In mid-1968, a seismic event shook the foundations of the Grateful Dead: Pigpen and Bob Weir were briefly ousted from the band. While shrouded in rumor, this episode had significant repercussions, paving the way for Tom Constanten’s arrival, leading to the cancellation of a pivotal tour, and spurring Garcia’s side projects at the Matrix. Let’s delve into the details.
I. The Genesis
Jon McIntire, a longtime manager, recalled the band’s early days: “When I first saw them, they had just quit being the Warlocks and they were not necessarily that good, with the exception of Pigpen. Pigpen could sing really well and play really effective blues organ… I think everyone would admit that he was the best musician at the beginning; certainly the best singer, by far.” Garcia echoed this sentiment: “Pigpen was the only guy in the band who had any talent when we were starting out. He was genuinely talented… He was the guy who really sold the band, not me or Weir. Back then, Weir was almost completely spaced. He was just barely there. And I was aggressively crazy…but I wasn’t really what made the band work. Pigpen is what made the band work.” Mickey Hart concurred: “Pigpen was the musician in the Grateful Dead. When I first met the Grateful Dead, it was Pigpen and the boys.”
Lesh added, “We all learned how to play together… Now we each know how to play well enough that we can play with other people, but for a long time it wasn’t true – except for Jerry, who had a head start on all of us, and Pigpen, who was the king.” Sue Swanson, their first fan, noted, “Pigpen was the only one who was really a showman. He’d get out there and work the audience, and the band would be behind him.”
Pigpen, widely regarded as the Dead’s frontman, became “a symbol of the Haight.” McIntire stated, “Pigpen was really the most recognizable figure in the band the first few years. It took a few years for [it] to happen that so much of the focus was on Jerry.” In 1966, the Grateful Dead fan club even produced a Pigpen t-shirt.
The popularity of Pigpen extended to a “Pigpen Lookalike Contest” in 1969 to promote Aoxomoxoa.
Peter Albin observed, “I thought he was an excellent harmonica player and that the band was stifling the guy… But I guess the harmonica didn’t really fit in with a lot of the direction they were taking, so he played more keyboards.” While Pigpen excelled on harmonica, he primarily played the organ, contributing significantly to the band’s early sound, particularly in ’66-’67. His organ playing was intended to blend with the guitars, creating a cohesive sound, rather than standing alone.
In a March ’67 interview, Garcia described Pigpen as a “real great supporting organist,” acknowledging his “good mind for phrasing” and ability to enhance songs. He noted Weir’s folk-blues influences, comparing his approach to Jorma Kaukonen’s.
Weir, however, expanded his musical horizons beyond the coffeehouse scene. He credited Phil Lesh with introducing him to Coltrane and classical music, broadening his musical conception. Inspired by McCoy Tyner’s piano work in the John Coltrane Quartet, Weir incorporated fills, riffs, and figures behind Garcia’s lead.
Weir explained that “The concept of the band was always group improvisation, not merely playing behind Jerry’s solos. The Grateful Dead’s goal was to play together in a seamless mesh. We coined the term ‘rock & roll Dixieland’…”
Garcia lauded Lesh and Kreutzmann’s playing, emphasizing their unique approaches and ability to anticipate each other’s moves. He praised Lesh’s unconventional bass lines and Kreutzmann’s rhythmic reinforcement.
The Dead recognized their evolving sound, moving away from traditional solo structures towards ensemble playing. They aimed for a rhythm that was “more implied and less obvious,” utilizing space and freeing themselves from conventional rhythmic patterns.
Garcia described himself as a “student guitarist,” constantly learning and seeking to expand the boundaries of popular music. He emphasized their intuitive approach and commitment to musical growth.
This ambition necessitated extensive rehearsal. Lesh stated, “The Grateful Dead used to practice all day, for years and years. Used to play every day, the whole band.” Garcia echoed this, mentioning six to seven hours of daily practice, focusing on new material and ideas.
In 1968, they rehearsed at the Potrero Theater, a “rat-infested dump” in San Francisco. Noise complaints eventually led to relocation in Marin County. Lesh described the intense rehearsals, marked by his demanding approach, which prompted the band to ask him to “back off a little.”
