Ron “Pigpen” McKernan Episode 1: Fueled by Thunderbird, Taught by a Nine-Fingered Wizard, and Saving Woodstock

his time. Another twelve would be the age he was when he became a fixture in blues clubs in and around Paulo, Alto, where it wouldn't be too long before he was consuming more than music. Three more would be the number of years he'd study under a nine fingered banjo wizard, honing his craft and becoming a fully realized musician. Another six would be the numb umber of Grateful Dead members not named pig Pen who were tripping out during the bad vibrations of the band set at Woodstock before

Pigpen came to their rescue. And one would be the number of decades that would elapse between Pigpen's first appearance on stage and last appearance on Earth. All totally on this our first episode of season five, A disc jockey Dad a nine fingered wizard, Bad Vibrations at Woodstock and the Grateful Dead's Ron Pigpen mccarnew. I'm Jake Brennan in this is the Seven Club, Yeah, m M. I fucking

told him it wouldn't work. It was the second night of the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, and Augustus Osley Stanley, the third a k. A Bear was furious. The Grateful Dead's audio engineer and the creator and purveyor of some of the finest LSD produced on the planet, stopped his

way towards the stage. He moved past the mud pit that had formed up front, past the dirt stained blankets, peace sign banners and American flags, past the roaming docks to see if ty dyed trippers, some of them completely nude, some underage, and almost all wide eyed from the acid that was being distributed by hand. What a fucking scene. Bare thought. It was impressive, or reveren and inspirational all at once, was also becoming somewhat disturbing. The entire three

day concert had been mismanaged. Tickets have been monumentally oversold, and there were ten mile traffic backups that forced the groups that were playing to be airlifted into the venue by helicopters, and the driving rain the night before was lingering, causing constant delays. The audience was soaked to the bone.

Oh in the forty ft rotating circle of a stage that the Woodstock stage hands had been championing all day, the one that was built to make things move faster, the one they had assured Bear would work, wasn't and now it was getting dark. The equipment had been carefully set up, prepared for the Dead, and just moments after the stage began to rotate, it all came crashing down. Everything had to be reset. Bear had just about enough of the stage ants. Fund Did they know about the

Dead's gear, he told them. If he told him that the Dead didn't travel with the ordinary amount of equipment, he told them that as soon as the instruments and amplifiers had been put into place, stage wouldn't stand a chance. And now here they were a busted stage, a piste off band, and yet another delay. Baar didn't care about peace and love. He just wanted the ship to work. The Dead who had arrived the night before were also becoming more than a little disquieted by the scenes surrounding them.

They had to be flown into old man Yasker's farm via helicopter. In the free spirited commune they had seen the previous day was now a sea of mud covered freaks. Save for the organist and singer pig Pen, the band had all immersed themselves on the drug of choice, high quality LSD. Pig never touched the stuff, who wasn't about to start now, and the rest of the band were flying high, compounding the intensity of the situation, and they

did all. However, insists that Bear rewire everything and the sound had to be perfect, and they weren't about to blow another major gig, not after their epic whiff at the Monterey Pop Festival two summers earlier, so Bear Owsley went to work. He determined that the p A provided was insufficient and made some choice alterations, including removing a fifty ft electrical grounding that was no longer actually grounded

in any semblance of dry earth. Amongst the muddy mess at the six acres of the festival's side had become and by the time the dad's friend Ken Babs the Mary Prankster who had arrived on can Kesi's further bus and who had most definitely been drinking the kool aid, took the stage to introduce The Dead. The show was once again well behind schedule. The crowd had been treated to the booge rock of Can't Heat in the driving blues of Mountain, and they were in desperate need of

a nice mellow out. As the Grateful Dead tuned their guitars and checked over their equipment, Ken Babs tried to calm the crowd, commenting on how far out and beautiful it was that so many people could come together like this. Crowd knew what the scene was. They had created the scene. They didn't give a ship what Ken id to say about the scene. This wasn't Kesi's acid test. They just wanted the music to start again. They wanted to hear the Grateful Dead mid peak. They were ready right now.

