If you put on, let's say, the 2-22-1969 "Turn On Your Lovelight," 22 minutes of a rollicking frenzy led by the late, great Pigpen, a true one-of-a-kind, and then compare it to, let's say, anything created in the rock and pop genres afterwards, or at least in the last 20 years, the latter is going to sound like a bunch of mopey, whiny shit made by douchebag-cleaning pansies.
But what was it about Pigpen? Here was a guy.
I mean: HERE WAS A GUY...
There are just no words...
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| Pigpen leading a rave-up at the Fillmore East in 1970 |
There are Grateful Dead purists who say that nothing without Pigpen is worth listening to. Given Pig died in '73 and his last show was in June 1972, we're shutting ourselves out of a lot of good music. Really good fucking music.
Pig only spent 7 years as a member of the Dead and there were 23 other good years--some great--and Pig dying also opened up the Dead to more musical experimentation. To get deeper. But there's something true in the Pigpen purist notion. Even Jerry said when Pigpen died: "That's not Pigpen in the coffin. That's the Grateful Dead."
Pig died of either liver cirrhosis or from internal bleeding from a burst duodenal ulcer or from complications from Crohn's Disease or from drinking too much. But who cares how he died? I say he died of a broken heart because anybody who feels as deeply as Pigpen with as big a soul, which clearly showed in his music, has too big a burden to bear.
But what was it about Pigpen?
Pigpen was okay as an organist and with his harmonica he could entertain for a few minutes. But why so important?
On the surface, Pig was most famous for leading the band through his rollicking freestyle renditions of The Rascals' "Good Lovin'" or the R&B classic "Turn on your Lovelight." Both of these songs became 2 songs in one. The Dead would thrash through some high-spirited, blues-inspired improvisations while Pig would do free verse--usually something to get people on their feet, something about the joy in life of having good lovin' --and ain't he right? These were frequently the highlights of the Dead's early shows.
And then you have the 2-13-70 "Smokestack Lightning." Turn out the lights, put a blindfold on, forget that these are 5 guys from the San Francisco Bay Area, and if you listen to the Dead do Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightning," you'd think it was an all-negro blues outfit from Mississippi getting big in Chicago. Pigpen is a man possessed with Howlin' Wolf's soul.
But when I really got Pigpen was re-listening to to what he did on the Europe '72 spring tour. When he was real sick and slowing down. He musters up some rollicking "Lovelights" on the tour, but it's the real soulful stuff that gets you. His rendition of the blues standard "It Hurts Me Too"--you better believe it will hurt you, too. His original, "The Stranger: Two Souls in Communion," only played a handful of times before he died, is just a tear-jerker. A killer.
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| The soulful Pigpen |
Here's what it is about Pigpen...
When the rest of the band was all about wild musical experimentation, Pigpen brought them back to the Blues, the root of all American music.
When the rest of the band was a bunch of goofy, zitty, awkward nerds, Pig was the only one to stand up in front of the crowd and engage with the people. He really embraced an American notion..."by the people...for the people." It took Jerry Garcia a lot of work to get over his deep innate shyness and sing or take a lead. And Pig had to show him how.
When the rest of the band was unsure of themselves, Pigpen was totally okay with being himself. Zits and all. And here is the legacy he left behind with the band for them to carry on: To be totally confident with your weirdness. To let it shine.
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Live/Dead is widely regarded as one of the greatest live rock n' roll albums of all time, even among non-Dead Heads. Do yourself a favor and put on your headphones, turn it up and ruin your hearing, and listen to Pigpen rave through "Turn On Your Lovelight."
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