos. But Rick is also a brilliant artist. In 1967 and 1968, he and the late great Earl Crabbe conceptualized and created Humbeed's map. Sold in head shops and by mail order. It looks a bit like Pangea, a smooshed together continent that maps out the known territories of folk music and the emerging head scene, including the countries of San Francisco, Berkeley, Cambridge, New York City and Los Angeles. The continent is surrounded by water. The ocean just off the right downwards coast of Berkeley is labeled the Wavy Waste. And rising from the Wavy Waste with a trident in hand and Neptune's crown perched jauntily on his head, is the mighty Pigpen.

[Jesse Jarno]

Why would Rickshaw make King Neptune, Pigpen? Because they lived in the same fucking house.

[Rich Mahan]

When the Warlocks got going in May 1965, Pigpen was one of the first things about the band to make an impression. One early fan was Phil Lesh, who saw the Warlocks at Magoo's Pizza before he joined. This is From David Ganz's July 1981 interview with Phil in Conversations with the Dead, which we've linked [e-mail] deadcast.

[Jesse Jarno]

Whenever it was that they were playing, we took acid and went down there. Harrison, myself, Peterson, Jane and my girlfriend and we came bopping in there, man, and it was really happening. Pigpen ate my mind. He just ate my mind with the harp. Singing the blues, man. I was just. They wouldn't let you dance, but I did it anyway. We were all so fun and stuff. And during the set break, Jerry takes me off to a table and he says, listen, man, how'd you like to play Mason? Phil moved into the room across from me, and of course, he never played. He was a trumpet player and a vanguard musician. So Phil has his bass, and he comes over to my room and says, eric, how does this thing work? And I said, well, he was kind of like the bottom four strings of the guitar. And so here's how you play a scale. Oh. He said, thank you very much, and went back to his room. And that. That's all he needed to know. So that was like. I gave Phil his first and only bass lesson.

[Rich Mahan]

They debuted their new bassist at a gig in Hayward in the East Bay at Frenchie's Bikini A Go Go. In his memoir, Phil Lesh remembered there being three people in attendance, two of them being Sue Swanson and Connie Bonner. Here's how Sue Swanson remembered it.

[Jesse Jarno]

One of my favorite pig pen stories, I think, is when they played at. In Fremont, at Frenchies. Frenchies, Frenchies A Go Go on miss. He didn't want to play, or he was too young or he'd forgotten his id. Whatever the reason, we ended up out in the car, the two of us, while the band played, and he told me the whole story of the Hobbit from beginning to end. While they played in Frenchies last episode.

[Rich Mahan]

We discussed Pigpen and Jerry's involvement in Troy Weidenheimer's Palo Alto party band, the Zodiacs.

[Jesse Jarno]

The Warlocks began as a blues band. It was really just like extension of the Zodiacs, except Garcia was playing guitar instead of playing bass, and Garcia was learning all of the Freddie King stuff that Troy could play. It all built on that. But I will also say this, that it was obvious when the Warlocks started almost immediately that this was going someplace.

[Rich Mahan]

In the fall of 1965, the Warlocks fell deeper into the circle around the novelist Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, who'd been living together at Keezy's place in La Honda in the Santa Cruz Mountains. One of the newest La Honda residents was Zodiac's fan Denise Kaufman, who you might know as a member of the Righteous Band. Ace of Cups, coming up to La Honda.

[Jesse Jarno]

I was living at La Honda by then, and so I didn't go a lot to a lot of gigs of theirs or anything. We were all playing. I mean, Jerry, we were playing at La Honda mostly, like a round of Fire or something that the band set up playing Kreuzman, I knew, but I didn't ever, like, have a hangout with him. I did with Jerry a lot, with Pigpen a lot, and with Bobby some.

[Rich Mahan]

And more as time went on.

[Jesse Jarno]

Because all through the years, Bobby and I have been good friends, but Pig Pen and I would just cruise together. You know, we just cruised around Palo Alto or around the Honda, went to his parents house with him a few times. He did drink, which I didn't, but so, you know, that little part was a little different, but he was just kind of kind and shy, and we really connected about the music that we loved. I had gone to see Bobby Blueland in San Francisco. I was going to see James Brown.

[Rich Mahan]

He was such a special person.

[Jesse Jarno]

I think he was sort of emulating a lifestyle in a certain way, of.

[Rich Mahan]

People whose music he loved so much.

[Jesse Jarno]

I wouldn't have been drawn to him if he was like a, you know.

[Rich Mahan]

Outrageous, nasty drunk kind of thing.

[Jesse Jarno]

To me, he was just sweet and kind and thoughtful.

[Rich Mahan]

There's a clip we've used a few times, which we're going to use again here of Pigpen and Ken Babs in dialogue at the Fillmore acid test in January 1966.

[Jesse Jarno]

Coming through, one of the. There ain't no power on the stage. Come on, just keep no electricity on the stage. Fix it. This is the captain's speaking. We have reached our first emergency and we haven't even got by the boundary. Why don't you rectify it pretty damn quick? Everybody put their worries and threats to mind to produce some electricity for the state. It's about time to get it ready. Yes, because there is wires all around here plugged into electricity all around here. Now just reach down, everybody. Hey, man, stop y' all babbling and fix these microphones. We need some power, power, power.

[Rich Mahan]

And we'll probably use that clip again sometime. It's true, Pigpen wasn't an acid taker, but he certainly hung with the acid takers right there alongside his bandmates and traveling with the Merry Pranksters. And like his bandmates, he came away with a bushel of Neil Cassidy stories. This is from Pigpen's 1970 interview with Hank Harrison, now in the Dead Archive. This is truly one of the gnarlier audio sources we've used on this podcast. So apologies for that, but it's too cool. Not to feature. I'll try to translate the action on the other side of the tape. Fuzz. This is Pig talking about the Trips festival, the Portland Acid test, and Neal Cassidy.

[Jesse Jarno]

I think one of the major times that I was with him was at the Trips Festival long term. Like, I remember one time on the way to the Portland Acid test, we all got in, the bus roared up. You know, he was heading for Portland.

[Rich Mahan]

The date of the Portland acid test is in dispute. Sometime in late December 1965 or early January 1966. A truly hit and run operation with no print documentation that we know of. Some of the most vivid memories are of the trip north, when the Dead actually rode with the Pranksters in Further with Cowboy Neil at the wheel to. Well, we'll let Pigpen tell you about the bus's destination.

[Jesse Jarno]

Yeah, when Neil was driving and he was rapping in the microphone like he always does going through the toll gate. You should have seen them toll takers look at him. You know, all that. And so we went up by Maxwell, California. We burned out a back wheel bearing and had to stop at a gas station. We were stuck there for nearly 24 hours.

[Rich Mahan]

Depending how you annotate Jerry Bass, there might need to be a separate entry for a date in Maxwell, California. In this window, we took a couple.

[Jesse Jarno]

Electrical cords and threw them out the window and plugged them into this outlet they had on the side of the gas station and turned on the tape recorders and the guitars and, you know, the whole thing and, you know, did the whole. And so finally we decided it wouldn't work. That would take too long. We had to get there. The bus couldn't get fixed. So we rented a truck.

[Rich Mahan]

Eventually, with prankster ingenuity, they hit the.

[Jesse Jarno]

Road, rigged up lights on the inside of the box on the back of the truck, rigged an intercom system between the cab and the back. All in one day, all in a few hours. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And took off. They were made.

