October 5, 1968 Civic Auditorium, Sacramento, CA: Turtles/Grateful Dead/Family Tree/others (Pigpen Exit?)

The Sacramento Bee of October 3, 1968, announced that The Turtles had replaced Traffic as the headliner of the concert that included the Grateful Dead and others at the Civic Auditorium on October 5

Scholars and fans of the Grateful Dead tend to divide their music into eras. The contours of those eras may be a subject for discussion, but almost everyone would agree that the Dead's music evolved over time, often with a change in emphasis during different periods. While everyone has their own categories, the largest agents for change in the band revolve around the changes in personnel: the arrival, departure and return of Mickey Hart, and the arrival and departure of different keyboard players, too. Yet there was almost another event in 1968 that would have dramatically shaped the Grateful Dead's music: replacing Pigpen with another lead singer. 

Let's be clear: it didn't happen. Stockton's Bob Segarini, formerly of the Brogues and the Family Tree, and later of Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes and a successful solo career as a singer and DJ in Montreal and Toronto, described being asked by Jerry Garcia to consider joining the Grateful Dead as their lead singer. Segarini described this in an interview for the 2007 re-release of the Family Tree's 1968 album. Confusingly, however, he got the date wrong, not surprising after a 38 year gap. Once I sorted out the date issue, however, the entire story makes sense. Segarini said "no," as it happened, which he ruefully called "one more stupid thing I did in my life."

 

Bob Segarini, from Stockton, CA, lead singer of The Family Tree, around 1968

 

Bob Segarini and the Family Tree opened for the Grateful Dead at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium on October 5, 1968. In the previous months, Garcia and the Dead had put Bob Weir and Pigpen on notice that they might be replaced. According to McNally, Weir actually believed that he had been fired. No one ever asked Pigpen about it. Over the years I have focused on the Dead's discreet auditions for other guitarists, but here I will focus on the Pigpen question. Segarini and the Family Tree were old Fillmore regulars, so Garcia knew Segarini's music and history. This post will look backwards and forwards at the possibility of Bob Segarini replacing Pigpen, and what that tells us about Garcia's thinking at the end of 1968.

The Sacramento Bee promoted a picture of Traffic as the headliner for the October 5, 1968 concert with the Grateful Dead, but they were replaced by The Turtles at the last minute

October 5, 1968 Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento, CA: Grateful Dead/The Turtles/Youngbloods/Sanpaku/Initial Shock/Family Tree (Saturday)
On Saturday, October 5, 1968, the Grateful Dead played a show at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium along with several other bands. The show was only modestly successful, with about 2000 seats filled in a 3600 capacity auditorium. We don't have a tape, but we have a brief review. The Grateful Dead probably played about an hour, since they were just one of six groups on the bill. From careful triangulation, however, we can tell that it was in Sacramento that Jerry Garcia asked Bob Segarini to consider joining the Grateful Dead. The fact that Garcia even asked suggests that the Dead were at a far more critical crossroads at the time than has usually been recognized.

In late summer 1968, probably around August, the Grateful Dead had a meeting in which Bob Weir and Pigpen were told that the band found their musicianship wanting. Even though there is a tape of the meeting, the future success of the Grateful Dead made it in everyone's interests to obscure this rocky moment in the band's history. Weir and Pigpen weren't actually fired, since they continued to perform with the band. By October, however, Weir at least (according to Dennis McNally) thought he had been fired and feared that he would soon be out of the band. The Dead were known to have jammed with Vic Briggs of The Animals, Elvin Bishop and David Nelson, among others, without Bob Weir, so you can't say the idea of replacing Weir wasn't in the air. No one ever talks about replacing Pigpen, however, since his later passing made talking about his possible failings too sad.

From late September 1968 through October 1968 we have only one sure Pigpen sighting with the Grateful Dead. The band played a few gigs during this time and had started recording Aoxomoxoa. Pigpen wasn't involved in recording that album at all, to my knowledge, nor does he play with Mickey and The Hartbeats, and he seems to have skipped at least some gigs. Pigpen sang at the September 20, 1968 show in Berkeley and the September 22 show in San Diego, but he does not appear on the October 12 and 13 Avalon shows. We have no tape or setlist for October 11(Avalon), October 18 (Torrance) or October 19 (Las Vegas) but he sings at the Greek Theater on October 20. You can decide for yourself whether Pigpen thought he was being fired and skipped some gigs, or just that we are simply missing his songs. 

We have to assume, by default, that Pigpen was actually at the Sacramento show. Still, the Dead probably only played an hour, as there were six bands on the bill (see below), so perhaps he wasn't. In any case, in the context, consideration of a Pigpen substitute seemed plausible in October 1968, perhaps for the only time in the 1960s.

Mickey and The Hartbeats (booked as "Jerry Garceaaah") on a Matrix flyer, October 8-10, 1968

Fall 1968: Was There A Plan?
In Summer '68, Garcia and Phil Lesh apparently felt that Weir and Pigpen were insufficiently committed to the musical advancement that the other four members were undertaking. Songs like "China Cat Sunflower" were entering the repertoire, and the jamming was getting broader and wider, magnified by the double drummers. The Grateful Dead had lined up Tom Constanten to play organ as soon as his Air Force hitch ended in November. TC had apparently jammed with the Dead as early as Fall 1967. 

As to another guitarist, the Dead were trying out other guitarists from September through December. Although all parties say now that there were no plans to replace Weir, it rings pretty hollow if you've ever known anybody in a band. If your girlfriend is out of town, and you keep inviting other women to go out dancing with you, are you shopping for a new girlfriend? You can say "no" all you want, but why were you going dancing?

On September 21, 1968, the Dead invited both David Crosby and ex-Animals guitarist Vic Briggs up to San Francisco to jam at Pacific Recording. There's a tape. They took two LA guitarists and invited them up to jam, and Weir wasn't there. At the time, neither was known to have a band (Crosby was already making plans with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, but it wasn't public). Both players were more advanced than Weir at that stage. 

On October 8, 9 and 10, 1968, Garcia, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann had played the Matrix as Mickey and The Hartbeats. Elvin Bishop dropped by to jam. Bishop would return for another jam on October 30. Sometime around December, David Nelson was invited to jam with members of the Dead at Pacific Recorders--Bob Weir wasn't there, again--and they tried on "The Eleven." You can't say that the Dead weren't trying out guitarists, not least since they never did anything like this again. They already had a new organist lined up. 

There had been an infamous meeting, around August 1968, taped by Owsley, in which the band's unhappiness with Weir and Pigpen was made known. The tape is as much legend as fact. Still, in the excellent Deadcast episode about Pigpen, Jesse Jarnow found a reliable eyewitness (Mike Dolgushkin) who had heard the tape. Interestingly, there was no mention of Pigpen and Weir actually being "fired." The proposal would seem to be that Weir and Pigpen would continue to write songs and record with the Dead, but not be part of the performing unit. Jarnow speculated that this inexplicable proposal only makes sense if you imagine that the Dead were concerned about their status with Warner Brothers, and felt they still needed to include Pig and Weir as signatories to the recording contract. 