Weir recalled this era as musically complex, influenced by North Indian classical music and odd time signatures. He admitted that the complicated music didn’t always succeed and found the precision limiting. “In general the precise, heavily-arranged stuff has tended to dry up and blow away in our repertoire… Back then we could barely play it.”
Weir also expressed his initial struggles within the band, acknowledging his relative inexperience. “When I first joined the band, I wasn’t a journeyman musician and I was barely able to hold down my position in the group… I was kind of in awe of these guys I was playing with – I really had almost no experience.” However, Constanten viewed Weir as often underestimated, recognizing his guitar technique, particularly when Garcia’s guitar failed. Garcia later admired Weir’s unique and original playing style.
One band dynamic involved Weir being the ‘kid’ who had to catch up, often facing Garcia’s good-humored critiques during rehearsals.
By 1968, the Dead were still a young band, but Lesh and Garcia felt Weir wasn’t progressing quickly enough, even if Lesh later realized, “Musically, we had come so far so fast that Jerry and I were trying to expand our musical language into new rhythmic and harmonics realms… The texture of Bobby’s rhythm playing was showing signs of his innate whimsical originality; unfortunately, neither Jerry nor I recognized this development for what it would become.”
Pigpen, too, faced criticism for his reluctance to rehearse, leading the others to view him and Weir as underachievers.
Adding to the divide, Weir and Pigpen abstained from drugs. Weir stopped taking LSD in ’66 due to adverse effects, while Pigpen never embraced psychedelics or even marijuana. He was known to be afraid of them.
Despite this, the band relied on Pigpen’s stability onstage, even finding his repetitive riffs in Dark Star useful. He served as an “anchor,” grounding them during their psychedelic explorations.
Garcia felt “He was our anchor. We’d be out of our minds…and we’d be tethered to Pigpen. You could rely on Pigpen for a reality check… He was like gravity.”
Pigpen’s songs were also a popular and integral part of their stage show. Constanten said, “When Pigpen fronted the band it became something else, because his thing was so cultivated and established in its own right that it became its own thing – sort of a psychedelicized blues band. I’ve heard it said that the Grateful Dead at that time was two bands: when Pigpen was fronting the band and when he wasn’t…”
However, as Weir’s skills improved, Pigpen’s seemed stagnant, further fueling the band’s frustration. Lesh noted that “Jerry and I were operating in an acid-fueled collective mind-meld. We were so excited by this that we were ignoring the fact that Pig didn’t seem to be connecting with us on a musical level. As Jerry and I spun farther and farther out, we began to see Pig’s contribution more as an anchor than as a balance or ground.”
Rifkin felt Pigpen’s musical evolution lagged, hindering the band. Swanson believed he was overwhelmed on keyboards, especially when the others were high. McIntire attributed Pigpen’s musical shortcomings to his drinking, leading to a breakdown in musical communication.
McIntire recounted a band meeting where Pigpen was confronted about his drinking and lack of engagement, to which Pigpen simply acknowledged his behavior. Weir faced similar criticism.
Swanson described a constant state of “psychodrama” within the band, with disagreements and threats to fire Weir or Pigpen being commonplace. Lesh recalled an incident after an unsatisfying Toronto performance where they confronted Weir about his lack of progress.
Khalsa observed Garcia’s frustration with Weir’s spaced-out demeanor onstage.
Scully claimed Garcia wanted a solid electric rhythm behind him, which Weir wasn’t providing, leading to a “mid-range mush.”
In August ’68, Garcia reached a breaking point.
II. The Severance
Scully stated that Garcia tasked him with firing Weir and Pigpen, citing a musical decision based on Weir’s lack of progress and Pigpen’s inability to grasp the music’s direction without LSD. Garcia was incapable of doing it himself.
Lesh says that Garcia suggested Rock help communicate their frustrations to the rest of the band.
Owsley taped a meeting near the end of August ’68 revealing the band’s discomfort and communication struggles. Scully acted as spokesperson, expressing concerns about the music’s stagnation and reliance on only four members. The ultimatum was given.
Despite the tense exchange, the band continued to play shows throughout late August and early September, even starting recording sessions for their new album, suggesting the firing wasn’t immediate.