[Rich Mahan]

The road hit back. But Pigpen got to witness Cassidy in full flight.

[Jesse Jarno]

We're right up through this, you know, winding mountain road with, like, snowdrifts 8 or 10ft high on the sides, you know, and icy roads and blizzards and all that stuff. And Neil is there with, like, you know, one hand on the bottle of wine and the other hand popping speed and the other hand playing with Ann and the other hand talking like a mother and the other hand driving the truck. And there I was. Give me some of that wine, quick.

[Rich Mahan]

The trip up was perhaps more exciting than the trip There and it was a good trip.

[Jesse Jarno]

We finally got to Portland and found the place. And we went in and it was still snowing. And we went in there and set things up. And I spent quite a bit of time in a cloak room sleeping on the floor with about nine other people, you know, floppy. And then they kicked us out at 12 o'. Clock.

[Rich Mahan]

Things were getting pretty exciting for the Grateful Dead though.

[Jesse Jarno]

Then we decided, well, you know, what the fuck, let's move to la. So we went to LA and I moved out of my parents house and me and Acid Test out in the way. Yeah, it was when we got hung up with the Acid test and started, you know, moving around and doing stuff and stuff, being like stationary.

[Rich Mahan]

Members of the Dead would sometimes speak of Pigpen being an anchor. And that was part of his character too. Denise Kaufman told a slightly longer version of this story in our LA66 episode, summarizing briefly. It begins at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur and continues with Denise volunteering for a program in LA to study the psychic abilities of psychedelic users, staying with one of the professors running the project.

[Jesse Jarno]

I was staying in his apartment in Westwood and I didn't really know LA very much. And he built this thing in his living room that looked like a coff. And.

[Rich Mahan]

And he was painting it and it was a little, you know, he was.

[Jesse Jarno]

Quite a bit older than I was. And I was like, I'm not so sure about this. And I knew the hamsters were somewhere in la. And you know, we're kind of heading up toward the, you know, the Watts acid test, but not there yet. Before cell phones, how do you find people? And somehow I was able to find Pigpen. I called somebody said, oh yeah, Pigpen staying at this place. And I called him, you know, and.

[Rich Mahan]

He goes, well, where are you?

[Jesse Jarno]

And I'm like, I'm in Westwood, Los Angeles. I need to get out of here. And he goes, I'm coming. Just me where you are. He was so wonderful. And he just totally came and rescued me. And I was like, okay. I feel more, you know, I'm in my. My crew.

[Rich Mahan]

Pigpen was one of the few non tripping witnesses to the Watts acid test. We'll let him set the scene.

[Jesse Jarno]

Big plastic garbage can full of punch, which was loaded.

[Rich Mahan]

That big plastic garbage can would in fact be the non proverbial electric Kool Aid. The night the electric Kool Aid got its name. We talked about this evening a good bit in our LA66 episode with perspectives from some of the other participants. But it's fascinating to get Pig's version, which puts the story into perspective with the recording. In some ways, this is also the night that Pigpen's role as the non tripping band member became solidified.

[Jesse Jarno]

By the time the Bear got all the stuff set up and everything was, you know, halfway working. Yeah, it was like one in the morning or something like that.

[Rich Mahan]

Before the band was fully set up, Pig was on the mic.

[Jesse Jarno]

So then we got into kind of a gospel thing. I was doing a little gospel rap, you know, just by myself. Everybody was getting, you know, into it, you know, some kind of rhythmic way. I want to know, can you find your mind? Oh, yes.

[Rich Mahan]

We can tell by the sound of a very high Bob Weir that the band hasn't played yet between this.

[Jesse Jarno]

Now, if you have any sense, you know you're going to give him your money. I want. But you ain't got no business to hate that man for doing that because you know, there must be something wrong with him. Wow. I want to tell you about. It was this cheek in the other room. And so she was freaking out. Who cares? Who cares? And stuff like that. And somebody took a microphone into the other room and it went through the tape loop. So everything she said echoed back on her.

[Rich Mahan]

Who cares?

[Jesse Jarno]

Who cares? That was echoing all through the room. That was like the universal soul cry of the universe. That's we all wonder.

[Rich Mahan]

And so it was that Pigpen became the unusual purveyor of good vibes.

[Jesse Jarno]

You gotta think about your neighbor. You gotta think about your friend. You gotta think about your brother, you gotta think about your sister. You gotta think about everybody. That means something to you. Yeah, I'm talking about it now. Now do you think that you know something?

[Rich Mahan]

It was a group effort to bring the who Care girls back to Earth. Check out the LA66 episode for more of that story. It's a role Pigpen would come to play for both his bandmates and the audience in years to come. One of my favorite descriptions is by Jerry Garcia speaking with Blair Jackson. He was our anchor. We'd be out of our minds just. And we'd be tethered to Pigpen. You could rely on Pigpen for a reality check. Hey, man, is it too weird or what? He'd say, no, man, it's cool. Everybody used him on that level. He was like gravity. Hell's Angels would be sitting around his room, fucked up on acid, and Pigpen would be taking care of them. It was so great. Pigpen was like a warm fire, a cozy fire.

[Jesse Jarno]

After that, after everything was over we went over to the watchtower, but we couldn't get in because City Monument. Yeah, they turned it into a thing where, you know, you gotta pay 50 cents or whatever quarter, you know, to get in the city. And the care seat from outside, the caretaker was there. So we just all wandered around, you know, and it just got weird in. Weird in.

[Rich Mahan]

The visit to the Watts Towers was a profound moment for Jerry Garcia especially. There's a segment about this in Amir Bar Lev's essential documentary A Long Strange Trip, which we also referenced, but that's Pigpen's version of it. Mostly in la, the Grateful Dead got down to the business of being a band. This is how Bobby Peterson remembered their house in la.

[Jesse Jarno]

The lady said that living next door to you is like having a freight train going through your house 90 miles an hour. Yeah, that's tough.

[Rich Mahan]

The first original Warlock song was Caution, Do Not Stop on the Tracks, written sometime in mid-1965. The groove they borrowed from Mystic Eyes by them for the lyrics. Pig reached into his pig bag from early 1966. Asley made a ton of tapes of the Dead at work, live and in rehearsal. They'd reveal a few things about Pigpen as the Dead leaned deeper into their songwriting. Here's how Jerry Garcia put it in 1975 to Peter Pigpen had influenced a.

[Jesse Jarno]

Lot of what we were doing just by. Because of who he was and that that are the music had to be able to include him. In a way, Pigpen, technically at any.

[Rich Mahan]

Rate, Pigpen represented sort of like the.

[Jesse Jarno]

Low water mark, you know what I mean?

[Rich Mahan]

And we couldn't go past that because.

[Jesse Jarno]

If we came up with anything that.

[Rich Mahan]

Was too complicated for him, he couldn't play it. And so everything was structured to be.

[Jesse Jarno]

Able, at least includable in Pigpens or.

[Rich Mahan]

Else he wouldn't play.

[Jesse Jarno]

He loves layout or stuff.