The Pigpen Deadcast makes another point, however. An eyewitness in Archive comments says that Garcia announced from the stage at one of the October Avalon shows that Pigpen was absent because he was home taking care of his sick girlfriend. His longtime partner, Veronica Barnard (known as Vee) had suffered an aneurysm around this time, and Pigpen was taking time to nurse her back to health. So Pigpen's absence from the Dead in this period may have had more to do with personal choice, and not his status with the band. It seems likely that Pigpen wasn't with the band in Sacramento.

If a full transition was under consideration, however, the band would need another lead singer. Sure, I guess the Dead could consider just having Garcia do all the vocals, but that would not only put a huge strain on Garcia's voice, it would have greatly cut down on the range of songs they could consider. None of the guitarists they had tried out had a significant history as a vocalist. Much later in their careers, both Elvin Bishop and David Nelson would become experienced lead singers, as would David Crosby, but they did not present that way in late 1968. So it makes sense that Garcia was looking around for another lead singer.

The Family Tree opened for Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore Auditorium on Saturday, April 2 (Quicksilver Messenger Service opened Friday April 1)

During its existence from 1966-68, the Family Tree only released a single on an obscure label in late 1966, a single on RCA in 1967 and an RCA album around May 1968. They were a successful live band on the West Coast, particularly in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, but since their recorded output was slim, they remain obscure. The Family Tree name is best known from their presence on Fillmore and Avalon posters from 1966, often opening for Quicksilver Messenger Service. Few people who recognize the name, however, know anything of their music. Bob Segarini had been born and raised in Stockton, in Central California, and he had been in the band Ratz, with Gary Duncan, from nearby Ceres, as early as 1965. Duncan (then known by his birth-name Gary Grubb) would wind up in Quicksilver Messenger Service by 1966. Bob Segarini was thus well-entrenched in the San Francisco music scene from its earliest days.

The Family Tree only released two singles, on in 1966 (on Mira) and one on RCA in 1967. They would release the album Miss Butters on RCA in May, 1968, and broke up later that year. With only two singles, an album and some demos, we only have a sketch of what Family Tree sounded like. In general, Segarini found a slot between West Coast folk-rock and Anglo rock and roll. Think of a sweet spot between Buffalo Springfield and The Kinks, and we have at least a hint of the sound of Family Tree.

The Sacramento concert on October 5 was two weeks after the Dead’s jam with Crosby and Briggs, and a few days before the first jam with Bishop at the Matrix. If there was any time Garcia was thinking about a new configuration of the Grateful Dead, it was during this window. The band gets to Sacramento, and Jerry finds his old pal Bob Segarini singing in one of the opening acts, so he hits him up. Before we address the history of Bob Segarini, however, I want to sort out why I am certain that the conversation took place on this date, even though Segarini's own belated account is somewhat different.

Family Tree around 1967, Seagrini in front

Unpacking The Evidence
I was aware of Bob Segarini's assertion that he had been asked to join the Grateful Dead in 2007, when I read the great liner notes to the Rev-Ola Records cd re-release of the Family Tree's only album, Miss Butters. The album had originally been issued by RCA Records in 1968, and the LP had become a collector's item (I myself had never laid eyes on a vinyl copy, and even though I had been aware of it). Steve Stanley's excellent liner notes discuss the story of Segarini and the Family Tree, and they included this intriguing tale:

During this time [ca 1968-70], Segarani had other career opportunities. He recalls just one example: "In 1969, we were opening the Bitter End West on Santa Monica Boulevard. This was during the period between The Family Tree and Roxy. It was Graham Nash, Rita Coolidge, one of the guitarists from Iron Butterfly, Little Richard's drummer. We were opening the show. The Grateful Dead were the headliners. I'd known Jerry [Garcia] for years, and he said, " Do you want to join the band and be the lead singer? And I said "no, I've already got my own thing going.' One more stupid thing I did in my life; I coulda been in the Grateful Dead."

There were a number of confusing things about this story, which made it difficult to process. In simplest terms, although Segarini was between bands in 1969, the Bitter End West was not open until October 1970, so something was wrong with his timeline. Eventually, however, I was able to unpack the details, which I will explain. I am convinced that Segarini is conflating two very real but separate events:

• Opening for the Grateful Dead and being asked to consider joining the band, in October 1968, and
• Opening for the Grateful Dead in West Hollywood on August 28-29, 1970, at Thee Club, later called The Bitter End West. 

I think both these things happened, and Segarini merged them in his mind. He has had a long complicated career, and he was asked 38 years after the fact. 

To deal with the second memory first: In 1970, Segarini formed a band called Roxy, who had released a pretty good debut album on Elektra Records in 1969. On the weekend of August 28-29, 1970, Roxy had opened for the acoustic Grateful Dead at a new "showcase" venue called Thee Club. It was a real Hollywood opening, apparently, with all sorts of stars dropping by. By October '70, the venue had changed its name to the Bitter End West (after the famous Greenwich Village folk club). I wrote about the Dead's appearance at Thee Club at great length in another post. 

When I realized that Family Tree had opened for the Dead in Sacramento, I put all the pieces together. By October of 1968, Family Tree had all but fallen apart, but they had still opened for the Grateful Dead. The next time Segarini would open for the Dead was at Thee Club, and I am asserting that he just merged the two events. 

Animals guitarist Vic Briggs (right), jamming with a friend, probably May 1968

What Might Have Been
I don't want to go too far for down the counterfactual road, but let's at least think about a new-look late 1968 Grateful Dead:

• Garcia, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann
• Another guitarist to duel with Garcia (Vic Briggs, Elvin Bishop, David Nelson or who knows?)
• Tom Constanten on organ
• Bob Segarini on lead and harmony vocals, and maybe some rhythm guitar

Lots of fine 60s bands had significant personnel changes, and they had a wide variety of outcomes, many, though not all, quite favorable  There's no reason that the Alterna-Grateful Dead couldn't have risen to the heights of the one in our timeline, but I'll leave that speculation to you. Now, even if Segarini had said "yes," it was no guarantee that he would have actually ended up replacing Pigpen, and we can imagine scenarios in which Weir remains but Segarini also joins, but we'll leave it to our imagination to consider what that band might have sounded like.

Bob Segarini, with his band The Dudes, late 1970s

Who Is Bob Segarini?
Bob Segarini was raised in Stockton, CA. At about age 16, he dropped out of high school to become a full-time musician. In 1965, he was in a band called The Ratz with guitarist Gary Grubb, from the tiny town of Ceres, near Modesto. The Ratz opened for the Rolling Stones on December 4, 1965 in San Jose. Grubb went on to form The Brogues, and later Quicksilver Messenger Service, using the name Gary Duncan.

