How did the Grateful Dead begin their career?
The Grateful Dead began its career as the Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a Palo Alto, California jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. The band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor located at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban Menlo Park, on May 5, 1965, now a Harvest furniture store.
Who was the last member of the Warlocks before the Grateful Dead?
Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before it became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. Drummer Mickey Hart and non-performing lyricist Robert Hunter joined in 1967.
Was David Lesh in the Warlocks before the Grateful Dead?
Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before it became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs.
What was the first date the Grateful Dead performed?
Their first performance was in May of 1965 at Magoo’s Pizza in Menlo Park. After a handful of performances, Phil Lesh replaced Dana Morgan.
Why did the Grateful Dead change their name from the Warlocks?
The band ended up changing its name from The Warlocks after finding out that another group was known by that same moniker. In addition, The Velvet Underground had also been known as The Warlocks but had to change its name for the same reason. The group of musicians later landed on the name The Grateful Dead.
Who were the first three people to join the Grateful Dead?
The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of the counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members were Jerry Garcia (lead guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (rhythm guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums).
Who were the original members of the Warlocks?
The Warlocks are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1998 by the guitarist/singer Bobby Hecksher. The band's music has ranged from psychedelic rock to drone music....The WarlocksMembersBobby Hecksher John Christian Rees Earl V. Miller Christopher DiPino George Serrano Jason Anchondo9 more rows
Who were the original members of the Grateful Dead?
The original members were lead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia (b. August 1, 1942, San Francisco, California, U.S.—d. August 9, 1995, Forest Knolls, California), guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir (b. October 16, 1947, San Francisco), keyboard player Ron (“Pigpen”) McKernan (b.
Who was the best keyboardist for the Grateful Dead?
Vincent Leo Welnick (February 21, 1951 – June 2, 2006) was an American keyboardist, best known for playing with the band the Tubes during the 1970s and 1980s and with the Grateful Dead in the 1990s.
How many Grateful Dead keyboardists have died?
The band had five different keyboardists during their time; four of them died tragic deaths, and three of them died while they were still in the band. What is this?
Who is the leader of the Warlocks?
It is a "One Percenter motorcycle club" with chapters in various parts of the United States, Canada, England, and Germany. Established by Tom "Grub" Freeland, an ex-US Navy veteran in Orlando, Florida, in 1967.
Are the Warlocks still around?
There are now chapters all throughout Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware. The club's insignia is a Harpy, which in Greek and Roman mythology, was a female monster in the form of a bird with a human face. Their colors are Red and White....Warlocks Motorcycle Club (Pennsylvania)Logo of the Warlocks MCFounded1965Years active1965-present5 more rows
When did the Warlocks start?
The Warlocks were formed in Palo Alto at the end of 1964 when Jerry Garcia, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and Bob Weir—the original members of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions—decided to “plug in” at the urging of McKernan. They added a rhythm section: Dana Morgan Jr. on bass and Bill Kreutzmann on drums.
Which members of the Grateful Dead were Scientologists?
Tom Constanten played keyboards with the Grateful Dead form 1968-1970, a period which found him involved in Scientology.
Did the Grateful Dead use 2 drummers?
For many years the Grateful Dead had two drummers—Bill Kreutzmann throughout and Mickey Hart most of the time. Nobody else has two drummers.
What do the Grateful Dead bears mean?
According to his Owsley's personal website, the bears' stride "are quite obviously those of a high-stepping march." The design was created to grace the rear cover of the 1973's History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear's Choice) LP, which featured yet another variation of the lightning skull on its front.
How many original Grateful Dead members are in dead and Company?
Dead and Company started in 2015 with three of the original “core four” Grateful Dead members, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann (bassist Phil Lesh didn't join), alongside John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti.
How many members were in the Grateful Dead?
Keith and Donna Godchaux made their last appearance as members of the Grateful Dead on Feb. 17, 1979. In July of 1980, Keith was killed in a car accident. Keyboardist Brent Mydland was brought in, returning the band to a six-man lineup.