[Rich Mahan]

Some of Bayer's early tapes reveal that while Pigpen's bandmates were willing to devote themselves to rehearsals of complicated material, Pig wasn't always into that. And though there was a divide between Pigpen and the band on that front, he continued to contribute in other very musical ways. Though none of the songs would make it onto an official release in that era, he was an integral part of the band's first attempts at songwriting, including his original youl See a Broken Heart and at least the lyrics for keep rolling by one pig pen song that turns up on the LA66 tapes, Taste Bud survived right up through the session for the band's first album in 1967. Pig's playing some nice blues piano here.

[Jesse Jarno]

Woke up way after midnight People just a little wild A little wild for days I couldn't find no satisfaction Pain in my pillow with my baby lay.

[Rich Mahan]

Though Pigpen would play upright piano occasionally with the Dead over the next few years, it was mostly a road not taken, Though there are very few pictures from the Warlocks era. It seems Pigpen played on a Farfisa duo organ in the earliest days, switching to a Vox Continental. After the band's move to LA in 1966, the band and Pigpen settled into a relationship where he served as kind of a specialist. He sang Pigpen songs during our LA66 episode. We spoke with Don Douglas, who served on Owsley Stanley's sound squad during the LA period and went on to help with some acid making himself.

[Jesse Jarno]

Some people have described the early Dead as Pig Pen and his backup band. And I probably how I saw them. I mean, this is not to take anything away from the. The brilliance of Derek Garcia and the others, but that's kind of how it came across in the beginning. This was a blues band led by Ron McKernan. Yeah. And besides being a total sweetheart, under that crusty exterior, he was sure. I mean, for a white guy, damn, he was good. You know, I was over 21 and he was under 21. I was just over 21, he was under 21. And Tim had a 1959 Hillman convertible. So we'd go out and I'd buy a bottle of Red Mountain. I mean a gallon, a jug of Red Mountain wine. So in the passenger seat, Pigpen would have this between his legs to steady it. And I would drive and we'd go carousing around la. I do not and cannot sing, but drunk I could sing with him, right? So we'd like to be wailing away and having a good old time. And then we would go to places. Like for instance, there was a place, I think the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. It would have a section for people who are 18 to 21. They wouldn't serve alcohol, but of course we were fine by that point. And we would sit there and we like we heard the Temptations and Pig Ben said to me, if you ever want to see what's happening next, look at the Black Axe. And he also. We went to see a friend of his who played in a 1950s style dance band with two tone jackets and the whole thing. And he said, you will find that fans tend to like one kind of music or another, but musicians like all kinds of music as a rule. And he was just fine listening to this 1950s dance band. So yeah, we would do that and we would come back pretty late and at one point someone. We were all up together and everybody but Pikmin was stone on ass and we were. Owsley and Melissa had a. Their bedroom was on the top floor of this house where the electronics equipment was also. And we would also sometimes gather there because it was. It was pretty big. And they were saying something about, you know, guys doing out who knows what. And I made some joke about we were looking for an all night harmonica store and they ended up using that name, I guess for one of their. One of their dances or something like that.

[Rich Mahan]

After la, the band decamped briefly to Olampali, a palatial estate in Marin county north of San Francisco.

[Jesse Jarno]

We were living in Olampali before and then we ended up living in Camp Lagunitas. And Big Brother lived about, I don't know, a mile or two away.

[Rich Mahan]

Sadly, this is pretty much when Pig Pen's storytelling breaks off chronologically on the Hank Harrison interview tape, thanks to the late Hank Harrison, at least for this one specific thing.

[Jesse Jarno]

Of course, you realize that everything I've told you is a lie.

[Rich Mahan]

That's still cool, Pig. With Big Brother a mile or two away, Pigpen reconnected with and began an on off fling and lifelong deep friendship with Janis Joplin. The dead relocated to 710 Ashbury in San Francisco in the fall. Sue Swanson.

[Jesse Jarno]

I heard actually a wonderful story about Pigpen just this week. An Eileen story about Pigpen. 710 Ashbury St. We'd all moved up there and she went by to visit and got stuck there. What a terrible fate. Had to spend the night. Oh, we always hated when that happened. And late night and she was asleep on the couch up in the upper upper living room, right? She looks, she hears this noise and looks up and in the doorway is this great looming, hulking figure. And she goes, oh God, it's Bigpen. You know, she's, what's he gonna do? And he walks over, covers her up with a blanket and then walks away. That was Pigpen. Such a sweet man.

[Rich Mahan]

Connie Bonner.

[Jesse Jarno]

I remember sue and I washing his hair for him was something that he took great delight in asking us to help him wash this great thick black hair and bending him over the kitchen sink at 7:10 Ashbury helping him. He loved it and we just adored doing it for him.

[Rich Mahan]

Later in 1966 as well, Pigpen met the person who became the love of his life, a black woman named Veronica Grant, known most often just as V v, moved into 710 Ashbury within the year, becoming another one of the band's housemates. In the 60s way, they'd be partners for the rest of Pigpen's life with the only TV in the house. Their room at 7:10 just off the kitchen became its own hangout, with Pigpen acting as genial Southern Comfort drinking host. Here's an anecdote from Eric Thompson.

[Jesse Jarno]

A buddy of mine was at the 17 Ashbury Street House and Pig Pen lived downstairs right by the kitchen. And so my friend Owsley were hanging out in the kitchen and, you know, Osby's kind of opening the refrigerator. Tig Pen comes out. Hey, man, what are you putting in our food?

[Rich Mahan]

Here's Jerry Garcia speaking with Ben Fong Torres in 1975.

[Jesse Jarno]

One of the things about the Grateful.

[Rich Mahan]

Dead was that we never had that.

[Jesse Jarno]

The glamour flash that the Airplane or the others that he got involved with Moby Dick or whatever Moby Grave Parting had.

[Rich Mahan]

You know, they were always sort of.

[Jesse Jarno]

Glamorous and sellable and we never had that thing, you know, that glossy image that could be dealt with on that level. They would see Pigpen and just forget it, you know.

[Rich Mahan]

But he was identifiable. He was their first frontman, and his face was emblazoned on the band's first T shirts and posters. Before the band's first album even came out in 1992, Connie Bonner's first Pig Pen shirt was still in service.

[Jesse Jarno]

Why? He has immortalized hair on this T shirt. He was the chosen one.

[Rich Mahan]

You're wearing an original Pigpen T shirt.

[Jesse Jarno]

Absolutely. And a deal at $2. What does the button say? Good old Grateful Dead.

[Rich Mahan]

The Warner Bros. Marketing department wasn't quite sure what to do with the Grateful Dead. And they certainly weren't sure what to do with pig pen. In 1969, with the release of Oxam Oxoa, they ran a Pigpen lookalike contest in Rolling Stone. A few weeks later, they followed up with another full page ad that read in part to be downright brutal about it. Part one of our Pigpen lookalike contest that we laid on you a few weeks back is a bust. Not that there haven't been entries. There have been plenty. But so far no one has, via black and white or color photograph, captured the panache, the bravado, the insouciance, the true and utter raunch of Mr. Penn. Just to have a mustache doesn't make it. Just to have long hair doesn't make it. Blondes don't make it. Photos with no name and address don't make it. And the pygmy from Venice, California, who wrote that contests suck doesn't make it. There were no winners. We've posted links to the [e-mail] deadcast later that year, this is how the Warner Bros. Marketing department tried pitching Mr. Penn.

[Jesse Jarno]

Hurray, hurrah.

[Rich Mahan]

Hurray.

