Interesting because Pigpen and Janis both were so important to the SF music scene as it developed 1965-70, but both preferred alcohol to acid (both only took acid 1-2 times voluntarily, then by accident when people slipped it into their drinks), both were "into the blues," both died too young (part of the "27 club" that also includes Morrison, Hendrix, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain), both were working class white kids who never lost their working class roots or became very "hippy dippy" (both liked to hang out with bikers, which is about as white working class as you could...
Interesting because Pigpen and Janis both were so important to the SF music scene as it developed 1965-70, but both preferred alcohol to acid (both only took acid 1-2 times voluntarily, then by accident when people slipped it into their drinks), both were "into the blues," both died too young (part of the "27 club" that also includes Morrison, Hendrix, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain), both were working class white kids who never lost their working class roots or became very "hippy dippy" (both liked to hang out with bikers, which is about as white working class as you could get in California in the '60s). Garcia was the son of a big band jazz musician and his early professional work was as a banjoist with bluegrass and folk groups on the SF coffee house scene; Lesh trained professionally as an avant garde jazz musician in Berkeley before joining the Warlocks/Dead; but McKernan was into blues and R and B, and down in Monterey/Carmel his dad had been the only white DJ at an R and B-oriented radio station. Janis, of course, came out of Port Arthur (TX), where she was a misfit bullied by the other kids for hanging out with black kids and singing like Bessie Smith (she left Port Arthur first chance she got)
It could be about pigpen and janis. pigpen died just over a year before its debut
Interesting because Pigpen and Janis both were so important to the SF music scene as it developed 1965-70, but both preferred alcohol to acid (both only took acid 1-2 times voluntarily, then by accident when people slipped it into their drinks), both were "into the blues," both died too young (part of the "27 club" that also includes Morrison, Hendrix, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain), both were working class white kids who never lost their working class roots or became very "hippy dippy" (both liked to hang out with bikers, which is about as white working class as you could...
Interesting because Pigpen and Janis both were so important to the SF music scene as it developed 1965-70, but both preferred alcohol to acid (both only took acid 1-2 times voluntarily, then by accident when people slipped it into their drinks), both were "into the blues," both died too young (part of the "27 club" that also includes Morrison, Hendrix, Brian Jones, and Kurt Cobain), both were working class white kids who never lost their working class roots or became very "hippy dippy" (both liked to hang out with bikers, which is about as white working class as you could get in California in the '60s). Garcia was the son of a big band jazz musician and his early professional work was as a banjoist with bluegrass and folk groups on the SF coffee house scene; Lesh trained professionally as an avant garde jazz musician in Berkeley before joining the Warlocks/Dead; but McKernan was into blues and R and B, and down in Monterey/Carmel his dad had been the only white DJ at an R and B-oriented radio station. Janis, of course, came out of Port Arthur (TX), where she was a misfit bullied by the other kids for hanging out with black kids and singing like Bessie Smith (she left Port Arthur first chance she got)