Segarini, meanwhile, had formed The Family Tree in early 1966. Members included organist Micheal Olsen and ex-Brogues bassist Bill Whittington, and drummer Newman Davis. The Family Tree played many early gigs at the Fillmore and elsewhere with Quicksvilver Messenger Service. So Segarini had been a regular on the Fillmore scene since its inception. Within a few months, the Family Tree had evolved. Whittington and Mike Olsen left--Olsen becoming famous using the name Lee Michaels--and Segarini was joined by bassist Kootch Trochim, guitarist Mike Dure, organist Jimmy DeCocq and drummer Van Slatter. Initially, Family Tree had signed with tiny Mira Records.

The "Fillmore Scene," such as it was on the West Coast, also existed in parallel with a pre-existing teen circuit with its initial roots in the Pacific Northwest. Bands like the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver only dabbled in that circuit, just playing the occasional high school prom, but there was a lot of money for bands playing the typical teen dance halls. Family Tree did very well from Sacramento through Oregon. They had a regional hit in early 1967 with their only Mira single "Prince Of Dreams." Segarini recalls buying a new 1966 Jaguar XKE with cash from all the money the Family Tree made playing the Northwest. 

The view from the front yard of Bob Segarini and Roxy's house "Cold Red," outside of Stockton in 1969

Segarini has a wonderful blog called Don't Believe A Word I Say, which you can read for yourself. It's very entertaining, and very long (Segarini says it is 1.8 million words and I believe him). I did extract this Grateful Dead story, written in 2012. The timeline seems somewhat garbled--plainly Mr Owsley's fault--but this passage about the house his band was living in 1969, just outside of Stockton, includes a discussion of where they got their acid. From the source, as it happens. Clearly, Segarini was no outsider.

I had come into possession of the acid by way of an acquaintance we had met through The Grateful Dead, whom I had gotten to know during the Family Tree days at the Fillmore and Avalon. Owsley, (Augustus Owsley Stanley, who occasionally went by the name ‘Robert Owsley’ for some strange reason), was not only a fine chemist, but one of the most advanced sound technicians of the day. He spent time both before and after serving time for drugs, as an investor in the Dead, as well as their soundman. At one point, when Roxy was living in L.A, and the Dead were in a rented house there while they were recording, we all went to their place for Chinese food, and found the entire house full of sound equipment and a shitload of big Voice of Theater speakers. Very cool…you either had to sit on the floor and eat, or stand at one of the speaker cabinets and eat. It was so…exotic! 

Miss Butters, the only album by The Family Tree, released on RCA in May 1968

By 1968, an album on Mira hadn't materialized, but RCA had noticed the Family Tree's regional hit, and signed the band to a contract. RCA had been hugely successful with the Jefferson Airplane, so they must have been looking to capitalize on new young bands from the West Coast. The Family Tree recorded Miss Butters with RCA staff producer Rick Jarrard, who had also produced the Airplane. Miss Butters had Beatles-like pop overtones, probably somewhat at odds with the more rocking sound of Family Tree in concert. 

Miss Butters was released in May 1968, but it had no hit single and largely disappeared without a trace. The Family Tree ground to a halt. By October 1968 Kootch Trochim was already playing bass for another Sacramento band (Sanpaku), and the Sacramento Civic show must have been one of Family Tree's last gigs under that name. By early 1969, Segarini and others played under the name Asmodeus, but they didn't play much. Segarini would go on to form Roxy with guitarist Randy Bishop (for more about Segarini's later career, see below). Roxy, too, opened for the Dead at Thee Experience in 1970, but as noted, Segarini seems to have merged the events in the telling.

The September 29 Sacramento Bee listed upcoming concerts. Traffic was the scheduled headliner for Saturday, October 5 (replaced by The Turtles)

Concert Report: October 5, 1968 Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento, CA
The Sacramento show was promoted by Whitey Davis. Davis had been one of Chet Helms' lieutenants at the Avalon in late 66, and had moved up to Oregon. Davis had been the co-proprietor of the infamous Crystal Ballroom in Portland. By Summer '68, however, the Crystal had folded, and Davis turned up in Sacramento. He started booking shows at a place called The Sound Factory, which was supposed to be Sacramento's version of the Fillmore, and working with KZAP-fm, the local underground rock radio station. He also managed the band Sanpaku. The Sacramento Memorial Auditorium was the biggest venue in town, with 3600 seats.

Initially, Traffic had been booked as the headliners. They had been scheduled to open for Cream at the Oakland Coliseum (October 4), and play the ill-fated "San Francisco Pop Festival" outside of Stanford University on October 6. The band had just released their great second album, Traffic, with "Feelin' Alright" and many other classics. Dave Mason abruptly quit the band, however, and all dates were canceled. Instead of Traffic, The Collectors opened for Cream, the San Francisco Pop Festival was moved from Stanford to Pleasanton, and The Turtles replaced Traffic in Sacramento. The Grateful Dead were bumped up to headliners. The Turtles, regardless of their bubblegum-pop hits, were actually a terrific folk-rock group.

With six bands on the bill, every band must have played short sets.  I don't know what advantage Whitey Davis would have seen in booking so many bands.  Only 2000 people attended, so it can't have been a huge success. We do have one  brief review, from Mick Martin in the Sacramento underground paper Pony Express:

In Sacramento, The GRATEFUL DEAD, TURTLES, YOUNGBLOODS, INITIAL SHOCK, SANPAKU, and FAMILY TREE played to a surprisingly small crowd of 2,000. [Memorial Auditorium, 10/5/68] The TURTLES were funny and entertaining. They were a release from the intensely musically innovative atmosphere. Mark Volmann is a comedian, in the truest sense of the word.
The DEAD, INITIAL SHOCK, and SANPAKU were the musical highpoints of the evening. SANPAKU's hornmen are so beautiful, their solos are always different, and yet they build to a completely emotional climax. Their original material is well arranged and worth repeated listens.
INITIAL SHOCK and the DEAD were better than ever and twice as groovy. Both groups always provide me with the feeling that I have heard something worthwhile, and on this night I felt they did exceptional jobs. YOUNGBLOODS were nice, and FAMILY TREE shows promise. It was an enjoyable evening, but I can't wait for Sacramento to get it together and support promoters like Whitey Davis, who really cares about music.

This brief review does not indicate whether Pigpen performed. If so, it would have been the only sighting of him for 30 days. If he wasn't present, it might also have made it easier for Garcia to chat openly with Segarini about replacing him. 

Segarini took a pass. Ultimately, Pigpen returned. Bob Weir never left. Bob Segarini went to LA, then Northern California, then Montreal, then Toronto and had a pretty lively career in the music business. 

Coulda been different. Wasn't. So it goes.