[Jesse Jarno]

Step right up and hear the Grateful Dead roll over and play live. Groove to the electrifying guitar wizardry of Jerry Garcia.

[Rich Mahan]

Grind along with Phil Lesh, the fastest bass player of them all.

[Jesse Jarno]

Gasp at the legendary Pigpen, who knows no shame.

[Rich Mahan]

The Dead explored many musical paths in their early years, and Pigpen provided the bump and grind to go along with the Jug Band adaptations, cowboy tunes and polyrhythmic psychedelic launching pads. A perusal of the surviving tapes from 1966 and 1967 reveal a half dozen songs that disappeared from Pig's repertoire after their first year or so as a band, including Alan Toussaint's Pain in My Heart, Fats Domino's Sick and Tired, the Rolling Stone's Empty Heart and others. But in those years, the band also introduced a number of Pigpen signature numbers. Most of these were still in Pig's repertoire in 1971 and 1972, generally a good period to hit if you're looking to listen to some pig pen. But here's a checklist of the core Pig pen with some recommended places to dive in. There were Slim Harpo's I'm a King Bee. Here it is from Ladies and gentlemen, The Grateful Dead, April 28, 1971, at the Fillmore East.

[Jesse Jarno]

I'm a king be buzzing around your hide.

[Rich Mahan]

Elmore James's It Hurts Me too, which we dove into during the Lyceum episode of our Europe 72.

[Jesse Jarno]

It hurts me too.

[Rich Mahan]

Junior Parker's next time you see me. You're from Hundred year Hall, Frankfurt, April 26, 1972.

[Jesse Jarno]

Next time you see me things won't be the same Next time you see me things won't be the same if it hurts you my darling, you're about to sell me blame.

[Rich Mahan]

Wilson Pickett's in the Midnight Hour. Here's the Rionito Dancehall version from September 3, 1967, released on fallout from the fill zone. This version's over half an hour.

[Jesse Jarno]

I'm gonna take you girl and hold yes I will do all I the.

[Rich Mahan]

Olympics Good Lovin' Pretty much any of the Europe 72 versions are pretty cracklin'. This is Copenhagen, April 14, 1972.

[Jesse Jarno]

Yes again all I need, all I need.

[Rich Mahan]

Jimmy Reed's big boss man, released on Skull and Roses in 1971, which we explored on season three of the Dead Cast side 3, to be exact.

[Jesse Jarno]

You just told us just about all.

[Rich Mahan]

Of course. Bobby Blue Blands Turn on your love light from Live Dead Without a warning.

[Jesse Jarno]

You broke my heart Taking a baby Tore it apart and you left from her standing in the dark side of your nose Love for me was so Come on baby, baby.

[Rich Mahan]

Sonny Boy Williamson's Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl, released on the Dead's debut in 1967.

[Jesse Jarno]

Good Morning Little school girl Can I come home with you? I tell your mother and your papa I'm a little schoolboy too.

[Rich Mahan]

It was a testament to how quickly the Dead were evolving that when they recorded their debut in early 1967, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl was Pigpen's only lead vocal. Not that he wasn't still singing lots with the band. That same year, he began singing Alligator, recorded on Anthem of the sun, which featured some of Robert Hunter's first lyrics for the Dead, but also a verse by Pigpen, his first professional songwriting credit.

[Jesse Jarno]

Riding down the river in an old canoe a bunch of bugs and green to make this old alligator that I've ever seen.

[Rich Mahan]

Later, in 1967, the police raided the band's home at 7:10 Ashbury. Pigpen and his girlfriend Veronica were among those arrested, despite being among the members of the household who weren't pot smokers. In fact, Pigpen's non use of pot in acid was pretty well known. Columnist Herb Kane, who invented the term beatnik and helped popularize the term hippie for better or worse, pointed this out. This is rock. Scully reiterating his point at the band's post bus press conference while Pigpen glowered next to him.

[Jesse Jarno]

The statement was that Pigpen does not turn on, and that is a true statement.

[Rich Mahan]

In the spring of 1968, just in time for an east coast jaunt in May, Pigpen leveled up when the band began renting a proper Hammond B3 organ for the first time. Here's how it sounded at the Fillmore east on June 14, 1968, from the bonus disc on the Fillmore West 1969 box set. The B3 is slightly under mixed, but Pig is jamming along as the band powers from Turn on youn Love Light into caution. Pigpen wasn't a shredder, but he's easy to underestimate. An oft disputed point in Grateful Dead scholarship is the moment in late 1968 when Pigpen and Bob Weir were nearly kicked out of the band. There's a long account of the firing in Dennis McNally's book A Long, Strange Trip, dated August 1968, mentioning that the band meeting was recorded by Owsley Stanley. Please welcome back to the Deadcast, Dead bass co founder Mike Dolgushkin.

[Jesse Jarno]

I've heard it. No one really comes out and fires them. The general idea seemed to be that Bobby and Tig weren't going to play the live gigs anymore, but they were still going to appear on the recordings. Pigpen mentioned that he had a new song written and Phil said, that's great, we'll record it. Pigpen had also quit drinking, apparently not long after.

[Rich Mahan]

There were a number of shows by groups sometimes known as Jerry Garcia and Friends, sometimes as Mickey and the heartbeats, starting in October 1968. Pigpen wasn't involved. There are also a pair of Grateful Dead recordings from the Avalon Ballroom, October 12th and 13th that don't feature Pigpen at all. This has often been cited as material evidence of Pigpen's firing. Mike Dalgushkin points us to a brief eyewitness account on the Internet Archive.

[Jesse Jarno]

Someone who went to one of those shows said that Garcia announced, take Pen's not here. He's in the hospital taking care of his girlfriend.

[Rich Mahan]

In fact, October 1968 is when Veronica Grant suffered a brain aneurysm and nearly died. If the firing happened at all, it's not represented on tape. Pigpen devoted enormous amounts of time helping Veronica with her recovery, which happened slowly but happened when the Dead went to Europe in 1972. V missed the tour because she was home in nursing school. At dead.netdeadcast we've posted a link to light into Ash's deep look at this period on the Dead Essays blog, with a few pieces that clarify the chronology that have emerged in recent years. Around the time of the alleged firing, Phil Lech's old music school buddy Tom Constantin completed his Air Force duty and enlisted with the Grateful Dead. Very aleotoric Dead cast Welcome to TC.

[Jesse Jarno]

There was a point where even Pigpensing continuing with the band was in question. I came into the mix just when that was going on, and maybe I provided enough of a diversion that it turned down the amplification of those problems, but they weren't a problem anymore.

[Rich Mahan]

TC took over B3 duties most of the time for the next year and change, which is a whole other story we'll tell another day. But even during this window, Pig would return to the organ occasionally.

[Jesse Jarno]

In this.

[Rich Mahan]

The blues were Pigpen's natural territory, and his playing on Death don't have no Mercy still seems not only organic but essential to the song's power.

[Jesse Jarno]

It wasn't anything even that contentious. It was just something that happened, I was ready for, was acknowledged generally from in front, and it was never a problem, it was never a question. He had a lot of dimensions within the blues. His dad had been a blues dj.

[Rich Mahan]

It was the opposite of a contentious relationship and oddly complementary. The two became road roommates.

[Jesse Jarno]

The band wasn't big enough that all the band members didn't have their own hotel suite at the Ritz, yet it.