Who opened for the Grateful Dead in 1995?
The final Grateful Dead tour began on this date in 1995. The band performed on June 15, 1995, at Franklin County Airport in Highgate, Vermont with Bob Dylan opening.
Did the Grateful Dead use 2 drummers?
For many years the Grateful Dead had two drummers—Bill Kreutzmann throughout and Mickey Hart most of the time. Nobody else has two drummers.
What was the Grateful Dead's original name?
When the band came to town, the marquee of the Coliseum read "The Warlocks", which had been the Grateful Dead's original name for a few months in 1965. The two concerts featured several songs that the band had not played live for some time.
Where was the Warlocks album recorded?
It contains two complete concerts on six CDs. It was recorded on October 8 and 9, 1989, at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia . It was released on September 7, 2010.
What is the Warlocks box?
Formerly the Warlocks is packaged in a wooden box reminiscent of a cigar box. In addition to the six CDs, it contains an accordion-fold booklet with liner notes and photos of the concerts.
What year did the Warlocks play at the Hampton Coliseum?
The Hampton "Warlocks" concerts. For the 1989 Hampton Coliseum shows, the band wanted to maintain a low profile, so the venue was not included as part of the regular ticket sale for the East Coast fall tour. Instead, tickets went on sale at local outlets ten days before the concerts, with the band billed as "Formerly the Warlocks" instead ...
Did the Grateful Dead perform Help on the Way?
They had not performed "Help on the Way" since 1985, "Dark Star" since 1984, and "Attics of My Life" since 1972. In a 1993 poll of Grateful Dead tape traders, the October 9, 1989 show was ranked number 4 on the list of all-time favorite Dead concert tapes, and the October 8 show also appeared on the list.
Where did the grateful dead start?
The Grateful Dead began their career as The Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a Palo Alto, California jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. The band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor located at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban Menlo Park, on May 5, 1965, now a Harvest furniture store. They continued playing bar shows, like Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go in Hayward and, importantly, five sets a night, five nights a week, for six weeks, at the In Room in Belmont as the Warlocks, but quickly changed the band's name after finding out that a different band called The Warlocks had put out a record under the same name. ( The Velvet Underground also had to change their name from the Warlocks.) The first show under the name Grateful Dead was in San Jose on December 4, 1965, at one of Ken Kesey 's Acid Tests. Earlier demo tapes have survived, but the first of over 2,000 concerts known to have been recorded by the band's fans was a show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on January 8, 1966. Later that month, the Grateful Dead played at the Trips Festival, a three-day psychedelic rock weekend party/event produced by Ken Kesey, Stewart Brand, and Ramon Sender, that, in conjunction with the Merry Pranksters, brought together the nascent hippie movement for the first time.
When did the grateful dead first play?
The first show under the name Grateful Dead was in San Jose on December 4, 1965, at one of Ken Kesey 's Acid Tests. Earlier demo tapes have survived, but the first of over 2,000 concerts known to have been recorded by the band's fans was a show at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on January 8, 1966.
What was the first musical event of the grateful dead?
One of the group's earliest major performances in 1967 was the Mantra-Rock Dance —a musical event held on January 29, 1967, at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. The Grateful Dead performed at the event along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, poet Allen Ginsberg, bands Moby Grape and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple. The band's first LP, The Grateful Dead, was released on Warner Brothers in 1967.
How much did the grateful dead make in the 1990s?
In the 1990s, the Grateful Dead earned a total of $285 million in revenue from their concert tours, the second-highest during the 1990s, with the Rolling Stones earning the most. This figure is representative of tour revenue through 1995, as touring stopped after the death of Jerry Garcia.
What company did the grateful dead sign with?
In 2006, the Grateful Dead signed a ten-year licensing agreement with Rhino Entertainment to manage the band's business interests including the release of musical recordings, merchandising, and marketing. The band retained creative control and kept ownership of its music catalog.