Appendix: Bob Segarini Career Overview
Bob Segarini may not be a major figure, but he's a pretty good rock and roller with a diverse career, and it's still going on. I have sketched out a few highlights here, but this list isn't anywhere near the entire story. For more about Segarini, see his own blog Don't Believe A Word. For a starting point on his extensive catalog, I would recommend Wackering Heights, the 1971 debut album of The Wackers.

The Us
Bob Segarini first surfaces on tape with The Us,  recorded by Autumn Records in Fall '65. San Francisco-based Autumn had scored a hit with The Beau Brummels, and was recording emerging rock bands around the Bay Area, including The Great Society (with Grace Slick) and The Emergency Crew (later to change their names to The Warlocks, and then to something else).

The track "How Can I Tell Her, " written by Segarini, was produced by staff producer Sylvester Stewart, later better known as Sly Stone. I'm not certain if the track was actually released as a single. Segarini was apparently credited as "Cylus Prole," possibly because he wasn't a legal adult yet. The rest of the band was bassist Varsh Hammel, guitarists Jock Ellis and Rueben Bettencourt and drummer Frank Lupica. Lupica, in another instance of convergence, created his "Cosmic Beam" which was the direct inspiration for the instrument built by Dan Healy and Mickey Hart.

"How Can I Tell Her" was released on the 1994 Autumn Records compilation Dance With Me, part of the Nuggets From The Golden State series.

The Ratz
The Ratz were from Stockton, and briefly featured Ceres, CA guitarist Gary Grubb along with Segarini.  Grubb had left The Ratz by the time they opened for the Rolling Stones at the San Jose Civic Auditorium on December 4, 1965.

Grubb would join a Merced band called The Brogues, who were popular in San Jose and the Central Valley, and released a few singles. Grubb and Brogues drummer Greg Elmore had met guitarists John Cippolina and Jim Murray at a Family Dog event at Longshoreman's Hall in October '65. The Brogues ended up breaking up because some members got drafted into the military, so Grubb and Elmore formed a band with their two Marin friends. By 1966, the band was named Quicksilver Messenger Service and Grubb was using the name Gary Duncan.

The Cirque, Hillsboro, OR March 16, 1968. San Francisco's Best, The Family Tree plus The Jefferson Davis Five (Hillsboro is West of Portland)

Family Tree
The Family Tree was founded in early 1966 by Segarini and ex-Brogues bassist Bill Whittington. Also in the initial lineup of Family Tree were drummer Newman Davis and organist Mike Olsen (formerly of the Joel Scott Hill Trio).  The Family Tree played both the early Fillmore circuit and the "teen circuit" in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Segarini knew Gary (Grubb) Duncan, of course, so Family Tree was in on the Fillmore from the very beginning. It's not clear how Segarini had met Jerry Garcia, but it doesn't matter: the San Francisco psychedelic music scene was tiny, with only a few dozen working musicians, and everyone knew each other.

Family Tree had started to attract attention later in 1966. By this time, Mike Olsen had left for a solo career under the name Lee Michaels (Lee's first drummer was Frank Lupica, incidentally). Jim DeCocq joined on keyboards, Vann Slater came in on drums, Danny "Kootch" Trochim replaced Whittington on bass and Mike Dure was added on lead guitar. The Family Tree was signed by Los Angeles based Mira Records, releasing the single "Prince Of Dreams" on Mira in September '66. Additional tracks were recorded for a prospective album, but Mira fell apart. 

Family Tree was increasingly successful on the California/Oregon live circuit, however, and they were picked up by RCA. A single was released by RCA in 1967, and the band recorded the album Miss Butters under the direction of staff producer Rick Jarrard. The rocking side of Family Tree can be heard on the Mira demos from '67, but the RCA album emphasized the poppier side of Segarini's work. Now, to be clear, Segarini had written all the songs and was very much into Beatles-style pop music, so RCA wasn't undermining the band, but all the traces suggest Family Tree rocked much harder in concert than Miss Butters implies. 

Miss Butters was released in May 1968, but made no headway on the charts. Family Tree soldiered on, but ultimately fell apart. The October booking in Sacramento seems to be one of the last for Family Tree. By this time, Kootch Trochim was playing bass for the Sacramento band Sanpaku (also on the bill), and I don't know who else was even in Family Tree by then.

Family Tree discography
Sep 1966 45: Mira Records "Prince Of Dreams"/"Live Your Own Life"
1967 45: RCA Records "Do You Have The Time"/"Keepin A Secret"
May 1968 LP: RCA Records Miss Butters

A Berkeley Barb ad for Berkeley's New Orleans House, February 1969. Sea Train had recently been the reformed Blues Project. The Steve Miller playing the next week is the organist from the band Linn County (and later Elvin Bishop), not the better-known guitarist. A.B. Skhy featured Howard Wales.

Asmodeus
I don't know who was in Asmodeus save for Bob Segarini. They apparently played around in early 1969.

Roxy's only LP, released on Elektra Records in 1969

Roxy
Roxy formed later in 1969, with Jimmy DeCocq (now lead guitar), Randy Bishop (bass, guitar, vocals), James Morris (keyboards) and John McDonald (drums). They released one album on Elektra in 1969. Roxy had a more upbeat sound than Miss Butters. They lasted until late 1970, and opened for the Grateful Dead at least twice. Roxy opened for the Dead in Phoenix on March 8, 1970, and then for the acoustic Grateful Dead at the Thee Club in August 1970 (Thee Club changed its name shortly afterwards to the Bitter End West). 

The Wackers
In late 1970, Segarini and Bishop abandoned Roxy, who had ground to a halt. They moved themselves up to the far-Northern California outpost of Eureka, CA. For those not familiar with the geography, Eureka is 270 miles North of San Francisco, and though near to the Oregon border, it is still 400 miles South of Portland. It was (and remains) completely detached from the California music scene. Segarini knew the region from his success with Family Tree, but moving to Eureka wasn't an obvious career move.

Segarini and Bishop formed The Wackers, along with drummer Earnie Earnshaw, Michael Stull (keyboards, guitar and vocals) and returning bassist Kootch Trochim. Wackering Heights, the bands first album on Elektra, had great harmonies in the popular vein of Crosby, Stills and Nash, but propelled by short, catchy songs with a beat. 

In 1972, after the band's second album Hot Wacks, The Wackers relocated to Montreal, Quebec. They drove there in an old VW bus. Elektra released their third album, Shredder later in 1972. The Wackers, stayed in Montreal, building up a following in Canada.

The Dudes 1975 Columbia Records album

The Dudes
The Wackers had some personnel changes after Shredder, including some Canadian musicians. By 1974, The Wackers were gone, and Segarini had formed The Dudes, with Kootch on bass and some Canadian players. In 1975, Columbia released The Dudes debut We're No Angels, but the band fell apart.