The crowd, in their agitated state, grew louder as The Dead prepared to play. Now a full forty five minutes behind schedule, things were already off to a bad start. Just that a voice boomed over the p A A voice not from anyone on stage, a voice from somewhere dark Hidden. Would everybody please sit down, let the people behind you have a chance to see the show. Just relax those muscles in your legs and sit down for a few minutes. Please. Where was this intervention coming from?

Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead's rhythm guitars, stepped to his microphone and felt an electric shock surged straight to his core. The mic was ungrounded. Bob jumped back five ft and hollered in pain. The power went out on the entire stage and the band was shook. This wasn't supposed to be a bad trip. This was supposed to be a celebration, conquest, a culmination of the last few years of free love and free music. This trip hadn't been all that long yet,

but it was already plenty strange. When the power finally returned, Ken Babbs tried once more to calm the delirious crowd, and this time the Dead were mercifully ready. It was about ten thirty on a Saturday night. One of the best fucking rock groups in the world, the Grateful Dead. The Dead fell right into the cosmic opening chords of their newest single, Sat Stephen and to the Rain, Soaked and Acid, So crowd of four thousand tie died freaks and front of them it sounded like heaven. This is

what they have been waiting for. But the Dead weren't quite as excited about the prospect of what was to come next. As they got into a groove, their gear buzzed and tinkled. It was like Russian roulette with their instruments. Who would be the next member of the group to get fried by an errand fault of electricity. The weather

wasn't getting any better either. In the stage, which sat on a foundation of mud, now seemed to be sliding forward like an apathetic glacier, ready to indiscriminately crush the people packed like sardines in front of it. The Dead cut Saints even short to calm the negative vibrations, instead deciding to run for the safety of one of their go to cover tun Tomorrow, Haggard's Mamma tried blazing through

the country classic with perfectly placed harmonies. The Dead seemed to have the show back on track, but as they prepared for their third song, their amps lost power one by one, and then the lights went out. That same mysterious voice floated out over the crowd via the p a system speaking and indistinguishable sentences. What the hell was going on? Was everyone on this trip? Where did the Dead get some of that brown acid that was going around?

Bear Owsley scrambled around the stage, resetting the amps. Eventually the Dead were back on track and powered forward with an inspired fourteen minute version of Dark Star, and didn't stop even when Phil Lush's basse amp began to pick up muffled helicopter chap. The Dead were desponded another big show and another bust. There was only one man who could take the boys home now and what time they

had left in their set? Ron Pigpen mccernitt. Pig step forward with his cowboy hat pulled low, a cigarette in his hand, wearing the same leather vest he seemingly hadn't changed in four years. The real McCoy Phil thumped out the opening baseline of Bobby Bland's Turn on Your Lovelight. Jerry and Bob joined our guitar, then Tom Constantant on keyboards, and then Mickey Hard and Bill Krutzman on drums and Justice pig Pen was about to step up to the mic.

An audience member absolutely fried from too much sun and too many drugs, got up on stage, commandeered the mic and started rapping over the Deads groove. The Dead didn't give a ship at this point, screw it. Let the guy in the audience do his thing. He was vibing, and honestly, his rap was pretty far out. Nothing was in the band's control anymore, and they were ready to get off stage, getting the helicopter and get the funk out of Dodge. That is until Pigpens deep soulful voice

began to vibrate through the amplifiers on stage. Pigpen led the band through an intoxicating forty seven minute jam, complete with solos from Jerry, duets with Bob, and too many improvised verses to count. Pig turned the bad vibes good. He enticed the crab to get up and dance, and he pulled the rest of the band out of their haze. The Near Our Jam mended the Dead's un even set with a triumphant, joyous down and dirty roots rock flourish. Nobody in the Dead but pig Pen could have turned

the mood around that night. Pig Pen was the lifeblood of the Grateful Dead, their substant soul and spiritual Center. And even though we didn't dig the LSD, he dug the scene, he dugged the music, and most of all, he dug the blues. The enigma that was pig Pen didn't just save the group in their moment of peril