[Rich Mahan]

Established an ongoing theme with the keyboard players who performed with the dead in the 60s and 70s. Ned Lagin spoke with us about how well he and Pigpen got along, and here's what Donna Jean told us about Keith and Pigpen's relationship during our Europe 72 season.

[Jesse Jarno]

Complimentary and Keith loved it. He loved Pigpen, too. We were just big Pigpen fans. Still are, apparently.

[Rich Mahan]

It was just impossible not to love the guy.

[Jesse Jarno]

He was very different than the image of the biker pirate. Very gentle, very intellectual, very thoughtful. There were a couple of times I got dosed during the gig and there was no better person to hang out with. He brought a pegboard chess set and we played chess. I usually beat him, not that I'm very good either. I brought some baseball cards and we flipped cards for fun, all sorts of fun, stuff like that.

[Rich Mahan]

This is from Phil McKernan's notes on his Son as read by Sully.

[Jesse Jarno]

He liked to play games, board games, word games.

[Rich Mahan]

He loved chess and Pigpen and TC became roommates off the road too, sharing a house in Nevada.

[Jesse Jarno]

He did have a bunch of records, several of which he turned me on. Blind Willie Mactel, people like that. He gave me a volume of Albert Ammon's boogie solos of sheet music, which I could relate to, and I was able to play through and copped a couple licks from. He was also reading action adventure like Doc Savage, some of the Robert Heinlein science fiction books from the time.

[Rich Mahan]

The same way that Pigpen shared experiences with his bandmates at the Acid Tests. He was likewise a member of the Planet Earth rock and roll book exchange.

[Jesse Jarno]

He turned me on to Frank Herbert's Dune, for instance, and we're all into reading this and that and the other. Jerry Garcia would bring books with him on tour and I'd look over his shoulder and see what is what he was looking at. And I gave him a copy of Hazrat in Sufi Message, the Volume of Outmusic. And it was all very intellectually engaging. Paul Catherine was another one who would bring books on the road. He had a whole suitcase full that they would schlep around for.

[Rich Mahan]

For all the enthusiastic sci fi readers in the Dead scene, probably none of them held a candle to Phil McKernan, Pigpen's father. Poke around for his name on the Internet Archive and you'll find a number of teenage Letters by Phil McKernan to various SCI fi fanzines.

[Jesse Jarno]

I don't recall him playing much music at home. In fact, we didn't have a piano until after I was no longer in the band. But we went piano shopping together and we found this really built like a Rock Bear Brothers upright. Actually, I think it was a cabinet grand, which is even more massive. I had another cabinet grand later. It looks like an upright, but they call it a cabinet grand because the strings are perfectly. But they're just as massive and big as it were a grand piano.

[Rich Mahan]

After T.C. moved out, the two remained tight, with Pigpen acting as best men at T.C. s wedding. But even if he didn't have a piano at his disposal, Pigpen was very tentatively showing signs of becoming a late blooming songwriter after almost getting kicked out of the band.

[Jesse Jarno]

Oh, yes, he took it very seriously and worked on his act.

[Rich Mahan]

Here's Jerry Garcia speaking with David Ganz and Blair Jackson now in Conversations with the Dead.

[Jesse Jarno]

Pig Pen's orientation used to be straight ahead sex and straight ahead.

[Rich Mahan]

Really straight ahead. And he'd get really dirty.

[Jesse Jarno]

The lot of ties in the blues and all that.

[Rich Mahan]

That was his trip.

[Jesse Jarno]

He like, occupied that position in terms of, like, if there was balance in our point of view, then Pigpen used to represent it musically.

[Rich Mahan]

And Pig Pen certainly could get woolly. Some pigs do get woolly. By which we mean that some of what Pigpen sang might be considered a little more problematic in the 21st century.

[Jesse Jarno]

Good morning, little school girl Can I come home with you? I tell your mother and your papa I'm a little schoolboy too.

[Rich Mahan]

A few years ago, at the Grateful Dead Scholars Caucus in Albuquerque, Kay Alexander presented a paper titled Let Us Now Reconsider Pigpen. Examining Pigpen from a feminist point of view. And a closer look brought some surprises. Welcome to the Dead cast, Kay.

[Jesse Jarno]

The Persona that he projects on stage is not angry or narcissistic or vengeful or controlling. The women he sings about are strong, independent, passionate women in their own right. He's not saying to any of them, oh, honey, I want to marry you so you can cook My meals. He's saying, I don't know where she's gone. I don't care where she's been as long as she's been doing it right. He is handing them a type of equity that was atypical for male points of view during the era when he was on stage. I don't know where she's going. I don't care where she's been, long as she's been doing it right. And I only missed seeing him by about a year. I talked with a few women who were young and saw Pigpen and asked them how they felt about him. How were they moved by the sexual content of his music. And they all felt that this was somebody they kind of wanted to be ravished by. It made them feel adventurous and empowered. It didn't make them feel alienated or intimidated. Her leg up against the wall. That's pretty explicit. But what's the first half of that couplet? I come every time she call. I mean, this is mutual passion. This is not someone being manipulated. This is not someone being coerced. And I think that's a really, really important thing to remember about Pigpen.

[Rich Mahan]

As the frontman of a 60s rock band, Pigpen was never nor will ever be a poster child for first, second or third wave feminism. But when Pigpen did crowd work, it wasn't to pick up groupies. It was to match couples. One of the classic all time versions of Turn on youn Love Light was played at Princeton on April 17, 1971. It's a great example of Pigpen in matchmaker mode.

[Jesse Jarno]

I'm just standing and try to look cool say a, say what's your name that's all you got to do Ain't no reason to mess around if it click, it click. I think he recognized other people's shyness and what he was trying to do. It feels to me, it felt to me then and feels to me now that he was trying to break through into a place of celebration where it's okay to have these passions. It's okay for us to be in these bodies and enjoy what they do. That's not necessarily the sexual content that was being promoted in rock songs of the era. That's much more part of the blues tradition that this is life, this is the life we live. We might as well enjoy it.

[Rich Mahan]

An adorable running thread in Pig's raps, despite their general raunchiness, is when he extolled the virtues of his special lady friend, which he does at Princeton now.

[Jesse Jarno]

You just found somebody didn't You. You two just found somebody. That's cool. I ain't got to find nobody Cause I got my old lady and she makes me feel nice I want the reason she makes me feel so nice I want a reason to make her feel so good I'm not gonna tell you everything and I'll tell you just a little bit I'm not gonna tell you everything I'm gonna tell you just a little bit.

[Rich Mahan]

That show also contains one of the all time great bits of Pigpen storytelling. Here's how Bob Weir remembered it on WMMR in 1976.

[Jesse Jarno]

One time he actually managed to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to somebody for a dollar and a quarter. I think it was a love light we were doing. And it starts out as essentially a love song. Sure. And he starts delivering his dissertation and it just got twisteder and twisteder and twister until finally he had some clown out of the audience that he was working with and he sold this guy the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Rich Mahan]

Close. It was one of Pigpen's running narratives in Goodlovin in early'71, which might be termed Lil Pimpin', but ultimately this is a family podcast.

[Jesse Jarno]

Sold Brooklyn Bridge.