Gotta Have Pop, Bob Segarini's first solo album, released on Bomb Records in 1978

Gotta Have Pop-Bob Segarini
Since The Dudes fell apart, Segarini went solo. His first album Gotta Have Pop was released in 1978. He went on to have an extensive solo career in Canada, which I will not attempt to summarize here.

In 1982, Segarini began a successful career as a dj at the Toronto fm station CHUM. As near as I can tell, he is better known as a radio personality in Canada than as a singer, though of course the two careers are merged.

 

Pigpen Solo Projects 1969, 1971, 1973 (Why?)

The vast scholarship on the music of the Grateful Dead is deeply entwined with the emotional investment of its scholars. Their feelings about the Dead's music play an essential role in the way the band's musical legacy is interrogated. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan is a foundational part of that legacy, and yet, for all his importance, The Pig remains just beyond the edge of accessible. Sure, we have plenty of tapes of his performances, and some photos and video, but Grateful Dead scholars treat him with a reverence that is not accorded to other band members.

The Grateful Dead had a relatively small audience in the 1960s, so not that many people actually saw Pigpen in concert. Those that did were often fairly young, and just figuring out the Dead on their own, so however impressed they may have been, they often didn't quite grasp all that Pigpen brought to the table when he busted out of a difficult "Dark Star" jam with a blazing "Turn On Your Lovelight." Even the members of the Dead themselves, an unsentimental lot on the whole, turn mystical and rhapsodic when the subject of "the mighty Pig"--as Phil Lesh called him--is invoked. So Pigpen, though revered, remains oddly unexamined.

Everyone who knew Pigpen said that he was the least interested of any of the band in being a "rock star." In Jerry Garcia's words, Pigpen didn't have "the celebrity head." Pig loved music, worked hard, was loyal to his mates, but on some level he wasn't really interested in success. Interested in music, yes; interested in not having a real job, yes; but interested in being a revered icon? No. So why then were there Pigpen solo projects? There were two or three, depending on how you want to count, and they are at odds with everything we know about Pigpen. So it is time to examine the not-unknown but still ephemeral Pigpen solo projects from 1969, 1971 and 1973 to see what they can tell us about Ron McKernan and his relationship to the Grateful Dead.

Heavy, Iron Butterfly's 1968 debut album. Lead singer Darryl DeLoach had left the group before the hugely successful Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida was released later that year

Pigpen and The Grateful Dead
In the early 60s, rock and roll was a strange, rebellious enterprise. The few people who were interested in such a thing hardly knew anyone else who cared, or had a way to connect to them. Most mid-60s rock bands were initially formed as a group of like-minded friends, often with widely varying talent. The original bassist for The Beatles, for example, was John Lennon's best friend, Stuart Sutcliffe. He was a talented artist, apparently, but no musician, so Paul McCartney had to switch over from guitar. That worked out ok in the end, fortunately. The Warlocks bass player was the son of the music store owner where much of the band worked, but he was no bassist either. In this case, a friend was drafted as much for like-mindedness as musicianship, and certainly Phil Lesh had never played guitar, or bass. Still, that too worked out in the end. Most 60s rock bands had such stories in the early days, of musicians hired for their haircut or suitable attitude.

However, rock music changed dramatically from 1965 to 1968, and that led to another series of changes in plenty of bands, even ones who had records. Since a lot of bands were mainly a group of friends that stuck together, they played whatever music they liked, rather than having any sort of plan. But that sometimes meant that a band changed so much that original members didn't fit in. Many mid-60s "British Invasion" style bands were modeled on groups like the Rolling Stones, with a lead singer trying to emulate R&B singers. Yet within a few years, extended jams and long solos were more typical, and lead singers were more dispensable. Many lead singers found themselves pushed out after an early album or two. To name just one example, the original Iron Butterfly featured lead singer Darryl DeLoach, and he was on the band's first album, Heavy. However, as the band evolved into playing longer songs, the other band members could cover the vocals, and DeLoach was nudged aside. Thus by the time Iron Butterfly had a 1968 smash with "Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida," one of the biggest hits of all time, DeLoach was just another struggling singer in LA without a band.

Pipgen very nearly followed the path of Darryl DeLoach. Pigpen was essential to the Warlocks and the early Grateful Dead, as a singer, an organ player and a personality. By the beginning of 1968, the Grateful Dead were playing some difficult music, and for all that Pigpen had been musically ahead of most band members at the beginning, he had largely fallen behind. All Deadheads know that there was a famous Summer '68 band meeting when Pigpen and Bob Weir were all but fired from the group. Both of them managed to hang on, but Pigpen's role was hugely diminished. His role as organ player was taken over by Tom Constanten, and while he still sang some key rave-ups, like "Turn On Your Lovelight," the 1969 Grateful Dead played far fewer blues covers, which had been the bulk of Pig's stage repertoire. It was a credit to both Pigpen and the Dead that Pigpen was not simply forced aside, like Darryl DeLoach. Weir could have sang "Lovelight," and everyone else would have been sharing Pigpen's piece of the financial pie. So there is some reason to think that for all the band's personal loyalty to Pig, he had a peculiar adjunct status that no other band member did. Thus the recurring idea of a Pigpen solo project fits in with Pigpen's musical contributions: part of the Grateful Dead, but not quite the same.

The Sir Douglas Quintet's second album for Mercury (on the Smash imprint) was Mendocino, released in April 1969. The success of the hit single and album justified Mercury's investment in numerous SF bands at the time

1969 Sessions for Mercury Records
The first and most mysterious of the Pigpen solo projects is the 1969 recording, ostensibly from Mercury Studios. Nothing is really known directly of this project, but LightIntoAshes, as always, has done stellar work in finding out the details. "I’m a Lovin’ Man" is a slickly produced country song sung by Pigpen and Weir. Garcia plays pedal steel, and John Tenney plays fiddle. Also circulating on tape was an instrumental version of Buck Owens’ song "I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)"  again with Garcia on pedal steel and Tenney on fiddle. LIA contacted the violinist on the session, veteran Bay Area musician John Tenney, who recalled:

In late 1969 I played fiddle on a song called ‘I'm a Lovin' Man’ for a proposed Pigpen solo album. Jerry, Pigpen and Weir were playing. The bass player was Dennis Parker (on my recommendation), then with a SF band called All Men Joy. The drummer was Scott Morris. The song was written by Clancy Carlile, a novelist, songwriter and honkytonk guitarist/singer with whom I was playing in a country band. (He was involved in the production.) The session was at Pacific High Recording. My recollection is that Pigpen's album was maybe going to come out on Mercury or its subsidiary Smash. Mercury had a strong presence in San Francisco at the time, with its own studio. The producer I think was one Bob Serempa, a local A&R man with Mercury. I don't know why he used Pacific High for the recording, except that the Mercury studio was very busy with people like the Sir Douglas Quintet at the time.