at Woodstock. He had also sparked the birth of the greatest jam band to ever exist, which gave birth to an entire community of fans who called themselves Deadheads and kicked off fifty plus years of concerts and classic albums. And it all started from humble beginnings somewhere oh in

northern California. Phil Lesh was drawn to the voice. It was coming from the next room at the party, and Paul Alto sounded like lightning Hopkins mixed with TBone Walker, smooth and sensitive torture, longing the real deal, honest, authentic. Surely it was the voice of a season blues musician, a true blue blues man from somewhere far away from California,

a voice that had traveled from way down south. Phil's eyes scanned the party, He followed the sound of the voice, and he was surprised to find out that everything he thought about the man behind the voice was not what he had expected. In nineteen Phil Leash, the future basis of The Grateful Dead, was volunteering as a recording engineer

for KPF A out of San Francisco. Phil was constantly attending parties and immersing themselves in the various music hot spots around the city, one of which happened to be thirty miles due south and Paalolato. Several music venues had turned the small city into a vibrant scene, a scene that served as a response to the buttoned up, leave it to beaver vibe of the nineteen fifties, a scene where a younger generation could discuss ideas that mattered to them.

The kids weren't worried about the bomb or McCarthy is um. Sure, they were political and read the news, but the people in this scene didn't have time to be fatalistic. They drowned out all that doom and gloom with positive sounds. Paolato was a cross pollination of folk music, jazz, and R and B in depending on where your taste, laying good music was readily available at any time of day. On this evening, Phil and his girlfriend made their way to a party across the highway in East Paalolato, a

neighborhood lovingly referred to as the Ghetto. The party was cramped but happening with live music in the front room, and that's where the voice was coming from. It called out to Phil, so Phil followed Phil around the corner into the front room and was shocked at what he saw. A white kid strumming an acoustic guitar and pouring the music out of his soul, as if he were channeling

Charlie Patton himself. Phil thought the kids bushy black hair made him look a little like Claude Devacy, But unlike Devacy, this kid was clad in dirty jeans and a leather vest, singing the blues. His skin was dry and blotching. He looked as if he hadn't bathed in days. God damn at that voice. Kid looked around thirty years old due to a long standing relationship with alcohol, but was actually hovering right around sixteen. The kid's name was Ron McKernan,

but everyone called him Pigpen. Phil had seen pig Pen hanging around Paul Alzo was Jerry Garcia, but he had no idea he could sing, not like this. How the hell did that voice get inside that body, and that body entered the world on September eight and a small suburb outside of San Francisco called San Bruno to Esther

Nelson and Phil McKernan. Phil was a Boogey Wiggy penist and under the name DJ Cool Breeze, was one of the first white disc jockeys for the local black radio station kr E. Cool Breeze spent this block spinning R

and B and blues music. His son, young Ron was just six years old at the time, and he didn't know it, but when he laid by the speakers and the warm, smooth sounds of his father's record collection filled his ears, he was being steeped in a tradition of music that would end up coursing through his veins throughout

all of his short life. Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Turner, Male Rainey pig Pen, by proxy, observed the essence of the soulful and uplifting music of Black America, as Jerry Garcia would later stay, pig Pen grew up with that music in his ear, so it was real

natural form. The blue was the music that had been born in the nineteenth century in the cotton fields of the American South, involved out of African American spirituals mixed with European folk music and instrumentation, blending influence from different regions, races, and continents, and by the turn of the twentieth century, blues and mature taking a more fixed form in the unrelenting heat of the Mississippi Delta, Southern Texas, and the

Deep South, with the first blues music being committed to sheet music in nineteen o eight. It exploded with the advent of the electric guitar or the early nineteen thirties and expanded its influence to every corner of the country, with hotbeds in both Chicago and on the West Coast, kickstarting the careers of titans such as Holland Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reid. As blues music found a water audience, it found a whiter audience, and the beats dug it.

Jack Carroac even wrote some of his own as he hopped rail cars and trolleys on the busy streets of San Francisco. San Francisco was the same place where Cool Breeze discovered it and the same place he passed it on to his son pig Pen from nineteen fifty one to nineteen fifty six, Cool Breeze spawn those records, schooling pig Pen on the history of the genre and creating a passion and love for the good vibrations, the history

and the culture. Pigs sang along to the records his dad played, and the feeling, the mood, the vibe embedded itself squarely in the center of his eternal being. It was the only thing that seemed to matter to him. Pig Pen was a fixture in the blues clubs by twelve years old and was drinking by thirteen. It was part of the scene. If it's what the great blues men did well, ship pig Pen would do it too.

But music that was the main thing. He saw the cats on stage every night, hearts bled dry, singing that music that would overthrow your soul with joy, only to spin around and punch you in the gut. Listening to the blues was a religious experience, and pig Pen was all about kneeling at that altar. He deeply entrenched him self and the pol Alto scene, attending parties, learning guitar and blues heart from anyone who would take the time to teach him and That's where he met Jerry Garcia.

Jerry Garcia had been knocking around town for a while now. It was the only guy who really took any interest in playing the blues on guitar. Pig wasn't throw. Pig attended parties with Jerry and watched closely as Jerry effortlessly picked out the blues. He studied the way Jerry's hands glided across the neck of the guitar, the patterns, the precision. Wait, what was that guy of missing a finger on his

picking hand. Later, when pig was alone, he pulled out his guitar on a bottle of Thunderbird wine and spend hours trying to recreate the sounds he'd heard earlier that night. But pig Pen didn't have the confidence it took to get up on stage like Jerry Garcia did, and pig Pen didn't yet have the skills for an instrument to feel at home there either. He sure had a heart, So Jerry Garcia took Pigpen under his wing taught him how to pick up the blues on guitar. Music worked.

Months turned into years as Pigpen learned from Jerry Honey's craft, until he was proficient enough to bang out Lightning Hopkins and Robert Johnson tunes with ease, and by the time he was ready to take the stage and sing and play for an audience pig Pen Blue people's minds. He already had the attitude and the voice, but now he

had some real instrumental chops too. Nobody in the Palazo scene really played or sang the blues, and as feel less experienced in the front room of that party that night in pig Pens bluesy Graw shook the scene like a tug of thunderbirds straight out of the bottle. Pig already had the knowledge in the natural talent, but now he had the confidence to really deliver. Maybe one day, he thought, get have his own record that could go up on the shelf next to those of his heroes.

He was on an irreversible course that it was all thanks to that beating nick guitar player with shaggy hair, the one with the cool, calm demeanor, the one with not only the musical ability but intellectual prowess to match, the one who could play anything on the banjo or guitar, even if he was missing the middle finger of his right hand. It was all thanks to Jerry Garcia. We'll be right back after this word. We were New Year's Eve, Bob Weir and his two friends, Bob Matthews and Rich macaulay,

were roaming the streets of Paol Alto. They struck out at every bar they tried to get into, and no one would let them in, and the night was a total bust. It wasn't surprising, given that the three friends were just sixteen and definitely looked their age, but now they were resigned to the fruitless venture of window shopping at closed stores. Bob was on holiday break from boarding school in Colorado and was just looking for a good time,

but this night was turning into a colossal bummer. They couldn't escape the muffled roar of New Year's Eve festivities from the establishments they had been turned away from. That We're about to pack it in and head home when they heard another sound in the air. The sweet sound of a banjo floated out of what seemed to be the only open shop in the entire town, Dana Morgan's Music Store. Just so happened, Bob and his friends were irregulars. They poked their heads inside and saw a goatee dude

with jet black hair. Wielding a banjo, he hammered away on the instrument prodigiously, like some sort of mystic who Rich mcaulay was a banjo student at the Dude and Jerry Garcia had no idea it was New Year's Eve. He was fixated on the bluegrass he was playing, waiting for a pair of students who would never arrive for their lesson, and oblivious to all else in the world, including the celebrations taking place all around him. Bob and his friends, having nothing better to do, suggested an improp

to jam session. Come on, man, let's play something Jerry was has didn't. What if his students showed up. It's New Year's Eve, Jerry. Bob explained, no one's coming tonight except for us. Jerry acquiesced. He grabbed some extra guitars, and the four began king out tunes, traditional folk from that old, weird America, the kind of stuff both Jerry