How did the grateful dead get their name?
[and] ... In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial". According to Alan Trist, director of the Grateful Dead's music publisher company Ice Nine, Garcia found the name in the Funk & Wagnalls Folklore Dictionary, when his finger landed on that phrase while playing a game of Fictionary. In the Garcia biography Captain Trips, author Sandy Troy states that the band was smoking the psychedelic DMT at the time. The term "grateful dead" appears in folktales from a variety of cultures.
How many shows did the grateful dead play?
Of the approximately 2,350 shows the Grateful Dead played, almost 2,200 were taped, and most of these are available online. The band began collecting and cataloging tapes early on and Dick Latvala was their keeper. " Dick's Picks " is named after Latvala. After his death in 1999, David Lemieux gradually took the post.
What was the first acid test for the grateful dead?
Today marks the 55th anniversary of the first time the Grateful Dead, still known as The Warlocks, attended one of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters ‘ Acid Tests, where like-minded individuals would take LSD and enjoy “permissive bedlam” and untethered visual and, eventually, musical displays. This was the first Acid Test opened to the public, and the members of the Warlocks attended not necessarily to perform, but rather to check out the scene. However, the Warlocks would soon become the Grateful Dead, the Grateful Dead would soon become the Tests’ house band, and the regular gatherings would become the training ground that allowed them to evolve into an improvisational force the likes of which had not been seen before.
Who said "These guys had never been confronted with a regular rock and roll band, you know"?
Jerry Garcia: These guys had never been confronted with a regular rock and roll band, you know. And we plugged our gear in which looked like space age, military nightmare stuff. Compared to all their stuff, which was all hand painted and real funky you know.
How long did Jerry Garcia play acid tests?
Jerry Garcia: For about six months. But that was probably the most important six months in terms of directionality. Because the neat thing about the acid tests was we could play if we wanted to. But if it was too weird, we could always not play. So that was the only time we ever had the option of not playing.
Did the grateful dead play instruments?
As Phil Lesh noted in his 2005 memoirs, Searching For The Sound: My Life With The Grateful Dead, “We were at the first Test not to play, but just to feel it out, and we hadn’t brought any instruments or gear.” The band members in attendance did eventually pick up some Prankster instruments and mess around. As Ken Babbs, Kesey’s Prankster lieutenant and host of the fateful party, recalled to Rolling Stone in 2015, “I remember the band, the guys who later became the Grateful Dead, showing up and playing on our instruments … and us playing on our instruments, and [ Neal] Cassady being there and [ Allen] Ginsberg and [novelist] Bob Stone and being up all night lying on the floor with microphones rapping stuff into tape machines until dawn.”
Did the Warlocks perform the Acid Test?
This was the first Acid Test opened to the public, and the members of the Warlocks attended not necessarily to perform, but rather to check out the scene. However, the Warlocks would soon become the Grateful Dead, the Grateful Dead would soon become the Tests’ house band, and the regular gatherings would become the training ground ...
Can you be a deadhead?
Jerry Garcia: But you can’t do those types of things anymore. But you can be a Deadhead. You can get in your van and go with the other Deadheads across the States and meet it on your own terms. Sort of a niche for it, in a way.
Did Jerry Garcia take acid?
Jerry Garcia: It absolutely did. Yes, it did. Jerry Garcia: That was about the time we fell in with the acid tests with Kesey and those guys. We had starting taking acid ourselves while we were still The Warlocks. We didn’t do it at shows. At the time we were playing the divorcees’ bars up and down the peninsula.
When did the Warlocks last show?
At around the same time they discovered that there was at least one other group in the country using the Warlocks name. The Warlocks played their last show in November 1965 and thereafter adopted the name the Grateful Dead. For the occasional show in later years the Grateful Dead were billed as the Grateful Dead (formerly The Warlocks).
Where did the Warlocks perform in 1965?