Bob Serempa, as LIA points out, was not just a Mercury A&R man, but their Director Of West Coast Operations. Mercury Records, though late to the party in San Francisco, had come in hard to SF and had signed a dozen bands in 1968. They had even opened their own studio on 1340 Mission Street, and indeed Dan Healy was doing a lot of contract work for Mercury. However, another scholar queried Dan Healy for me, and Healy corrected the record somewhat:

This is too much for me to write about now but I will sit down with you when we have a chance and you can get my info about it. That version of "Lovin' Man" was written by Doug Sahm and it wasn't PHR, it was Columbus Recorders (basement ot the Flatiron on Columbus Ave) owned by Frank Werber and the Kingston Trio. The story goes on, but not here. Serenpa was the West Coast Mercury "director," but not really a so-called A&R guy.

Yet this still leaves the question, raised by LIA, as to why was Pigpen recording not only country music, but recording for Mercury when the band was signed to Warner Brothers. We can do nothing but speculate, but a few key factors come into consideration. As always, the key to unlocking inexplicable Grateful Dead activities can be turned with a simple question: where's the money? Why would Bob Serempa, a senior Mercury Records director, pay to record members of the Grateful Dead for a solo project, when the band was under contract to another label? And why would Mercury use an inferior studio, when they had their own studio right there in San Francisco?

The only answer that makes sense is that the recordings were demos for a future project, and that Mercury expected to be able to sign the Grateful Dead, or at least Jerry Garcia. The band members themselves were fairly naive about their contract status in 1969, but in fact manager Lenny Hart was negotiating with Warner Brothers for an extension, without telling the band. Otherwise, the band might have been free agents. Serempa and Mercury may have known this--indeed, Lenny Hart may have told him--and Serempa may have wanted to evaluate the Dead in the studio while also building up some good will with Jerry Garcia. Thus hiring old buddy Dan Healy to engineer the sessions was smart business, and using the somewhat inferior Columbus Recorders was ok, since the sessions were not necessarily going to yield an album. Calling the sessions a "Pipgen solo album" would have provided a little bit of polite cover in case Warner Brothers heard about it.

Keep in mind also that Garcia, Weir and Pigpen would have been paid for the sessions, probably about $90 for a three hour session. Whoever was designated the "leader" got $180. So if the band members spent a couple of days in the studio, doing four 3-hour sessions, for example, they would have ended up with several hundred dollars. Did they cash the checks? Lenny might have, and not told them. This would also explain why the other band members could be safely left out of the payday, if Lenny had arranged some peculiar pay scheme. Certainly Phil Lesh has alluded to the fact that the 1969 Dead members were not good at playing with non-Dead musicians. Dennis "Funky" Parker, a great bassist, would have been a far better choice in 1969 than Phil Lesh, who by his own admission, was completely idiosyncratic.

Why would Mercury go to all this trouble? It's easier to ask why they wouldn't. Record companies were making money hand over fist in 1969, and signing the right artist could be a gold mine. Warner Brothers, for example, has certainly benefited over the decades from the fact that Lenny Hart extended the Grateful Dead's deal in 1969 for three more years, rather than letting it expire. It was common practice for record companies to throw money around to favored artists, in the hopes of merely getting them to consider signing with them at a later date. Columbia's Clive Davis essentially signed the New Riders Of The Purple Sage (who in the end made a lot of money for CBS) in order to get in Garcia's good graces. This did not pay off until around 5 years later--although just for Clive Davis, not for Columbia--, when the Dead finally signed with Davis and Arista. At the same time, Warner Brothers signed Mickey Hart to a three-album deal. Once the Dead went independent, however, Warners rejected Hart's last two albums. 

Mercury Records had come into San Francisco late and big. By 1968, all of the legendary bands from the city had been signed. Nonetheless, Mercury signed pretty much anyone with long hair, and ended up with a dozen bands on their roster. Some of them are awfully obscure--raise your hand if you have ever heard the Fifty Foot Hose album--but one of them was a giant success. Doug Sahm, exiled from Texas and pop stardom due to an untimely 1966 pot bust, was an Avalon back marker when he signed with Mercury. He reformed his Sir Douglas Quintet (some original band members had finally gotten off probation from the bust) and they had a giant hit with "Mendocino." The money Mercury made on "Mendocino" made up for all the other bands, by a huge margin. Mercury thus got as much Return-On-Equity as Columbia, Warners, Capitol or RCA, even if the Fifty Foot Hose barely sold anything. Dropping a few thousand in the hopes that there could be a play in the future for Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead? No problem--he could have had a sixty-foot hose, if he had wanted one.

Yet what about Pigpen? Pig apparently had a good feel for honky-tonk style country music, and Doug Sahm usually wrote in a bluesy style, so that fits. Buck Owens seems to be a Jerry touch, but certainly Buck owed plenty to R&B and Chuck Berry, even if Buck didn't wear it on his sleeve. At the very least, Mercury seemed to be using a song by its own artist, perhaps in the hope of getting some publishing money out of a future deal. The session actually makes musical sense, but it's hard not to see Jerry as the driver, rather than Pigpen. The fact that so little is known or recalled about these sessions suggests some Lenny Hart maneuvering. Dan Healy may be the last one who remembers what was actually intended, and hopefully he will tell the story sometime. In any case, it does not seem that there was an actual Pigpen album really intended, since there was neither a signed contract nor a plan. 

It made sense for Warner Brothers to release a Jerry Garcia album, but not a Mickey Hart one. No matter--Warners released it anyway, because that's how record companies worked back then

1971--The Year Of Solo Albums
By 1971, Sam Cutler had the Grateful Dead ship sailing in safer waters. The Dead had toured hard in 1970, and they had also recorded two FM-friendly albums on time and under budget. The Dead weren't rich rock stars yet, but they had graduated from all living communally on a ranch, nor were they just driving leased Ford Cortinas. Band members were starting to see the middle class, if it was still a bit down the road. However, with the first trappings of success, the Dead would also have started to see how the early 70s record industry distorted their individual finances.

The Grateful Dead covered their expenses and made payroll thanks to their extensive touring. However, touring itself was expensive--plane tickets, gear, road crew--so it was hard to get a really big payout just from playing every college gym on the Eastern seaboard. Since Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were good selling records, the band members would have been starting to see some money from them. However, the money would initially have been skewed towards the songwriters rather than the band members.

All 60s record contracts basically required the band to pay back the expenses of recording the album before the band saw any money. Thus an expensive record like Aoxomoxoa would not see any royalties for many years. An album like Workingman's probably broke even fairly quickly, but of course any other advances had to be paid back as well, and in any case the Warner Brothers accountants were not going to do the Dead any favors either. So royalty money probably just trickled in to the general ledger.