and Bob vibe. A few songs led to a dozen, and before they knew it, they had picked their way right out of nineteen sixty three and into nineteen sixty four. Who was impossible to deny the musical fusion Jerry and Bob created together. Rich suggested that with the folk craze going on at the moment, the two should start a jug band. Bob and Jerry locked eyes. What would become the original model for the Dead started out as Mother

mccree's Uptown jug Champions. Jerry recruited his friends Tom Stone and Dave Parker to play banjo and washboard, respectively, and knew exactly who the final piece of the puzzle would be. When Bob showed up for the first meeting with the other band members, he was unnerved by only one of them. The guy was heavy bill with a leather shirt and dark eyes. His unkempt hair spilled out in every direction,

his jet black mustache laid over a pockmarked face. He didn't look like the kind of guy Bob usually associated with. This guy looked fierce dangerous. Bob meet pig Pen. Pig Pen, now eighteen, had been steadily improving his skills under Jerry Garcia's tutelage for a few years and as a result, had secured steady work gigging in the area, adding proficiency on guitar and keys to his harmonica and vocal chops.

He landed spots and a couple of country blues bands, played gigs with Jerry, gigs solo, and even fronted an electric blues band called the Zodiacs thanks to Jerry, the kid who washed out of high school and washed up on the pole out. Though seen was no longer an amateur, Bob would come to find out that pig pens biker, garb blues man's exterior didn't match his personality. He'd learned the pig was sweet, sensitive and his only real interests were in the music that he was making and hooch.

Three weeks later, Mother mccreeze Uptown jug Champions started playing shows all over the San Francisco Peninsula, and they took gigs wherever they could and always kept the music loose in the atmosphere, lively in the mood, light and fun. Jerry, who can now break away from the dogmatic rigidness of bluegrass playing, seemed to be thriving in a free flowing state,

joyously filling the space with the serene sounds of his guitar. Bob, not yet up to par on guitar, chugged along on bass while Tom spilled out intricate banjo patterns, and Dave added color with his washboard, and then there was a pig Pen. The other members of the band agreed pig

was simply the best singer amongst them. Before the band would take the stage, pig Pen would get a little buzz on and then he let loose with a rip, roaring down on, get down, growling on the mic with his gravelly and endearing voice, and the group made every venue they play feel like a honky tonk. Eventually, Dave and Tom cycled out and different musicians took their place, and this kept Mother mccreaeys a fresh act that would

never be the same live experience twice. This unique group dynamic, mixed with their combination of blue standards and old timey folk, made them a favorite on the local circuit. However, after a few months of playing the standards, the tune seen, even by the group's own admission, a little bit dated. This was especially true with what was going on across the pond in England, some five thousand miles away, where four mop tops from Liverpool, we're turning the world of

popular music on its head. Pig Pen had an idea, let's get some drums man and the Beatles were changing pop music from black and white to technicolor, and the conservatism of the yearly sixties was morphing into something entirely different. Pig thought Mother mccree's Uptown jug band Champions should hop aboard the training before it left the station. What pig Pen didn't know is that this new desire to plug in to crank out some electric blues would eventually put

his group at the center of a burgeoning counterculture. It would change their lives forever. The room was filled with smoke and the sound of clinking bottles. It smelled like whiskey and stale beer. A group of men sat at a table dealing card It's muttering to each other, serious players, not the kind of guys you mess around with, not if you were smart. But when the back door opened, the table fell silent to A bluesman entered, guitar cases

in hand. They tipped their hats to the gamblers as they walked past, moving through another door and into the main room of the club. The gamblers watched them closely. One of the gamblers leaned in, whispering the rumors he was sure were true about the man in the front. The one it was unmatched on the acoustic guitar. The one who made the blue sound like a symphony, like it was from another world. The one, it was said, who had sold his soul to the devil for the

ability to do so. The man was Robert Johnson. In August of ninety eight, he was working a circuit of Mississippi juke joints, playing the blues, making a paycheck, and at each stop, shacking up with whichever woman he wooed, of which there was no shortage. However, by all accounts, Robert was a nice guy. He didn't have the inherent rowdedness that came along with most musicians of the day. He simply showed up, played his cosmic blues music, and

moved it on down the road a piece. But in his travels, Robert had picked up a bad whiskey habit, and while it didn't inhibit his seemingly possessed finger picking, it severely altered his common sense, especially when it came to choosing which women to woo. On this night in Greenwood County, Robert had fixed his sight on a darling of the Delta, a woman with long flowing hair that danced alongside his intoxicating twelve bar blues. He couldn't take his eyes off of her the entire set, and she

made no indication, as she wasn't interested. The problem, of course, was that she was a married woman, and she wasn't married to just anyone. She was married to one of the men who had been sitting at the gambling table in the back room, the club's owner. He was the man who had hired Robert Johnson, who was paying him and providing free drinks, and now he was making moves

on his wife. Fat fucking chance. The owner left the gambling table and was now fixed firmly behind the bar, watching his wife make eyes at the bluesman on stage. He had a susp bisis heard. It was nothing new that Robert had moved on this woman the last time through town, but now it was all but confirmed. The man disappeared into the back room and returned with an unmarked bottle of white powder. He poured a glass of

whiskey and stirred in a spoonful of the stuff. But when his wife arrived at the bar to clench the thirst, she worked up on the dance floor. Her husband slid the tincture to her and motioned to the stage. None the wiser. The woman carried the glass straight to Robert Johnson. As he finished a tune, she stepped up under the stage, handed in the glass and brushed his inner thighs. She stepped away with a smile. Robert flashed a devilish grin. He had no idea what he was actually in for

that night. As Robert Johnson worked through the rest of the set and the rest of the whiskey, he began to feel sick, and there was a strange pain deep in his stomach, and that wasn't just whiskey in the glass. He cut the set short and went back to the place he was staying. But this would be one hangover he wouldn't sleep off. The toxins found their way to a recently diagnosed ulcer and quickly ate at Robert's insides. Within three days, Robert Johnson was dead on the floor

of a shack in Greenwood, Mississippi. Like Pigpen, the hard edge of Robert Johnson's lifestyle was divorced from his personality. Also, like pig Pen, Robert was the talent that burned too bright for the world, and they were blues men with a soft side, light hearted, warm, amicable, and joyous. Both took their music very seriously, spending hours, months, even years perfecting their craft, and despite the rumors of a deal

to Crossroads, there was no demonic intervention. Robert Johnson and pig Pen made honest, genuine music by their commitment to their craft. However, the good times often came with a lifestyle and good intentions stirred and shaken with those good times don't always meet with good outcomes. As Robert groaned his way through his last hours on Earth and that Mississippi shack writhing in pain, it was clear that the good times were coming to an end all too soon.

He was buried the same day he died. Robert Johnson was not a mythical being. He was a real person. His time on Earth ran out August. He was twenty seven years old. Thirty one years later, Robert Hunter would pen the lyrics to The Grateful Dead's Easy Wind, Influenced

by Robert Johnson's immaculate blues. The track would appeared on The Grateful Dad's seventy album Working Man's Dead, sung by the only member of the group who could authentically deliver the gravelly vocals and punchy harmonica necessary to pay homage to the tradition of the music pig Pan. The result it was four minutes and fifty nine seconds of pure, unadulterated blues. Like Robert Johnson, pig Pen felt most at home playing the blues, balancing the joy and the pain

of music and life. Also, like Robert Johnson, that lifestyle quickly snuck up on pig Pen. Three years after the release of the record working Man's Dead, Ron pig Pen mccernin would also be dead at um. Jake Brennan in This is the seven Club Club is hosted and produced by me Jake Brennan for Double Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio. Zeth Lundie is the lead writer and co producer. This episode was mixed by Joel Edinburgh. Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker and Henry Luneta.

This episode was written by Ted Omo, story and call be ending by Pata Healy. Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on the twenty seven Club series page, talk to me on Social Act, disgrace Land pod, and hang out with me live on my Twitch channel disgrace Land Talks For more news on your favorite podcast, follow at double Elvis on Instagram. Rocar ROLLA what's up for your is