[Rich Mahan]

Ask a taper for the rest. The kind of creativity displayed by Pigpen's freestyles is a bit hard to annotate and convey, but it's a mix of old blues patterns balanced with the sensibility informed by the hip comedian Lord Buckley, a thread we explored in our Operator episode. When the Grateful Dead Traveled, Pigpen was a source of curiosity for the press during their first Visit to the UK in 1970, the BBC interviewed Pig backstage at the Hollywood Festival. As the camera crew enters the backstage trailer, they walk by Ozzy Osbourne outside, also on the bill. So imagine Ozzy 10ft away when this is happening. It's neither a very revealing nor narrative forwarding interview, but it does include the sound of Pigpen dropping a lit cigarette ash behind the couch in the backstage trailer.

[Jesse Jarno]

Fillmore East. Ow. Shit. Damnation. Balderdash. The whole fucking place is on fire again.

[Rich Mahan]

And even before the success of the Dead's complimentary 1970 albums, Working Man's Dead in American Beauty, there seemed to be some commercial interest in a Pigpen solo project. It's probably not what you'd expect.

[Jesse Jarno]

When I was a little bump I'm so high I used to make all them little girls cry but it was girl they were crying. I made the new girls a cry for who I'm alone.

[Rich Mahan]

That's a tiny bit of I'm a lovin man from what Dead scholars have determined to be a mid-1969 demo session for Mercury Records, featuring Pig Pen, with Jerry Garcia on pedal steel and Bob Weir on rhythm guitar. Alongside subsession musicians, we've pointed to Cory Arnold and light into Ash's magnificent research at dead.net deadcast Pigpen's Country Project didn't quite take, but perhaps it did help focus his songwriting.

[Jesse Jarno]

Where's that capo? Where's that capo? Are we rolling? Operator, can you help me? Help me if you please Give me the right area code and the number that I need My right and left on the.

[Rich Mahan]

By 1970, Pigpen's act included the original Operator on American Beauty. That was from the Angel Share demo released with American Beauty 50 in 2020. Here's what Bobby Weir told us.

[Jesse Jarno]

Operator was sort of from left field as far as, like, it wasn't a blues tune. It was a. You know, he used some, you know.

[Rich Mahan]

Blues sort of ideology in some of his lines.

[Jesse Jarno]

But really, musically, it was a. It was something else. It was. You know, I'm not sure I could label it, but it was. I wouldn't consider it anything resembling a blues. It was a kind of a surprise to me, and, you know, I lived with him at that point. You know, I thought I knew the kind of stuff he had up his sleeve. But this one came out of nowhere.

[Rich Mahan]

The year before that, Robert Hunter had written Easy Win for Pigpen to Sing, which wound up on Working Man's Dead. He'd also started playing a few folk blues tunes in the Dead's acoustic sets, some of which he'd played in the old days. Usually his sets were pretty short, one or two songs at the Family Dog in San Francisco in April 1970, the band was workshopping their Evening with the Grateful Dead format under an assumed name when Pigpen played, by his standards, a marathon solo. Six songs, nearly 20 minutes. It was released in 2013 as a double LP. It includes the only official example so far of Pigpen's improv springboard, Bring Me My Shotgun, which we heard about last time.

[Jesse Jarno]

You know, my mama told me day that I left a door Said, you're gonna have bad luck, son and I don't care where you go and I said now bring me my shotgun Bring back just one or two shill and if I don't get some competition, you know there's got to be a little trouble around you.

[Rich Mahan]

There are a few shows in that window from the Fillmores east and west, where Pigpen played piano during the band's Acoustic sets. They're worth seeking out. Sometime in 1969 or 1970, he continued work towards a potential solo album, recording a batch of four track demos. Some of these tapes are what sometimes circulate as his lost album, though it's certainly not that.

[Jesse Jarno]

You know, I feel like I'm freezing Freezing in the heat of the sun.

[Rich Mahan]

He remained part of the Dead social fabric too, playing a role in the legendary softball matchups in 1970 with dead ringers playing against the Jefferson Giraffes, which we talked about more in our ripple episode. Here's what Bob Weir told us.

[Jesse Jarno]

Pigman had the good sense to not turn out for the team, but he did. He would sit behind the plate and.

[Rich Mahan]

Call balls and strikes, and he was impartial.

[Jesse Jarno]

He did his best to be impartial, but there was some back and forth there as well.

[Rich Mahan]

There are more hints of a potential solo album in this period referenced in internal Grateful Dead business documents. In one planning document for 1971, for example, John McIntyre listed it alongside various projects in progress by Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and others. And in the summer of 1971, Pigpen introduced two more originals, Mr. Charlie and Empty Pages.

[Jesse Jarno]

Empty Pages before my eyes do not did.

[Rich Mahan]

That was the sad, sweet Empty Pages, performed in Chicago on August 24, 1971. Now Dick's picks 35. In the late summer, there's even evidence that Pigpen played a solo show in San Francisco, possibly including the accompaniment of Merle Saunders. Continuing the theme of Pigpen being friends with Dead affiliated keyboardists, we've linked to Corey Arnold's great [e-mail] deadcast where can I go?

[Jesse Jarno]

My paths are broken Seems like your love is just a token so you can stay with me.

[Rich Mahan]

It was only weeks after that show that Pigpen entered the hospital for the first time. He was suffering from both a perforated ulcer and hepatitis. Here's Jerry Garcia speaking with Peter Simon in 1975.

[Jesse Jarno]

There was a week or so where everybody gave blood for him and everything like that, and he was in real bad shape.

[Rich Mahan]

And that was when it looked like he was going to die.

[Jesse Jarno]

Actually, the thing of him getting that.

[Rich Mahan]

Ill straightened him out way more than.

[Jesse Jarno]

Any talk from us, and he was, in fact really working at getting himself together.

[Rich Mahan]

There's no question Pigpen was a serious alcoholic who needed to stop drinking, but it seemed to exacerbate a number of other underlying and undiagnosed health issues, which his family believes seriously contributed to his physical decline, likely including Crohn's disease. And without discounting anything about his mental health, it rarely seemed to manifest too drastically before that. Here's how Bob Weir described Pigpen on WMMR in 1976 he drank himself to death.

[Jesse Jarno]

He liked to drink. I don't think he was so much into escape as just into drinking.

[Rich Mahan]

At some point he moved back in with his parents to recuperate and also reconnected with his father. Though Phil was proud of his son's music career, he hadn't been terribly supportive about the whole dropping out of high school thing. Pigpen stayed off the road in the fall of 1971, returning in the winter looking gaunt but sounding pretty great. He even had a new holiday song to add to the band's repertoire. That was Run Rudolph Run at the fox Theater in St. Louis, Dec. 10, 1971, released on the Listen to the river box set, which we covered extensively on season four of the Dead cast. It was the weekend that Dead crashed a bar mitzvah. Included in Pigpen's papers is the brown spiral notebook that you may have noticed on Pigpen's B3 in videos and photos of the Europe 72 Tour. A few pages into it are the rooming assignments dated St. Louis Hilton, December 8th. In case you need anybody. Sam Cutler's in room 608, Garcia's in 606, Hunter in 607, Weir's in 611, Lesh is in 612, Kreuzmann's in 614, Keith's in 620 and Ramrod's in 601. Parrish is in 617. It also allows us to date this notebook as starting during Pigpen's return to the road in December 71. Okay, the front of the notebook has a few interesting details.

[Jesse Jarno]

Osley Stanley, box 2000, Lompoc, California FPC, whatever that stands for.

