A Complete Guide To All Of The Grateful Dead's Lineup Changes

March 2024 ยท 2 minute read

The humble beginnings of the Grateful Dead started back in 1965, at the height of the hippie and psychedelic era. In late 1964, guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, as well as keyboardist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, were playing together in a folk band known as Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions. However, prompted by Pigpen, the band started to consider switching from unplugged folk music to electrified blues.

They soon hooked up with drummer Bill Kreutzmann, and Mother McCree's quickly fell by the wayside. The first official concert of the new electrified blues band took place on May 5, 1965, at a pizza parlor, and the band went by the name of the Warlocks. The group consisted of Garcia, Weir, Pigpen, and Kreutzmann, with Dana Morgan on the bass. However, Morgan's days with the band were numbered.

Due partly to his National Guard commitments, as well as his wife's distaste for the band, the guys looked to replace Morgan from the very beginning. After seeing a performance of the Warlocks at the pizza parlor under the influence of LSD, Phil Lesh talked with his old friend Garcia about joining the band, and on June 18, the Grateful Dead's core lineup played their first show together with Lesh on bass instead of Morgan. A few months later, that November, the band changed their name, and the Grateful Dead was born.

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