Episode 52: Ron “Pigpen” McKernan

The man, the myth, the legend, the one who fronted The Grateful Dead. Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was a shy, friendly guy off stage but he was a show stopping blues performer on stage. His career with the Grateful Dead lasted from 1965 to 1972 which was cut short due to his debilitating alcoholism. Listen and find out what the early life of the Grateful Dead was like and the man who fronted one of the greatest bands of all time. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello everybody! Welcome back to Jay's Rock and Roll Stories. I'm your host, Jay. Do you hear this? Do you know who that is?

unknown 0:26

My rider left up only midnight.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

That is Pig Pen. That's Ron Pigpen McKernan. He was uh well, I mean, really you can say uh The Grateful Dead, it was Ron's band. The Grateful Dead started, um he kind of he kind of put it together. He wanted to do like a rock and roll blues band. And uh so my episode today is about Ron Pig Pen McKernan. How did they get that name Pig Pen? Well he he kind of he he kind of looked like the this this uh what is it called the peanuts character, Pig Pen. So Ron Pigpen McKernan was born in 1945 in Palo Alto, California, which is I think a little south of San Francisco. Um his dad was a a disc jockey, and a disc jockey that would play predominantly like um blues music, uh early rock and roll. So this is like you know, original, you know, black musician blues blues music, and that's where he kind of that's that's that's his meat and potatoes, Pig Pen. And uh Pig Pen McCurden met Jerry Garcia, who would, you know, go on to be the one of the greatest guitar players of all kind of you know of all time. Um he met Jerry Garcia at a place called Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto. Jerry Garcia was a banjo player and he was uh teaching lessons, giving lessons on banjo. And um Ron Ron McKernan uh he didn't have an he didn't have a nickname Pig Pen yet. Uh I think some I think they called him Blue Ron, like you know, Blues Ron or something like that. He was teaching guitar and they met and uh they started folk a little folk band. Um I forgot what it was called. It's like the Jug it's just an ear early folk band. This is 1962, and but eventually uh Ron wanted to start a rock and roll band and he convinced Jerry to do it. So they started a band and they called them the Warlocks, and this is I think is early 65 when they played their first show at a pizza parlor. So this is this is Pig Pen's band. And Pig Pen is uh this type of guy, he would um he would like to hang out in pool halls, he was a drinker. And sick like if you look at the years 65 to 65, 66, 67, uh LSD was legal, acid was legal, and it was it was um it was a thing that all these young young people were doing, you know, quote unquote expanding your mind, if you want to say, but um this was not Ron's jug of choice. He liked to drink. He he would hang out in pool halls and bars, he was a drinker, he liked uh Southern Comfort, he liked uh those cheap fortified wines, the the flavored ones, he liked sherry. Um another example of this of this early uh rendition of the band, before they were called Grateful Dead, they were called the Warlocks, and they're in the book Tom Wolf, the electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. They're the band in that book. I don't know if you I don't know. Maybe you don't know what I'm talking about. Um so anyway, so they put together a band. It's called uh the The Warlocks, but they changed their name to The Grateful Dead, and Ron Pigmitt McKernan, they record their the first album. I think that was 67. And I he he he was with the band up until until he start getting he started getting sick because he was drinking too much. Everyone else in the band was more interested in you know smoking weed or doing acid, but he was a drinker. And it it and it catches up to him. I'm just gonna say he dies in 1973. Alcoholism just takes over and it just kills him. To the point where to the point where he can't even contribute to the band around 70, 71, 72, he's really only relegated to uh one or two songs, and then he's kind of pushed behind, you know, sit behind the organ or sit behind the congas, or just here, here's a tambourine, just bang the tambourine. Which is kind of sad because he he has a lot of potential. He could, I mean, he easily could have started his own blues band, because I mean the band itself, The Grateful Dead, they started doing like different stuff. Like they might have, let's say, let's say have like a 12-set song list, like a playlist, and maybe one or two songs would be, you know, a rhythm and blues song that that Pig Pen would sing on, and it would it would kill, it would be rock and roll, you know. But the rest of the songs would be f experimentally psychedelic, so he would have nothing to do. The thing is, the guys in the band wouldn't let him leave. And he, I think he wanted to, he, but he wouldn't. He's too he was too much of a nice guy. So uh as I said, Pig Pen doesn't like acid, that's not his cup of tea. And um, I got a lot of my information that I'm gonna share with you from um uh a series of uh magazines called Relics, and they did they did a little expose on uh on Pig Pen. Relics magazine was around from I think the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and it was basically just catered to like you know jam bands like Grateful Dead, Fish, Almond Brothers, that