The November 3, 1965 recording session was at Golden State Recorders in San Francisco. A few ticket stubs and anecdotal evidence supply the names of a few of the venues where the Warlocks performed during 1965. The majority of these are on the San Francisco Peninsula. The list of venues below is doubtless incomplete.
Where did the Warlocks come from?
The Warlocks were formed in Palo Alto at the end of 1964 when Jerry Garcia, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and Bob Weir, who were members of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, decided that they wanted to play "electric" music. They added a rhythm section, Dana Morgan Jr. on bass and local drummer Bill Kreutzmann. The first Warlock performance was in Magoo's pizza parlour in Menlo Park in May 1965. After a handful of performances Phil Lesh replaced Dana Morgan on bass. The Warlocks played at, mostly, local venues through the summer and early fall of the year.
Where was the Warlocks recording session?
Six songs exist from the Warlocks recording session on November 3, 1965 at Golden Gate Recorders in San Francisco; Early Morning Rain, I Know You Rider, Mindbender (Confusion's Prince), The Only Time Is Now, Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks) and Can't Come Down. Some or all of these have been released on later collections.
When did the grateful dead start playing?
Grateful Dead when they started playing as the Warlocks, circa 1965.
Where did the Warlocks play?
For six weeks beginning in the fall of 1965, the band played five forty-five-minute sets (with a fifteen-minute break) per night, five nights a week, at a club for down-and-outers called the In Room in Belmont, a suburban town north of Palo Alto. “That’s where we started getting a little out,” Lesh says. “We’d play one song for forty-five minutes — ‘Midnight Hour,’ by Wilson Pickett. We thought it was OK to do that, because the only people who were in there were people who were sitting at the bar drinking, and occasionally some people would come out and dance. I don’t know if we drew people in or pushed them away. But I know that over that six weeks we really evolved our playing to a point where we could take it out and be free with it and just listen to each other play and find musical ideas and find whole musical structures — in the ozone, as it were. “
What kind of music did the Warlocks play?
The Warlocks started as a bar band playing covers, though the tunes Garcia and his bandmates chose betrayed their devotion to traditional music and their archival bent. In their first year together, they were doing lots of old blues numbers updated though electrification, like the Stones — Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” and Jerry Reed’s “Big Boss Man” — but they mixed them with folk songs such as “I Know You Rider” and jug-band tunes like “Viola Lee Blues” and Gus Cannon’s “Stealin’.” Musically, their interpretations were always idiosyncratic — Garcia’s solos were never pure blues but were rooted in the diatonic scales of bluegrass, and Lesh remained an avant-gardist, approaching the bass very much like the jazz trumpet he used to play. The band was a farrago of aesthetics from the start.
What was the Warlocks' in room?
It was at the In Room that the Warlocks not only found their voice as a band but began their long-running discourse with inner voices. They were swept — no, they dived, in group formation — into the vortex of the LSD culture that Kesey and his troupe of Pranksters were just beginning with their Acid Tests of psychoactive evangelism around the Bay area. At first, the members of the band (or at least most of them, much of the time, Weir excepted) had an unofficial policy of performing while straight (or relatively straight, after smoking pot and/or drinking) and tripping only offstage. Soon, they began to entwine their creative lives and psychoactive lives. In little time, the two were inseparable.
What hit us in a big way?
The Beatles and the Stones “hit us in a big way,” Weir says. “I was working in the music store where Jerry worked, and-well, we were thinking while we were working at the music store, all those shiny electric instruments are starting to give us the come-hither. And just around then, the son of the owner of the music store said, ‘Hey, listen, you guys want to start a rock & roll band? I’ll loan you the instruments if I can play bass.’ The Beatles came out, and there was life to what they were playing. Rock & roll seemed viable — it seemed less like prepackaged, marketed pap and more like there was some expansiveness to the music. So we became a rock & roll band at that point.”
What songs did the Stones mix with the Blues?