However, songwriting royalties came from the publishing company, which in the case of Ice-Nine was ASCAP. Actually explaining how ASCAP royalties were generated is too much of a diversion, even for this blog--notwithstanding you wouldn't believe it--but in general the revenue came from a portion of radio station ads that went to the music publishers like ASCAP, who in turn sent some to the writers. Thus, as soon as Workingman's Dead started to receive substantial airplay, Ice-Nine Publishing and the individual songwriters would have started to get money, long before royalties from Warners, since the band would not yet have recouped the costs. Ice-Nine money went into the general ledger, but Garcia and Robert Hunter had written all the songs for Workingman's, so they would have gotten the most money the quickest.

It doesn't take Fernand Braudel to figure out that the next Grateful Dead album would feature songwriting credits for more than just Garcia. Hunter wrote all the lyrics for American Beauty, but Weir, Lesh and Pigpen wrote music. Hunter, in fact, wrote the lyrics for "Operator," and may have written some of the music, too, but at Pigpen's request he assigned the copyright to Pigpen. Hunter has never regretted giving away the credit, but the fact that Pigpen asked means that he was acutely aware of the financial benefits of composing a song on a hit album.

Over the course of relentless touring in 1971, the members of the Grateful Dead were writing songs in anticipation of various future recording projects. These songs would turn up in the live repertoire as the band found time to rehearse them. All of the band members were preparing for an unscheduled but forthcoming Grateful Dead studio album. However, because the Dead chose to go independent, no studio album was recorded, and live versions of the band's new songs were put on Grateful Dead and Europe '72.

Pigpen was no different than Weir or Garcia, in that he must have seen that the direct path to income was including songs on forthcoming albums. Pigpen wrote four songs that were actually performed by the Grateful Dead, "Mr. Charlie" (with Hunter, debuted Jul 31 '71), "Empty Pages" (debuted Aug 23 '71), "Chinatown Shuffle" (debuted Dec 31 '71) and "Two Souls In Communion" (aka "The Stranger," debuted Mar 21 '72). No such studio album was ever recorded, to the disappointment of Robert Hunter (not to mention the rest of us), but if it had, Pigpen would have surely had a track or two. In any case, "Mr. Charlie" made it onto Europe '72, released in November of that year.

The other dynamic for both the Grateful Dead and the record industry as a whole was the rise of the solo album. By 1971, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young had shown that fans could appreciate solo albums without thinking that a band had "broken up," so record companies encouraged solo albums by band members under contract. In many cases, these solo albums were considered part of the band's deal with the record company. Bob Weir's Ace, for example, was considered a Grateful Dead album per the Warners contract. Of course, there were numerous other attractions to solo albums, both for the record company and the artist. Record companies found it easier to deal with and promote a solo artist, thus avoiding band politics, and artists in turn found that they could get more money and have considerably less hassle. Both Garcia (July 1971) and Weir (May '72) had released solo albums, and a Pigpen album made perfect sense. Pigpen had some original tunes, and along with some covers and maybe some help from the ever prolific Hunter, a pretty cool album could have materialized.

Oakland Tribune, September 8, 1971

The most tantalizing hint of such a project was a little known advertisement for a Pigpen solo gig, at an obscure bar in San Francisco, which I first unearthed some years ago. As near as I can tell, The Gold Club was at 56 Gold Street, an alley in North Beach, near Jackson Street, between Montgomery and Sansome. I think the Gold Club was the former Assay Office back in Gold Rush days, and the alley and the club got that name. I believe it was a gay bar in the 80s and 90s, and it is currently Bix Restaurant. While I am sure the building has been remodeled, current pictures on the link gives us an idea of the contours of the interior.

The idea, apparently, was that Pigpen would sing and play harmonica, backed only by Merl Saunders on organ and piano. Regular contributor LightIntoAshes found a quote from Merl Saunders, who explained the genesis of the idea:

I started hanging out at this club with Jerry and that is where I first met Pigpen. We only lived four blocks from each other... I had heard about Pigpen but I had never met him.I was into Jimmy Smith and the Hammond Organ sound. Jerry and I started playing The Keystone in Berkeley and Ron and the rest of the guys would come down. Ron would sit in with us and I was always trying to get him to play keyboards. He would say “No, I just want to play my harmonica behind your organ playing.” That is how we got it going. We had actually discussed doing a thing together with piano, organ and harmonica. There was a little club off of Broadway in North Beach that was going to hire us, but unfortunately it never happened.

Leaving aside, for a moment, the tantalizing subject of Pigpen sitting in with Garcia/Saunders at Keystone Berkeley--hitherto unknown to us--Merl's remark gives us a hint to what might have been considered. The key to me is not imagining the Merl and Pig show, cool as that would have been, but the idea of Pigpen as a solo performer.

By September 1971, Jerry Garcia had released his Warner Brothers solo album, and the Ace project for Bob Weir had probably been agreed to in principle. Given the record industry at the time, a corresponding Pigpen solo project would have made a lot of sense. If Merl Saunders was on board to shepherd the execution, it could have been a cool album. We know Pigpen was working on his own material, Hunter could have been counted on for a song or two, and there would have been an infinite universe of covers to choose from. If Merl was running the sessions, Jerry Garcia would surely have been there, and Bill Kreutzmann wouldn't have been far behind.

However this was conceived, it never happened. The most important issue, of course, was that Pigpen's health was in serious jeopardy, and he stopped playing with the Dead until December of 1971. Secondarily, there's no evidence that Pigpen himself wanted to make a solo album. It would have made a lot of sense to Jon McIntire, but not particularly to Pig. Garcia and Weir both had the "celebrity head," and were interested in what they could do without having to conform to the tastes of other band members. Pipgen, by contrast, never evinced such interests. Certainly, Pigpen wanted to have the financial rewards of his own song (or two) on the next Dead album, but little did he know that it was some ways away. A Merl Saunders produced album by Pigpen was a great idea, and Warner Brothers surely would have financed it (they financed a Mickey Hart album, after all),  but it wasn't in Pigpen's head. So no such thing happened.

Wake Of The Flood was recorded in August 1973 and released in November

1973-The Last Go Round
We all know the story. Pigpen had to go off the road in Fall '71, while Keith Godchaux became the piano player. Pig reappeared in December of 71, but his health still wasn't great. Supposedly, he was told that going on the Europe '72 tour in the Spring would endanger his health, but Pig went anyway. After the tour, and one final appearance at the Hollywood Bowl (June 17 '72), where he didn't even sing, Pigpen went off the road for the last time. Everyone in the band thought it was liver problems from his extensive drinking, but in fact it was an auto-immune disease (the liver problems were triggered by the auto-immunity failure, apparently). The assumption, however, was that if Pigpen "got healthy" by staying off the road and not drinking, he would be OK--whatever that meant. By all accounts, he did make a genuine effort to be as healthy as possible.

