The Warlocks

The Warlocks were formed in Palo Alto at the end of 1964 when Jerry Garcia, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and Bob Weir, who were members of Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, decided that they wanted to play "electric" music. They added a rhythm section, Dana Morgan Jr. on bass and local drummer Bill Kreutzmann. The first Warlock performance was in Magoo's pizza parlour in Menlo Park in May 1965. After a handful of performances Phil Lesh replaced Dana Morgan on bass. The Warlocks played at, mostly, local venues through the summer and early fall of the year.

The Warlocks, using the name the Emergency Crew, recorded one demo session for Autumn Records in early November 1965. The music from this session was not released at the time but has appeared on subsequent collections. At around the same time they discovered that there was at least one other group in the country using the Warlocks name. The Warlocks played their last show in November 1965 and thereafter adopted the name the Grateful Dead. For the occasional show in later years the Grateful Dead were billed as the Grateful Dead (formerly The Warlocks).