Ron "Pigpen" McKernan was the primary figure and driving force at the core of the Grateful Dead's origin story. He was an old soul, a digger of deep moods, a devotee of biker chic, and a tireless student of the blues. His devotion to classic Americana kept the band grounded even when they found themselves lost in experimental improvisation. But as the Dead evolved and became more famous, Pigpen became more of an outlier. While the rest of the band dropped acid, he drank Thunderbird. While they looked to the future for a new strain of American music, he looked back to the past. And by the time he died in 1973 at the age of 27, the band that Pigpen had started all those years ago no longer had room for him.
Sources:
A Long Strange Trip: The Inside Story of the Grateful Dead, by Dennis McNally
Searching for the Sound, by Phil Lesh
San Francisco Blues, by Jack Kerouac
5 Logistical Woodstock Nightmares We Can Learn From (Prevue Meetings)
The Grateful Dead at Woodstock 1969 (Bethel Woods)
Debunking Woodstock: What really happened? (Today)
The Grateful Dead (Woodstock Wiki)
The Dead At Woodstock (Dead Essays)
Grateful Dead at Woodstock (YouTube)
Owsley Stanley Interview (KPFA)
Grateful Dead Guide: Pigpen Solo (Dead Essays)
White people, blues music and the problem of cultural appropriation (Medium)
'Pigpen' McKernan Dead at 27 (Rolling Stone)
Jerry's Brokendown Palaces: Dana Morgan's Music Store
Bob Weir on meeting Jerry Garcia (Vimeo)
The Grateful Dead: Making the Scene in Palo Alto (Palo Alto History)
Fact-checking the Life and Death of Bluesman Robert Johnson (Mother Jones)
The Sad Story Of Robert Johnson (Radio Facts)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Double Elvis Club is the production of I Heart Radio
and Double Elvis Ron. Pigpen mccernan died at the age
of and he lived the life that seemed to always
be running a little late. I can give you twenty
seven reasons why that statement is true. Five would be
(00:27):
the number of years he obsorbed the blues and R
and B music that is disc jockey father Spawn, helping
Pigpen develop a love for music that was decades before
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
(00:50):
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
(01:11):
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
(01:36):
this is the Seven Club, Yeah, m M. I fucking
(02:23):
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
(02:45):
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
(03:08):
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.
(03:32):
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.
(03:55):
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
(04:19):
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.
(04:41):
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
(05:03):
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
(05:25):
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
(05:47):
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.
(06:09):
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
(06:31):
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
(06:53):
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
(07:16):
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,
(07:37):
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
(07:59):
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
(08:22):
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
(08:45):
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
(09:06):
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
(09:30):
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
(09:53):
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
(10:15):
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
(10:37):
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.
(10:58):
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
(11:19):
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.
(11:42):
And it all started from humble beginnings somewhere oh in
northern California. Phil Lesh was drawn to the voice. It
(12:18):
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
(12:40):
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
(13:02):
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.
(13:25):
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.
(13:48):
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
(14:08):
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
(14:30):
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
(14:51):
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
(15:12):
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
(15:33):
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
(15:56):
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
(16:18):
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,
(16:41):
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
(17:04):
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.
(17:30):
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
(17:53):
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.
(18:13):
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
(18:36):
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
(18:58):
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
(19:20):
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
(19:41):
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,
(20:03):
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,
(20:28):
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
(20:50):
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
(21:11):
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
(21:32):
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
(21:55):
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
(22:17):
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
(22:39):
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.
(23:00):
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,
(23:22):
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
(23:46):
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.
(24:07):
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,
(24:28):
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
(24:48):
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
(25:09):
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
(25:30):
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.
(25:52):
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
(26:41):
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
(27:01):
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,
(27:24):
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,
(27:47):
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
(28:11):
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,
(28:32):
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
(28:53):
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
(29:14):
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.
(29:37):
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
(29:57):
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
(30:18):
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
(30:41):
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
(31:01):
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
(31:22):
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
(31:42):
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
(32:03):
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
(32:25):
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
(32:48):
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
(33:09):
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
Double Elvis Club is the production of I Heart Radio
and Double Elvis Ron. Pigpen mccernan died at the age
of and he lived the life that seemed to always
be running a little late. I can give you twenty
seven reasons why that statement is true. Five would be
(00:27):
the number of years he obsorbed the blues and R
and B music that is disc jockey father Spawn, helping
Pigpen develop a love for music that was decades before
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
(00:50):
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
(01:11):
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
(01:36):
this is the Seven Club, Yeah, m M. I fucking
(02:23):
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
(02:45):
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
(03:08):
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.
(03:32):
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.
(03:55):
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
(04:19):
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.
(04:41):
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
(05:03):
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
(05:25):
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
(05:47):
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.
(06:09):
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
(06:31):
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
(06:53):
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
(07:16):
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,
(07:37):
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
(07:59):
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
(08:22):
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
(08:45):
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
(09:06):
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
(09:30):
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
(09:53):
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
(10:15):
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
(10:37):
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.
(10:58):
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
(11:19):
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.
(11:42):
And it all started from humble beginnings somewhere oh in
northern California. Phil Lesh was drawn to the voice. It
(12:18):
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
(12:40):
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
(13:02):
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.
(13:25):
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.
(13:48):
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
(14:08):
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
(14:30):
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
(14:51):
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
(15:12):
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
(15:33):
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
(15:56):
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
(16:18):
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,
(16:41):
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
(17:04):
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.
(17:30):
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
(17:53):
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.
(18:13):
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
(18:36):
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
(18:58):
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
(19:20):
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
(19:41):
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,
(20:03):
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,
(20:28):
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
(20:50):
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
(21:11):
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
(21:32):
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
(21:55):
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
(22:17):
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
(22:39):
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.
(23:00):
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,
(23:22):
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
(23:46):
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.
(24:07):
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,
(24:28):
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
(24:48):
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
(25:09):
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
(25:30):
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.
(25:52):
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
(26:41):
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
(27:01):
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,
(27:24):
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,
(27:47):
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
(28:11):
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,
(28:32):
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
(28:53):
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
(29:14):
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.
(29:37):
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
(29:57):
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
(30:18):
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
(30:41):
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
(31:01):
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
(31:22):
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
(31:42):
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
(32:03):
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
(32:25):
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
(32:48):
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
(33:09):
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
Host
Jake Brennan
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