However, Scully claimed that in September, the band decided to take the next step and kick out Weir and Pigpen, resulting in Pigpen’s distress and Weir’s dedicated practice.
Scully described the firing as a “warning” to motivate Weir and Pigpen to dedicate themselves more to the music, prompting Weir to seek electric guitar training and Pigpen to learn Hammond organ techniques.
Weir stated that “Oh yeah, for a few months. We were the junior musicians in the band, and Jerry and Phil in particular thought that we were sort of holding things back. The music wasn’t able to get as free because it was hog-tied by our playing abilities, which was kind of true.”
Weir recounted being fired, hitchhiking home in the rain, and falling into a ditch. He spent his time practicing and contemplating his future.
Despite Weir’s claim of being out for “months,” show dates suggest otherwise. The only significant break in shows occurs between 9/2 and 9/20/68, coinciding with a “Hartbeats” studio date without Weir or Pigpen. The 9/20 show featured both Weir and Pigpen. Further evidence from the Avalon Ballroom run from 10/11-10/13 indicates Pigpen wasn’t playing at this point.
Scully says Pigpen took it harder than Weir did. The show on 10/20 saw the return of Pigpen.
While Garcia and Lesh downplayed the event, Scully and Weir maintained that a definite firing occurred, although its exact timing remains uncertain. It could have been a gradual feeling of needing to remove Weir and Pigpen rather than a formal event.
This disarray led to the cancellation of their planned European tour in October ’68, despite earlier preparations and advertisements. While other factors might have contributed, the band’s internal conflicts likely played a role.
With Europe off the table, the Dead shifted direction.
III. The Hartbeats
Constanten believed that “[In] the period of Mickey Hart & the Hartbeats…I could see Phil and Jerry getting more into the modern jazz-type atmosphere of improvisation and musically interesting time signatures and rhythmic patterns, which is exactly what Weir and Pigpen were less into.”
The Hartbeats experiment emerged as a solution to the musical dilemma. With Weir and Pigpen still in the picture, how could Garcia and Lesh explore more challenging musical realms? The Hartbeats would focus solely on freeform instrumental jams.
Lesh, despite being seen as an instigator, was surprisingly unenthusiastic about the Hartbeats. Hart, however, vaguely recalled it as a response to conflict with Weir and Pigpen, aiming to play instrumental music separate from the Grateful Dead’s repertoire.
However, the Hartbeats shows often featured Dead themes, resembling Grateful Dead rehearsals without Weir or Pigpen.
Some speculated that the Hartbeats served as an audition for a new guitar player to replace Weir, but this is unlikely, as Lesh rarely participated and Jack Casady often played bass.
The billing for the first Hartbeats shows was a result of promoters’ dispute. The show was billed as “Jerry Garrceeah (Garcia) & His Friends” and Garcia announced the band as “Mickey Hart & the Hartbeats”.
The Hartbeats shows include:
- 10/8: The first Hartbeats show starts with Garcia introducing the audience to “the wonderful world of tuning.” The set list included Clementine, Eleven > Death Don’t Have No Mercy, followed by a long Seven and Dark Star > Cosmic Charlie. It included guest Elvin Bishop.
- 10/9: No tape circulates.
- 10/10: Guest Marvin comes on to blow through a few standard blues tunes. Setlist includes New Potato Caboose teases, Lovelight jam > drums > Alligator-type jam > Other One > Death Don’t Have No Mercy. (Mickey even plays some glockenspiel here.) The show finishes with a Dark Star > Eleven > Seven.
- 10/29: No tape circulates.
- 10/30: The show starts with a strong Dark Star, which segues into Death Letter Blues, Other One, Stephen riffs, Lovelight, Clementine, Eleven > Death Don’t Have No Mercy and guest Elvin Bishop. Our tape ends with a long Dark Star with Jack Casady on bass (which cuts off).
- 10/31: No tape circulates.
These shows often incorporated Dead material, Ironically, the Hartbeats often played the same tunes they played in Dead shows. Since we’re missing so many 1968 shows in any case, it’s hard to say how rare some of these pieces were.
The Hartbeats returned to the Matrix at the end of the month for three shows on October 29-31.