kind of thing. So but before we get to those quotes, I want to share with you a couple of really standout tracks that I I personally like. Um let's start with number five, or I'll say number five, the studio version of the song Easy Wind by The Grateful Dead. I think that was on Working Man's Dead, and it's a studio version, it's not live, but it just he just sounds like such a cool, strong blues singer. That was 1970. I'm gonna go number four, 1966, September 16, the Avalon Ballroom, The Grateful Dead does a song called It Hurts Me 2. It's an old blues song by Elmore James, and it it's I like the way uh Pig Pen does this song. He's singing, it's it sounds like it sounds like it's his song. Number three from the album School and Roses, 1971. He also plays harmonica on the song. Uh Big Boss Man. That's a cool version. Number two, let's go back to the studio. I like the song Operator, 1970, from the album American Beauty. Uh it's it sounds like I don't know, it's it sounds like a nice kind of a country blues song. It's really sweet. And I kind of have a tie between my number one, Mr. Charlie, 1972, from the Europe tour at the uh Lyceum Theater in England, and also I like Hard to Handle from Fillmore East, New York City, February 14, 1970. Um, check those out. I think you'll like it. So I'm just gonna share with you some quotes, um, some descriptions, some stories. Uh Pig Pen kind of had this uh biker image. Like among among all his hippie buddies and stuff, he looked like a biker. He was kind of a short, stocky, chubby guy, but he would wear like a biker vest, he had like a Fu Manchu. Yeah, he rode a motorcycle too. And he was actually, for a moment, a member of the Hells Angels, and that's how there was that connection with the Hells Angels being uh the security force for the Grateful Dead. And at one point, too, he was also um uh Janice Joplin's boyfriend. They they had a little fling, and they were both drinkers. Janice Joplin didn't really like doing uh psychedelics or acid either. They were both kind of a drink drinkers together, and and and they also performed together on stage. Um, Janice Joplin came on stage to perform with Ron and The Grateful Dead one time in 70 and one time in 1971, and they performed uh an old blues song by Bobby Blue Bland called Um Turn on Your Love Light. You can look that up. That's pretty good. So I uh let's see here. So speaking of covers, The Grateful Dead would cover like a couple old standard blues songs. They would do um, for example, they would do In the Midnight Hour, right? The old, I think was that Eddie Floyd in the midnight hour. Um they would they would do it a rendition for like 20, 30, 40 minutes. And I think the longest one he did, it it uh clocks in at 31 minutes and 53 seconds, and that's on the uh the Fallout from the Phil Zone, the the Phil Lesh uh compiled song list that he put out. I always felt that that it was such a sad uh turn of events that he never really got to go out on his own because Jerry Garcia went solo, and he had the Jerry Garcia band, Bobby Weir went solo, uh he had Ace, and but they never they wouldn't let they wouldn't permit Ron to do anything solo, they wouldn't even let him quit the band. Here's a a quote from Chet Helms. The Chet Helms was the a music promoter, so remember, so uh Ron dies in 1973, and Chet Helms says, My mo my most graphic memory is spending an afternoon in Olympic studios over on Stevenson Alley, a day or so after Pig died, with Bear Owsley. Okay, Bear Owsley is the guy who um who produced all that um pure acid, and he also uh recorded The Grateful Dead. He's part of their like their family. So Chethelm says, so they're both sharing sharing uh the grief with me was the most soulful connection I've ever made with them, talking about Bear Owesley. We cried a lot, and he played me a tape that Pig Pen had made and left at his place, at Bear's place, a day or two before he died. I remember I remember Bear thinking it was some kind of message or a final closure in the relationship. Uh, we both hung our hearts out for Ron that afternoon. And uh this this piece of music that um that he left that Bear made that I it had it still hasn't seen the light of day, still hasn't been released. It's kind of it's kind of a shame because I think a lot of people would would like to hear this. Nick Gravenitis was um from the uh Butterfield Blues band, and he says, when asked uh would there have been a would there have been a Grateful Dead without Pig Pen? His response was uh Would would there have been uh Christianity without Jesus? Without Jesus Christ. Uh speaking of Paul Butterfield Blues band, Paul Butterfield, I mean sorry, Mike Mike Bloomfield, the guitar player, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, had a different opinion on uh uh on Pig Pen, which I which always rubbed me the wrong way, because he he he didn't like Pit Pig Pen. He didn't like the way he sang. He he said he sounded just like a little white boy trying to sing the blues. Well, Mike Bloom, Mike Bloomfield is a white guy playing blues guitar, so I just never understood why he had so much animosity toward uh toward uh pig. Um Spencer Dryden from the Jefferson Airplane and the New Riders of the Purple Sage talks about uh how back in the day the dead in the airplane would travel together, and that he and Pig Pen would uh room together. They were the only drinkers in those two bands. Uh acid was was was acid was good, alcohol was a no-no. So like Bear was like there were Bear was kind of like their