[Rich Mahan]

That'd be the Federal penal Camp. On the opposite side from the room assignments are Pigpen's chord sheets for a trio of the band's newer songs introduced that Birdsong, Sugaree and Brown Eyed Women. I know we've painted a fairly wholesome picture of Pig in these past two episodes, but he is Pig Penn, so I'll also add the detail that the notebook page contains some Manhattan phone numbers and the address for the Psychedelic burdlesque funhouse on 8th Avenue, not far from where the Dead played at the felt forum in December 71. Ooh la la. You could look it up on the World Wide Web. The surrounding pages contain chords for many of the songs on Bob Weir's Ace, including Walk in the Sunshine, a song Pigpen never played on stage. It contains lyrics for Mr. Charlie and Chinatown Shuffle, cleaned up neatly, probably not first drafts. There are words for the Dead song, now known officially as the Two Souls in Communion, but Pigpen's title was apparently stranger here. But perhaps most intriguing are something like 15 to 20 songs that seem to be completely finished from Pigpen's side, apparently copied over from other sheets with chord changes. There's one called Time to go, dated 68 69, but most seem to have been written in 1971 and 1972. He calls this one back home.

[Jesse Jarno]

What time it is I don't know. It's dark outside and I know it's cold. It doesn't matter what it's like out there because I'm with you and it's warm in here. Don't speak at time release your mind you slip so easy to these arms of mine.

[Rich Mahan]

Here's part of another I can sell.

[Jesse Jarno]

A glass of water to a drowning man I can sell pen and paper to a man ain't got no hands I can even sell money to a millionaire Sell a man on death row the electric chair But I can't even give my love to you I'm all in a mess about what to do Come on and take it darlin' it's here for free it's the only thing I've got that's really part of me I'm like the little shepherd boy crying wolf too many times this time you got to rescue me because the love.

[Rich Mahan]

At stake this time is mine Perhaps ill advisedly he joined the band's Europe 72 tour.

[Jesse Jarno]

He was not doing well, but he was not going to miss that Europe 72 tour.

[Rich Mahan]

We discussed him a bunch during our long exploration of that tour, including a number of letters he wrote home shared with us by Sully. This is a little bit from a letter to his parents from West Germany. All of the letters give little glimpses into his personality and I'll point you back towards season five of the Dead Cast for much more.

[Jesse Jarno]

Hi all in Hamburg. No trouble at all. They stamped our passports upon leaving Denmark. Didn't entering Germany. Didn't even look at the bus rooms. Okay, same old European hotel room, little beds that are pushable together. No tv, stupid radio. I disconnected mine. But good food. Fresh venison from the black forest, stroganoff, all sorts of goodies. I had asparagus and ham but tasted other stuff that was good. Some plain white gin. Saying root from Garcia ought to Be enough to last some red root from Alan, which is giving back.

[Rich Mahan]

Pigpen sang his new songs most nights of the tour. I love Weider's intro to Chinatown Shuffle from Paris.

[Jesse Jarno]

Right now, Pigs are gonna do what he willed. Take it, you can have it what I got, baby, I can't hold and if you find a secret Tell me how to build a mo.

[Rich Mahan]

Donna Jean Godshow hung out with Pigpen a lot during the Europe 72 tour. The only time the two were in the band together.

[Jesse Jarno]

I never did get to be in the band with Pigpen when he was the Pigpen. You know, his. The full version of himself. And so what I got to experience was the latter version, which he was so sick. But he was just such a presence and such a sweet man and just an amazing soul. And to this day, Pigpen. I'm a huge Pigpen fan, just huge. And I. I just think he was amazing. And Pig Pen was the first guy, at least in rock and roll, and as far as I know, that had that freestyle thing like Turn on your love light. He was one of the innovators of that, really way before his time.

[Rich Mahan]

That was Pig Pen's final version of Turn on Your Love Light. May 24, 1972, at the Strand Lyceum in London.

[Jesse Jarno]

When you're doing something that is part of your life, that is who you are, and you get on that stage and it just. It comes to the forefront forcibly. It just comes out. And I watched Pigpen do that because he was really sick. But his. His vocals and his ad libs and his freestyling on that Europe tour were just spot on, just spot on. He was amazing, though.

[Rich Mahan]

He was obviously not lacking for creativity. The European tour made things worse for Pigpen, contracting another case of hepatitis. What's clear from Pigpen's notebook is that he kept working on songs after his last stage appearance with the Dead in June 1972, with compositions dated right up through February 1973. During these months, the Dead crew apparently set up a miniature studio for him with a small cassette player. The very dawn of the compact cassette recording age in the Dead's world. They fully expected him to recover, though. There's a sad story of Pigpen visiting the band's rehearsal space not long before he died and the band being too busy to come out and see him. Jerry Garcia talking to Peter Simon in 1975.

[Jesse Jarno]

He hadn't been drinking for a year and a half at all, you know, zero. But, you know, his body was just gone. It was just shot. It was beyond the point where it can repair itself. And that was the thing. That was the thing finally did.

[Rich Mahan]

Wasn't as though he was on some kind of final bender and then killed himself.

[Jesse Jarno]

He was actually on the road too, you know, a new Persona himself.

[Rich Mahan]

He had been living with his girlfriend Veronica. As he got sicker, they heartbreakingly broke up.

[Jesse Jarno]

TC Big Ben kicked her out of his house. Yeah, the final descent. Well, I had seen him the week before. Paul Boucher, who was a DJ I knew at ktim, called me up with the news. He woke me up like at 8 in the morning. And my first response was, well, you know, I was going to see him later this week. I'll have to ask him what it was like. I was sort of half awake, you know, and I didn't put two and two together yet. We were prepared emotionally for it a full year and a half before, because.

[Rich Mahan]

That was when he first went into serious illness.

[Jesse Jarno]

And then he recovered and slowly got.

[Rich Mahan]

Himself back together and was back in.

[Jesse Jarno]

The band and we were working and everything and.

[Rich Mahan]

And then he just snuck away, you know, which is really sort of.

[Jesse Jarno]

It was typical of him. It was typical of the kind of person he was.

[Rich Mahan]

Despite Garcia's words, they probably weren't really emotionally prepared for it. With the instigation of Robert Hunter, Bob Weir hosted what Weir described as an informal wake slash riot. It was pouring rain and dozens crammed into the house, with many more covering the hillside out back. Weir later said outside it was an orgy, and he apparently meant that somewhat literally. According to Dennis McNally's biography, some 500 attended, according to account made that night. A few weeks after Pigpen's death, his father Phil wrote a two page letter addressed to the Grateful Dead, which survives in the Dead's archives. It feels too personal to read in its entirety, but in part, the real purpose of this note is to express my most profound thanks for that which you all gave Ron. That is beyond price and of far greater value than I ever gave him when he was with us in his younger days. You gave him, or perhaps he found with you something which many of us never a purpose and meaning for life. It's a message from a grieving father perhaps putting undue blame on himself in part a fan letter and mostly a message of love. Yeah, all of a sudden it's not the same group.

[Jesse Jarno]

It's a different group. We don't have that anymore. What we have is a more group like identity probably. And, you know, it's definitely different. It's hard to say it's not a question of better or worse, it's just different.

[Rich Mahan]

It's impossible to measure what Pigpen's death did to the Grateful Dead, except to observe the absence of his musical presence. There was a rowdy, drunken wake at Weir's new place in Mill Valley. The week after that, the Dead were back on the road. And I remember Joe Gasworth telling me.

[Jesse Jarno]

He was at this show.

[Rich Mahan]

Joe Gasworth has worked with the dead.

[Jesse Jarno]

For, well, 35 years or more and he was at that Nassau show and he just said there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Like every single person in there knew.

[Rich Mahan]

What that he's Gone was for.

[Jesse Jarno]

Because the word was obviously out. The Pigpen had passed. And even the band, the sadness coming off the band. And I think it was a nice, touching tribute of the Dead to do that as the second song of the show. You know, we know He's Gone isn't necessarily about the loss of. It's not at all about the loss of Pigpen. But it was a very nice moment.

[Rich Mahan]

And I've heard that version so many.

[Jesse Jarno]

Times and you can hear it's extra.

[Rich Mahan]

Poignant, it's extra meaningful. Written about the swindling manager Lenny Hart, the song's meaning changed in a flash. A goodbye to Pigpen and eventually a goodbye to anybody who might need saying goodbye. Another tribute was published in 1974 by the poet Diane de Prima of the Diggers. Titled for Pigpen, it was the memory of a distant acid test. We've posted a [e-mail] deadcast it read in part. Velvet at the edge of the tongue, at the edge of the brain. It was velvet at the edge of history. Sound was light, like tracing ancient letters with your toe on the floor of the ballroom. They came and went, hotel guests like the Great Gatsby and wondered at the music. Sound was light, jagged sweeps of discordant light. Aurora borealis over some cemetery. A bark, a howl at the edge of history and there was no time.

[Jesse Jarno]

Wow, I'm a stranger in your town.

[Rich Mahan]

One of Pigpen's closest friends in the Dead scene was sound engineer and LSD chemist Owsley Stanley. Please welcome back to the Dead Cast his son Starfinder.

[Jesse Jarno]

My dad told me that he didn't smoke pot often, but he had asked my dad for some pot pretty soon before he died. And when, when they went over to his place after he passed, Bear said he found a half smoked joint from the pot that he'd given him. And he picked it up and he said he. He lit it up and took A toke. And it, it floored him. He said it was one of the most intensely psychedelic experiences that he'd had. And, you know, he grew that pot. He knew that pot. That was not what that pot we usually did to him.

[Rich Mahan]

In the summer of 1973, the Grateful Dead issued an LP titled The History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1, Bear's Choice, which was framed in part as a tribute to Pigpen, featuring a handful of performances from the Filmorist in February 1970. We'll be discussing it at length another time. But one person who was definitely not ready to say goodbye was Pigpen's father, Phil McKernan. In the mid-70s, he began to assemble and annotate all the pig pen recordings he was able to find, compiling his findings into a notebook and curating the best takes.

[Jesse Jarno]

Ron's dad was documenting just the boxes of music that, you know, were found in his, you know, home in Corn Madeira. Phil was documenting his sons, you know, all the different recordings that he had accumulated and he had the gear to do it. I mean, the stuff in his back room there. The few times I ever entered that realm, I'll tell you, man, that guy had the stuff, you know. The reel to reels and cassettes weren't even really happening much in the early days, of course.

[Rich Mahan]

The notebook is the work of a serious music fan and sessionographer, but also a grieving father. It's a clearly emotional and meaningful project, containing Phil's handwritten transcriptions of his son's vocal extemporizations, multiple projected track lists, an attempt to date recordings, and some important clues for pigographers wondering about what might.

[Jesse Jarno]

Have been page after page of stuff. Obviously I only have a fraction of it. I really don't. I mean, a lot of the stuff, I have no idea where it ended up.

[Rich Mahan]

The notebook makes clear that Phil had pretty specific plans for the material.

[Jesse Jarno]

Pigpen Sings the Blues and Other Tales. He must be in good taste, not flamboyant.

[Rich Mahan]

So here's an album cover and indeed there's a little thumbnail sketch of a projected LP with room for notes by Phil on the back and a poem by Pigpen's sister Carol. What's very, very clear is that the recording that sometimes circulates as Pigpen's lost album is only a non definitive assortment of tracks. Phil's notes indicate that most of the public versions are from four track reels dated 1969 and 1970, seemingly from the collection of Mickey Hart. Making this pigographer speculate that they represent some of the earliest sessions from Mickey's Barnes studio in Nevada. In fact, some tapes do exist in the Dead vault. Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux.

[Jesse Jarno]

I think we've all seen it around.

[Rich Mahan]

It was a recording session.

[Jesse Jarno]

A session.

[Rich Mahan]

It was not a session.

[Jesse Jarno]

It was Pig and a guitar in a kitchen. I guess we've heard those. There are a few other things for sure that are on, I think, four track tape. There's a tape. Pigpen's last will and testament.

[Rich Mahan]

This last tape is one of several that hasn't ever made its way into the world. A six song recording that was, according to one story, still in the tape machine when Pigpen died. Though Phil's inventory shows a few others listed after. Put another way, there's still a whole lot of Pigpen left to uncover from pretty much all eras of his musical life. Phil McCurdin notes that the master of Pigpen's last tape came from longtime Grateful Dead sound engineer and Pig's close friend, Owsley Stanley Starfinder.

[Jesse Jarno]

When I was a kid, when bears tapes were living in the vault up in Delmer and Keys going to the vault with my dad and he was going through tapes, looking at things, and he'd pull out a tape and he'd look at it and he'd start talking about the show like he had a memory. Like, you know, he'd pull out a tape, he'd be like, oh, yeah, I remember this show. And he'd start talking about it, pull out another tape and look at it and say, says, weird. Could be good. Not so.

[Rich Mahan]

And he pulled out that tape and.

[Jesse Jarno]

He looked at it and he started crying like little tears rolling down his face. And he's like, you know, I. This was the last tape that Pigpen was working on, you know, when he, when he passed, you know, we went working on, on the songs. It just stuck with me. I. I don't think I'd ever seen him cry before. It was, you know. But he loved Pig Pen so, so deeply. It was just. Just a horrible loss for him.

[Rich Mahan]

The tape ends with a song titled so Long and includes the Robert Hunter solo composition maybe She's a Bluebird, which he would include the following year as the final song on side A of his own solo debut, Tales of the Great Rum Runners, but apparently wrote it for Pig Pen. I can totally imagine Pig singing it.

[Jesse Jarno]

All of my fancy all of my dreams come true Just to be here with you for the last dream hey, all of my life starts to make sense now, I think.

[Rich Mahan]

Given its place it's hard not to hear a resonance with the lyrics to Birdsong, Robert Hunter's elegy for Janis Joplin.

[Jesse Jarno]

Maybe you're a little blooper. Not fly away, no, not fly away.

[Rich Mahan]

And though we're saying goodbye to Pigpen, we're certainly not saying goodbye to his music. Now and forever. One of the Grateful Dead we'd like to thank our guests in this episode Jim Sullivan, Tom Constantin, Denise Kaufman, Eric Thompson, Starfinder Stanley, David Lemieux, Kay Alexander and Mike Dulgushkin. Extra special thanks to friend of the Dead cast David Ganz for contributing audio from his interview archive. Thanks very much for tuning in. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and keep your tour stories coming by recording yours [e-mail] Executive Producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast Mark Pincus and Doran Tyson, produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.