Usually, when I write about the 27 Club, I write about the conspiracies around the person. This one, however, is different and not well known. This one is about a member of one of the biggest cult bands of their generation. This guy was one of the pivotal members when the band had just formed. Although one member is very famous (he went as far as having an ice cream flavour named after him) the early days are often forgotten. This week The Beat Marches On to the 8th March 1973, the day the Grateful Dead founding member Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan died.
Pigpen was the main member of the Dead’s early days. He grew up listening to his Dad’s blues and rock and roll records throughout the 1950s. A self-taught piano and guitar player, he would soon aspire to follow in his father’s footsteps in making a living as a performer.
Once McKernan set his sights on what he wanted to do, his schoolwork went to the backfoot. Skipping classes was a regular occurrence.
During this period he met a young banjo player called Jerry Garcia. Over a few jam sessions together Pigpen taught his new friend to play the acoustic guitar and not long after they formed a folk band called Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions.
Ron convinced most of the band to go electric and start playing the new psychedelic blues that was starting to take shape on the charts, a la Cream and Fleetwood Mac. They also changed their name from Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions to The Warlocks.
The new name didn’t last long as in New York another band who would also go on to have a cult status had the same name. Both bands changed their name to what we know them as today, the Grateful Dead and the Velvet Underground.
No one knows where the nickname ‘Pigpen’ came from. Some say it was from an old acquaintance who gave him the nickname after the Peanuts character, others say he gave himself the name as was the custom of his blues idols. Most of the band called him by his nickname other than Garcia.
During the Dead’s early days, McKernan was the driving force for the band. While Garcia now converted to guitar from the banjo, and second guitarist Bob Weir were learning their chops, Pigpen would be out front on stage with his Hammond organ or if the occasion called for it his harmonica, singing most of the songs. As time went on the guitarists started to take charge and change direction. They would experiment in other ways too.
When you think of the Grateful Dead as a band, the first thought is the birth of the jam band and the second thought is with LSD. They were one of the first groups to use the drug to experiment with their music. They even had an in-house chemist creating the drug while touring. The use of LSD is where Pigpen started to drift away with the rest of the band. He didn’t like taking or the effects of acid. He preferred a beer or a whiskey. Maybe too many beers and whiskeys. With the hectic tour schedule and being ousted as band leader he started hitting the bottle hard. A six-pack of beer and a bottle of whiskey every day, the band were starting to get worried.
With the LSD taking over, so were the live performances. As the Warlocks Pigpen would sing most of the songs in their set, now in the Dead Garcia and Weir were taking over the singing duties. One song in the band’s set that would never be taken away from McKernan was Turn on Your Lovelight, which was a highlight of the live experience.
Doctors did tell McKernan to stop touring with the band as early as 1970 when he started to get ill. They also told him to stop drinking as they thought that was the cause of the liver problems he was having. He did what he was told for about 18 months but couldn’t resist the urge to join the band onstage. Which also brought back the drinking.
By 1972 things weren’t looking too great for McKernan. Just a couple of years prior, one of his closest friends and drinking buddies Janis Joplin had died, which he mourned by doing what he does best, drinking.
Pigpen was losing weight rapidly and had to quit the band he helped get off the ground due to ill health. The Dead were now in control of Jerry Garcia and Bob Welch, and on stage, there were only two or three songs that Pigpen was involved with. He thought the time was right to leave. His last performance was on June 17th at the Hollywood Bowl.
Many thought that the reason Ron McKernan was so ill was because of his excessive drinking but the actual reason was due to a cognitive genial disease. It was a type of cirrhosis that wasn’t affected by drinking and was going to kill him whatever he did to his body. Less than a year after his last performance with the Dead Pigpen had succumbed to his illness.
The band were devastated by the loss of their friend and former bandmate. Garcia said that it was the end of the original Grateful Dead at McKernan’s funeral. They played Pigpen’s ‘standards’ at concerts as a tribute to their friend. They did their best, but the performances were never the same as Pigpen’s.
When a band loses one of its founding members, someone as pivotal as McKernan could spell the end of the band. The Grateful Dead did manage to survive and become even bigger post-Pigpen. The band became iconic during the 1980s with founding member Jerry Garcia given a god-like status. They wouldn’t have ever got anywhere close to that without Pigpen’s influence in the early days.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for eight years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
‘Pigpen’ McKernan Dead at 27 (rollingstone.com)
The Tragic Death Of Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan (grunge.com)
Death Don’t Have No Mercy: Pigpen, Ten Years Gone (Relix Revisited)
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