like you know, keeper, their babysitter, and that he he really frowned upon anyone drinking alcohol. So anyway, so he says how Owsley would give them a lot of crap when he would find like empty bottles, and uh alcohol was a no-no. Uh in the beginning, Ron was the uh Ron was the only one who could sing. The other guys tried singing and they sounded like crap. Like he was the only one that could sing. He played organ, he played the harmonica, and everyone considered this was this was Ron's band. Tom Constantin, who was a kind of a quote unquote member for The Grateful Dead between the years 1968 and 69, he also would also room with Pig Pen. And The Dead really played, you know, all kinds of music with Pig Pen, but really uh only flourished when they uh did the rhythm and blues members. This is according to Tom Consenton. Umstenton explains how they would just put Pig Pen behind uh a set of congas and give him some maracas. And so when the music was psychedelic, here just sit back there. So like Sunny was really like was left without much to do on stage. Like it got to the point where it's like like there's nothing to do, and it they wouldn't they wouldn't let him quit. Signey Anderson was the first lead singer of Jefferson Airplane, and she only did that one album. She um became pregnant and then she quit the band, and that's when um Grace Slick took over. But but Signey Anderson explains that in 1966 the two bands would play together and they would do like like a whole hour, like a whole hour jam of in the midnight hour together on on the stage together. Uh Jack Cassidy and uh Jorma Um Jefferson Airplane, they were they were blues guys too. They were interested in blues. So when whenever Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead were playing together, they would invite Pig on stage and and vice versa. They they would get on stage together and play. Marty Marty Ballin was one of the singers for uh uh for uh Jefferson Airplane, and he talks about how he and Janice Joplin and Ron would get together, like the little trio, and they would go see uh blues bands when they would come to San Francisco. Like they would see the old blues guys, like they saw Muddy Waters, Otis Span, all like cool shows at the Fillmore. They were like a like a good friend, good friendship. Here is uh here's a quote from uh John Dawson. This is uh the nickname is a Marmaduke. He was a guitar player for the New Riders, New Riders of the Purple Sage. He says, All right, he says, Jerry Garcia always said, Don't go slumming with pig. What the hell does that mean? Alright, so he explains that, and that's exactly what I did. So he says that one night I made that mistake and ended up sitting outside this sleazy motel on the other side of Palo Alto, waiting for Pig Pen. Waiting for Pig Pen to uh do whatever he was inside that hotel. Uh there wasn't anything, there wasn't anything in it for me, but I but I know he had a good time. So he just went with him to you know do his own thing. Alright. Another quote from uh him. Um let's just fast forward here to 1972 when uh Pig was Pig was uh he's kind of fucked up, not really doing health, not not very healthy right now. And he says, I remember running into him uh in the stairwell at the Lyceum on the Strand in London, 1972. He was really getting sad and weird, kind of just kind of perverse way that he couldn't seem to get over. I was coming into the gig and he was just sitting there in a chair, uh, all by himself. He could just be alone, I guess. It really was sad now that I that I think about it. So he just got really sick, like uh he just wouldn't stop drinking and just became incredibly unhealthy. I'm kind of jumping back and forth. Um, this is a funny story I I liked. This was from 1967 when the uh the doors were opening for the Grateful Dead. So on the on the topic of equipment and stuff, 1967, the Grateful Dead played a show with the Doors in Santa Monica at the Earl Warren Showgrounds. So the great The Grateful Dead set up all their all their gear, all their equipment for a sound check. Ray Manzarek from the Doors, the organ player, who uh they're gonna open for the dead. So Ray Manzarek approaches uh Pig Pen and he just he pleads with him. He's like, hey man, instead of taking all your stuff down and then us putting ours up and taking it down, why don't we just use the same kind of uh because we both have the same kind of organ, why don't we just keep this your organ there? No big deal, right? So he goes, We we both have a vox. What if I play uh the vox instead of having our roadies do all that work, huh? Ron says, No way, man. Nobody plays my organ. Absolutely not. You cannot play my organ. It's funny, because it's it's 1967, and uh that was like when that was when the Grateful Dead were were sounding pretty pretty tough. Uh it's just I think it's a sad story. There's there there could have been a lot more music, there could have been a there could have been more albums, um, but uh the guy was just too dedicated, too dedicated to drinking. So I uh I'm gonna wrap it up here. There's some really good music. Just look up, just look up Pig Pen Grateful Dead. Hear some good song. He's a good singer, he plays harmonica, he plays organ, and that's all I'm gonna do then. That that that's it. Thank you for coming listening to Jay's Walkable Stories. Uh, if you like the show, give me five stars. If you want to contact the show, you can at Jay's Reckable Walk and Wolf Stories at Pokom dot uh M. And I'll see you next time. See you later.