In December, the Hartbeats are at the Matrix, without Phil Lesh or Bill Kreutzmann – Garcia, Hart, and Jack Casady play with a couple guest drummers. Guest Harvey Mandel also plays in another show with Garcia at the Matrix.
In February ’69, newspaper readers would have found an ad for “Mickey Hart & the Heartbeats with Jerry Garcia,” playing at the Matrix on July 27-28, 1970.
In August, there was another Hartbeats show surfaces at the Family Dog, with guest Howard Wales.
In April 17-19, 1970 at the Family Dog, the full Dead played shows with NRPS where they advertised themselves as “Mickey Hart & His Heartbeats (Bobby Ace & His Cards From the Bottom of the Deck)”.
With this new avenue for jamming available, there would seem to be no further need for any actual Hartbeats shows.
Garcia returned to the Matrix every Monday he could with Howard Wales.
With this far-out free-jazz organ player, Garcia could finally play the challenging explorations he had envisioned back in October ’68.
IV. The Reconciliation
The firing episode wasn’t entirely secret. Journalists reported the near departure of Weir and Pigpen. Lydon wrote about it in Rolling Stone and Robert Christgau wrote about it for the New York Times. He even mentioned the proposed “Pigpen Revue”.
Lesh thought the Hartbeats “never really worked right… [The Dead] wasn’t working right with [Pigpen & Weir], and it wasn’t [working] without them.” He realized, “Eventually realizing our mistake…we quietly left the Hartbeats behind. We knew that the band worked best with all of us playing.” The Dead changed their minds.
McNally says that even in December ’68, “there was talk of David Nelson replacing Weir,” but by then the crisis had died down. The original Hartbeats shows had come to an end.
Weir said, “I don’t remember exactly how we were eventually invited back into the band… After a while of playing without us, I guess they decided maybe it wasn’t as full without us… I think maybe they’d had enough of the insane complication. Or maybe they just felt their way into a more straightforward approach to the music with the two of us back.”
Weir diligently continued practicing the guitar but had no songs to offer for Aoxomoxoa.
As for Pigpen, years later Garcia had only gentle thoughts. “My memory of it is that we never actually let him go; we just didn’t want him playing keyboard, because he just didn’t know what to do on the kind of material we were writing. It seemed like we were heading someplace in a big way, and Pigpen just wasn’t open to it.”
Kesey felt the same way: “I think people tried to make-believe there was some sort of gap between Pigpen and the others. I think [now]…he would feel like they have caught up to him, not the other way around. His music was very natural. It took the rest of the band a long time to be as natural-feeling as he started out with.”
With Constanten now in the band, Pigpen didn’t play at all on Aoxomoxoa, and preferred to stay out of the studio. Sculptly says “The diminished role in the studio probably didn’t hit him that hard, because he had such a huge role in the show at that point and he was so loved by the community”.
Constanten was asked to join the band. “as an addition, not to replace Pigpen.” and adopted some of Pigpen’s line.
Constanten actually had a higher opinion of Pigpen’s keyboard-playing than the others did, and states that he thought Pigpen wasn’t threatened by him. Sue Swanson thought, “It probably hurt his feelings a little bit, but then it might also have been something of a relief. I mean, he was not stupid. He knew his playing was not keeping up.”
At this point, now that he was on keyboards, Constanten ran into more opposition than Pigpen did. He sometimes found himself the target of the band’s ire. He felt shunted aside and drowned-out onstage:
After little over a year, Constanten realized that things were not improving and left the band.
Mickey Hart considered it one of Lesh’s “intellectual trips… [TC] never fit in. He couldn’t let go. He thought too much…I couldn’t connect.”
It’s often forgotten how critical the Dead were of each other, throughout the years.
The Dead was designed as a collaboration in which everyone had a voice.
Even in the ‘80s, Garcia admitted, “It’s like we’re just getting started. There’s so much that we haven’t even done with the band… I think that, truthfully, we’re just starting to get somewhere.”
Fifteen years after being ‘fired’, Weir laughed. “Phil had, way back when, a really good notion of what the music could amount to. He’s been waiting for my musicianship to reach his ideals of what the music could amount to – and he probably still is, and he probably has a long wait ahead of him.”