Given the record industry at the time, a Pigpen solo album seemed like a logical choice. The band was regularly quoted to that effect (via LIA)

Bob Matthews: “In the last couple of years of his life he was being encouraged to do an album by both the band and the record company. I had him set up with my own little portable Ampex half-inch 4-track machine and a little Ampex 2-channel, 4-microphone mixer…it allowed him to overdub. But I never heard any of the stuff he did with it.”
Alan Trist: “During that period when he wasn’t on the road with the band he was actually working on an album, working on songs. Around that time, the solo album thing really took off – Jerry was the first, then Weir, and Mickey, and Pigpen was right in there too. He was working up songs, planning it out. I remember going over to his house a couple of times and hearing odd tapes that he played. His way of projecting the blues through his singing was so soulful and authentic, whether it was with the Grateful Dead or by himself at home.” 

Weir said in ’72, “Pigpen, if health permits, will be coming up with some surprises pretty quickly. His album is still in the future. It’s not a concrete reality yet. He’s written some very good songs, but…he’s not ready to do an album yet.” 

This is the story that is repeated over and over. Pigpen wasn't a working member of the Dead, but he was "working on a solo album." Various tapes have circulated with labels like "Pipgen demos." It's a nice story. But there seems to have been a lot of wishful thinking attached to it. Pigpen didn't want his own project--he never did. Merl Saunders would have been happy to work on album with him, and it would have been good, but Pigpen never initiated that. I think the band members comforted themselves about Pipgen's exile by saying "he was working on an album." That had worked for Mickey Hart, who didn't lack for drive and ideas, but that wasn't Pigpen. He still saw himself, now and forever, as one of the Grateful Dead.

Rock Scully, always a complicated figure in Grateful Dead narratives, nonetheless seems to have hit the nail on the head (via LIA)

According to Rock Scully: “I don’t think it was really going to be a solo album. I think the way he looked at it was it was going to be part of a Dead album. He wanted three songs on a Dead album. A couple of them were beautiful. He didn’t have enough for a whole album; he wanted [to be on] a Dead album again. He’d worked up a couple of really nice songs. They were a little sad, but with Jerry’s influence I think they could have worked beautifully with the Grateful Dead.”

Remember, in Fall '72, the Grateful Dead had abandoned their contract with Warner Brothers, and refused to sign with Columbia or anyone else, because they had chosen to go independent. For the likes of Jerry Garcia, this meant he could release solo albums and projects to his heart's content. No doubt the original architecture of Grateful Dead and Round Records included an idea for a Pigpen solo album, but I don't think it was shared by Pigpen. He wanted to sing on the next Dead album, whenever that was.

In late 1972 and early 1973, while Pigpen was still alive and apparently "doing well," the Dead had rehearsed a batch of new songs. By February 1973, most of those songs were in the live repertoire. Although the band still owed one more album to Warner Brothers--Bear's Choice covered that--they would soon be free. Plans must have been afoot for the recording of the next Grateful Dead studio album. I have to think Pigpen wanted to be in on that.

And really, it would have been fun. In early '73, the band members probably realized it was going to be a long time, if ever, before Pigpen could have more than a limited studio role with the Grateful Dead. Of course, they didn't know how sick he really was, but hindsight is 20/20--at the time, they would have thought that Pigpen just needed a couple of years off the road. If they were planning a Fall '73 album on Grateful Dead Records, it would have been cool if Pigpen was on board to sing a song. I have to think that it was at least generally on the band's mind, even if they don't talk about it now.


My own opinion, unsupported by any evidence, is that if Pigpen's health had allowed, he would have had a song on Wake Of The Flood, but it wouldn't have been "The Stranger" or any of his other songs. I think it would have been "Loose Lucy." The song was written and rehearsed in early 73 with a much slower arrangement, and it seems custom made for Pigpen. To be clear, I can't remotely prove this. However, Hunter had facilitated Pigpen before, with "Easy Wind" and "Operator"--why not "Loose Lucy"? Pig could have put his own inimitable stamp on it, probably a lot more bawdy than Garcia's, and both songwriters would have cheerily added the mighty Pig to the writing credits.

It wasn't to be. Pigpen died on March 8, 1973, to the shock of his friends and bandmates. They thought he was in ill health, but had been cleaning up his act. Little did they know that his auto-immune disorder was the problem, not particularly his history of excessive drinking. The band moved on. "Loose Lucy" dropped out of the rotation. It re-appeared a year later, much faster, at a tempo that suited Jerry but not Pigpen. but that hardly mattered anymore.

Coda
Ron "Pigpen" McKernan is a touchstone of Grateful Dead philology, but few of the Grateful Dead philologists have ever seen him in person. Given Pigpen's importance in the band's history, we all take at face value his critical importance to the Grateful Dead. Yet at times, we refuse to see the evidence in front of us. In an era when even drummers got to record solo albums, Pigpen--a vibrant singer, a pretty good songwriter and a knowledgeable blues enthusiast--regularly refused every opportunity to go out on his own. The band members and family members hoped and wished that Pig would make his own record, but he never showed any inclination. More's the pity. The history of would-be Pigpen solo projects tells us more about the band and their wishes for their friend and bandmate than about the subject himself.

October 26, 1966 North Face Ski Shop, Broadway, San Francisco Grateful Dead

The North Face Ski Shop was a hip boutique on Broadway in North Beach, right next to Carol Doda and The Condor. The North Face pioneered expensive sports wear as everyday wear for the active groovy person, like Eddie Bauer or Esprit. In fact, the founders of The North Face, Doug and Susie Tompkins, went on to found Esprit, which they sold in 1990 for a substantial amount of money. Initially a mail order company, they opened stores in North Beach and Stanford Shopping Center in 1966, showing their uncanny knack for anticipating markets.

At the North Beach store, the Grateful Dead apparently played, along with a fashion show featuring Joan Baez and Mimi Farina. I assume they just played a few numbers. It was a Wednesday, and while North Beach was pretty raucous they probably had some informal limit on how long they could make noise in a non-approved venue. Nonetheless, the mixture of cool fashion for young people and cool bands for young people is a winner which gets you into the Society Pages. Here is a photo of the event from the October 31, 1966 San Francisco Chronicle, which features Mrs. George Fox, "Pigpen" of the Grateful Dead, Mrs. Doug Tompkins and Peggy Knickerbocker. Mr. Pen does not seem to be wearing North Face apparel, but he seems to be enjoying himself, sort of.

September 9, 1971 Gold St Club, San Francisco: Pigpen

A remarkable listing in the September 8, 1971 Oakland Tribune says “Ron McKernan, better known as “Pigpen” of the Grateful Dead, will make his first solo performance in concert at in the Gold St. Club in San Francisco tomorrow night at 9:30.”

I wonder if this even happened, as I have never even heard a rumor about Pig playing solo. I wonder if there is even a rehearsal tape, even if he never played. I know nothing about the venue either.

Gold Street in San Francisco is in North Beach, near Jackson between Montgomery and Sansome.