In their first year together, they were doing lots of old blues numbers updated though electrification, like the Stones — Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” and Jerry Reed’s “Big Boss Man” — but they mixed them with folk songs such as “I Know You Rider” and jug-band tunes like “Viola Lee Blues” and Gus Cannon’s “Stealin’.”.
Overview
Formerly the Warlocks is a live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains two complete concerts on six CDs. It was recorded on October 8 and 9, 1989, at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia. It was released on September 7, 2010.
The Hampton "Warlocks" concerts
For the 1989 Hampton Coliseum shows, the band wanted to maintain a low profile, so the venue was not included as part of the regular ticket sale for the East Coast fall tour. Instead, tickets went on sale at local outlets ten days before the concerts, with the band billed as "Formerly the Warlocks" instead of the Grateful Dead. When the band came to town, the marquee of the Coliseum read "The Warlocks", which had been the Grateful Dead's original name for a few mont…
The album
The 1989 Hampton concerts were recorded on 24-track analog tapes. The album was created by digitally remixing the original tapes into HDCD format. This provides enhanced sound quality when played on CD players with HDCD technology, and is fully compatible with conventional CD players.
Formerly the Warlocks is packaged in a wooden box reminiscent of a cigar box. In addition to the six CDs, it contains an accordion-fold booklet with liner notes and photos of the concerts. It als…
Track listing
Disc one October 8, 1989 – First set:
1. "Foolish Heart" (Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter) – 8:00
2. "Walkin' Blues" (Robert Johnson) – 7:41
3. "Candyman" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:29
Personnel
Grateful Dead
• Jerry Garcia – lead guitar, vocals
• Mickey Hart – drums
• Bill Kreutzmann – drums
• Phil Lesh – electric bass, vocals
Overview
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, world music, and psychedelia; for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams that typically incorporated modal and tonal improvisation; and for its devoted fan base, know…
Formation (1965–1966)
The Grateful Dead began its career as the Warlocks, a group formed in early 1965 from the remnants of a Palo Alto, California jug band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. The band's first show was at Magoo's Pizza Parlor located at 639 Santa Cruz Avenue in suburban Menlo Park, on May 5, 1965, now a Harvest furniture store. It continued playing bar shows, like Frenc…
Main career (1967–1995)
One of the group's earliest major performances in 1967 was the Mantra-Rock Dance—a musical event held on January 29, 1967, at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. The Grateful Dead performed at the event along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, poet Allen Ginsberg, bands Moby Grape and Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, …
Aftermath (1995–present)
Jerry Garcia died on August 9, 1995. A few months after Garcia's death, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead decided to disband. Since that time, there have been a number of reunions by the surviving members involving various combinations of musicians. Additionally, the former members have also begun or continued individual projects.
Musical style and legacy
The Grateful Dead formed during the era when bands such as the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones were dominating the airwaves. "The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band", said Bob Weir. "What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing." Former folk-scene star Bob Dylan had recently put out a couple of records featuring electric instrumentation. Grateful Dead members have sai…
Merchandising and representation
Hal Kant was an entertainment industry attorney who specialized in representing musical groups. He spent 35 years as principal lawyer and general counsel for the Grateful Dead, a position in the group that was so strong that his business cards with the band identified his role as "Czar".
Kant brought the band millions of dollars in revenue through his management …
Live performances
The Grateful Dead toured constantly throughout their career, playing more than 2,300 concerts. They promoted a sense of community among their fans, who became known as "Deadheads", many of whom followed their tours for months or years on end. Around concert venues, an impromptu communal marketplace known as 'Shakedown Street' was created by Deadheads to serve as centers o…
Iconography
Over the years, a number of iconic images have come to be associated with the Grateful Dead. Many of these images originated as artwork for concert posters or album covers.
Skull and Roses The skull and roses design was composed by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse, who added lettering and color, respectively, to a black and white drawing by Edmund Joseph Sullivan. Sullivan's drawing was an illustration for a 1913 edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayya…