Ron "Pigpen" McKernan could already feel his influence in the band waning from early on. Even back when the Grateful Dead were still known as the Warlocks. Whereas Pig subsisted on raw power fueled by alcohol and blues music, the rest of the members of the band were functioning on a completely different level. They listened to music, talked literature, and explored the cosmos...while loaded to the gills on LSD. Pig did not partake. He found himself not just playing in a band, but navigating a world of merry pranksters, acid tests, and long, strange trips.

Sources:

A Long Strange Trip: The Inside Story of the Grateful Dead, by Dennis McNally

Garcia: An American Life, by Blair Jackson

Searching for the Sound, by Phil Lesh

The Grateful Dead FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Greatest Jam Band in History, by Tony Sclafani

Drugs and the 'Beats': The Role of Drugs in the Lives and Writings of Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg by John Long

Living with The Dead: Twenty Years on the Bus with Garcia and the Grateful Dead, by Rock Scully with David Dalton

Jerry Garcia & Sandy Rothman travel down south (Woodstock Records)

High Flying Bird – Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia interview

Kepler's Books 60th Anniversary (Metro Silicon Valley)

Grateful Dead Guide: Pigpen Solo (Dead Essays)

Flashback: LSD Creator Albert Hofmann Drops Acid for the First Time (Rolling Stone)

'Apparently Useless': The Accidental Discovery of LSD (The Atlantic)

What a Trip (Stanford Magazine)

Ken Kesey & The Merry Pranksters (University of Virginia)

A brief history of psychedelic psychiatry (The Guardian)

Ken Kesey On Misconceptions Of Counterculture (NPR)

“We Were Alive and Life Was Us.” How Ken Kesey Created LSD Subculture (Lithub)

Ken Kesey's First LSD Trip Animated (Open Culture)

Therapeutic Use of LSD in Psychiatry: A Systematic Review of Randomized-Controlled Clinical Trials (Frontiers)

Did the CIA's Experiments With Psychedelic Drugs Unwittingly Create the Grateful Dead? (Collectors Weekly)

Doors of Perception: How Aldous Huxley Brought LSD Therapy to His Readers (Psychedelic Times)

Inside the 1950s LSD Therapy That Changed Cary Grant's Life (Vulture)

Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia on the Tom Snyder Show, 1981

The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A 'Poisoner In Chief' (NPR)

What a Long Strange Trip — LSD and the Grateful Dead (Medium)

How the Warlocks Passed the Acid Tests (Relix)

For behind the scenes info and news on this episode, follow:

Instagram: @DoubleElvis @Disgracelandpod 

Twitter: @DoubleElvisFm @Disgracelandpod

Tik Tok: @Disgracelandpod

Pinterest: @doubleelvisfm 

Facebook: Double Elvis Productions

Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse and many more musical icons all died at the age of 27. Scandalous, tortured, dramatic, and incredibly talented, these artists torched a wild path to their early graves and shifted and shaped our culture along the way. 27 Club tells their stories. 27 Club is hosted and created by Jake Brennan, host and creator of the award-winning music and true crime podcast DISGRACELAND. 27 Club is not a journalistic podcast. It is an entertainment podcast inspired by true events. For more shows like 27 Club, check out www.doubleelvis.com. 

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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

This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead, by Blair Jackson and David Gans

The Grateful Dead FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the Greatest Jam Band in History, by Tony Sclafani

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)

Live at Top of the Tangent

Fact-checking the Life and Death of Bluesman Robert Johnson (Mother Jones)

The Sad Story Of Robert Johnson (Radio Facts)

Robert Johnson: Murder or Bad Whiskey? (Criminal Element)

David “Honeyboy” Edwards on Robert Johnson and Mississippi Delta Blues (Chicago Magazine)

Robert Johnson: Unlock the guitar mysteries of the Delta blues great (Guitar World)

The Not-So-Mysterious Missing Grave of Blues Legend Robert Johnson (Atlas Obscura)

Greatest Stories Ever Told - "Easy Wind" (Dead.net)

For behind the scenes info and news on this episode, follow:

Instagram: @DoubleElvis @Disgracelandpod 

Twitter: @DoubleElvisFm @Disgracelandpod

Tik Tok: @Disgracelandpod

Pinterest: @doubleelvisfm 

Facebook: Double Elvis Productions

Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse and many more musical icons all died at the age of 27. Scandalous, tortured, dramatic, and incredibly talented, these artists torched a wild path to their early graves and shifted and shaped our culture along the way. 27 Club tells their stories. 27 Club is hosted and created by Jake Brennan, host and creator of the award-winning music and true crime podcast DISGRACELAND. 27 Club is not a journalistic podcast. It is an entertainment podcast inspired by true events. For more shows like 27 Club, check out www.doubleelvis.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get ready for Season 5 of the 27 Club to take the strange and not-so-long trip of Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Pigpen wasn't just a member of the Dead. He was the Dead. But just like Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones or Syd Barrett in Pink Floyd, Pigpen felt his role in the Grateful Dead shrink as the rest of the band members expanded their minds and their sound. The story of Pigpen is about a major musical and cultural shift that took place as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s. It’s a story of acid tests and bottles of Thunderbird, of angels from hell and a nine-fingered wizard, of busts down on Bourbon Street and shakedowns in the Haight…and of the man who tried to pull his band back down to earth as they continued to get pulled higher into the cosmos. It's a story that ends tragically...at the age of 27.

The 27 Club is hosted by Jake Brennan, creator and host of the award-winning Disgraceland podcast, and produced by iHeartRadio and Double Elvis. Season 5, all about Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and the Grateful Dead, launches Thursday, June 9, 2022.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Amy Winehouse died on July 23, 2011 at the age of 27, the world mourned. For many, the grim reality was far from surprising. What was surprising, however, was what happened next. Sordid stories were told about her last night that contradicted the accepted narrative. An autopsy was called into question. And years down the line, there was a contested attempt to bring not just her music but her likeness back to life.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

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Five years had passed since her last album. Her ex-husband was facing jail time for burglary. But Amy Winehouse chose to focus on the positive. She may not have been entirely sober, but she was no longer using. She had found a new person to love, and one who loved her. And then...the bottom dropped out.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

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One of Amy Winehouse’s final collaborators was Tony Bennett, who, unbeknownst to her, had his own stories to tell about struggling with addiction and fear. But no one, not even Tony Bennett, could help Amy Winehouse. A concert in Serbia became a new low point. Hallucinations and paranoia turned reality into a nightmare. And there wasn’t one tabloid, blog, or social media platform that wasn’t there to capture it all – every last slip-up and wrong turn.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

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Amy Winehouse wasn’t sure exactly what she was getting into when she accepted a £1million offer to play a private show for an anonymous Russian oligarch. Even more concerning was the uncertainty that lay ahead. After she squandered an opportunity to collaborate with a living legend and tried to burn the bridge of one of her most steadfast musical partners, Amy faced a crossroads. The two paths were clear. One was brightly lit; the other was dark. The choice was surprisingly difficult.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

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Amy Winehouse gravitated towards trouble like a moth to a flame. She hung out with the libertines of London’s seedy society, which regularly left her life in shambles. A multi-day drug binge left her on death’s door. She left decorum at the front door when a holiday trip to the theatre turned violent. Yet despite all this, she still managed to give the people the one thing they were never expecting – hope that it would all turn around soon.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

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When Amy Winehouse first met with producer Mark Ronson, their candid conversation would become a musical legend. That fateful meeting led to a career-defining song, a critically acclaimed album, and a creative vision that would cement her place in the pop pantheon. It gave her confidence to wage a war against the people who were hurting her the most – and win. But that momentum would prove no match for the steady stream of challenges, from old habits to hurricanes, that refused to disappear.

This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners and includes descriptions of an eating disorder.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amy Winehouse made music that sounded like alchemy, thanks in large part to collaborators like producer Salaam Remi. Alchemy was something that became increasingly absent from Amy’s time outside the studio; in its place were lurking paparazzi, incessant boos, cases of Jack Daniels, and a life-sized gallery sculpture that predicted the worst.

For more info on the 27 Club and other great shows, visit the Double Elvis website and follow Double Elvis on Twitter and Instagram.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.