Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis.

Stories about the Grateful Dead in their early days as a band,

specifically about their harmonica player, Pigpen, are insane.

A band known for their drug use,

Pigpen did not get high. His bandmates would smoke grass and he would drink booze. His bandmates would drop LSD and he would drink more booze. His bandmates would play improvisational electric music

and Pigpen would play the blues. Ron Pigpen McCurnan was obsessed with the blues.

He was one of the band's strongest links to the traditional American music they loved,

in part because Pigpen was committed to living the life of his blues musician heroes.

Part of this meant dedicating himself to the canon of pre and post-war black American music,

but it also meant a steady diet of cheap, highly potent alcohol known as rock gut,

supplemented with even cheaper barbecue and hot links,

a diet that did them in at the age of 27.

But prior to that, Pigpen made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show,

that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Mellow Open Door Blues,

MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Mrs. Brown, you've got a lovely

daughter by Herman's

Hermans. And why would I play you that specific slice of peacock cheese could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on May 5, 1965, and that was the day the

Warlocks played Magoo's Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park, California,

taking the first step for what would become one of the most culturally influential bands of all time,

The Grateful Dead.

On this episode, Grass, LSD, Rock Gut, Blues, The End of Pigpen in the beginning of the Grateful Dead.

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