Dark Star by Robert Greenfield Page A

Phil came down and now the scene shifted to Guitars Unlimited in Menlo Park. Dana Morgan’s was no longer part of the scene. Now Jerry was teaching at Guitars Unlimited. Phil came down one day and I got to meet Phil. They were in the back room at Dana’s and they said, “Here, Phil, here’s a bass.” And Phil said, “What do I do with it?” And I said, “This is the A string, this is the E string and you get to make the E string be the same as the A string by pushing on the fifth fret and then the same tone. The basic beat is boom boom, boom boom and then you need to go up to here, boom boom, boom boom.” I just showed him which string was which and where an E was on the A string. He picked up on that right away.
    Jerry Garcia (1988): We were stoned on acid the first time we walked into one of the Family Dog’s first shows at Longshoreman’s Hall when they had the Lovin’ Spoonful. We went in there and looked around and Phil went up to Luria Castel and said, “Lady, what this little séance needs is us.” We thought, “Yeah. We should be here. Hell, yeah. You kiddin’?” It was obvious .
    Sue Swanson: The first time I ever got high was when the Lovin’ Spoonful played Longshoreman’s Hall. Garcia put the sugar cube under my tongue and said, “In half an hour, you won’t believe your eyes.” We went somewhere in Larkspur, a place I’ll never find again, and then we ended up going back to Longshoreman’s Hall to see the Lovin’ Spoonful.
    Dexter Johnson: Bill Kreutzmann was a drummer in a group called the Legends at Palo Alto High School and they were the best band at the school. I was Social Commissioner at Palo Alto High and I hired them for the opening dance. They were great. All my friends were like, “All, right, man!” Then when I came to school on Monday, there was a note for me to go to the office and I was screwed. Kreutzmann’s band had made the kids dance like they weren’t supposed to. There were no fights or anything but it was some moral issue because they were doing the “Swim.” They were pumping and doing bumps and grinds. It was a white upper middle class thing. We were right next to Stanford University.
    Justin Kreutzmann: My dad met Jerry in ’63 before the band started because Jerry answered an ad in the paper put there by my grandfather, Big Bill. He was selling a banjo that we had and my dad answered the door and there was this guy named Jerry Garcia asking to buy this banjo and he bought the banjo and then they both ended up working in Dana Morgan’s music store.
    Sue Swanson: Then they started the rock band and they didn’t want to let me watch them. Bobby wouldn’t let me come to the first rehearsal. No one could go. But then he let me go to the second rehearsal and I was the first person that ever got to go to their rehearsal besides them and I never went away. That was it. I’ve always been there. That was why Jerry called me his first fan. This was 1965. I was a junior in high school.
    Sara Ruppenthal Garcia: I remember spending some time up at John Dawson’s parents’ house in the hills when they were just getting the band together, playing “Gloria” and some Rolling Stones’ songs. It took some persuasion but Phil was definitely the bass player by then. They also practiced at Sue Swanson’s parents’ place. By now, we had moved to that big old house on Waverly with Hunter and Nelson and Rick Shubb and some other folks. Things were changing.
    John “Marmaduke” Dawson: Pigpen really did have the beatnik edge. Pigpen was the real beatnik. Everybody else was imitation beatniks. Pigpen got brought up on R and B. That was why he was able to play harmonica like a black guy. He’d go hang out in East Palo Alto with black hookers. One time Garcia said, “If you’re going to hang out with Pigpen, you’re taking