Grateful Dead

On May 5th, 1965, a new band called The Warlocks debuts at a pizza parlor on the peninsula south of San Francisco. It includes Jerry Garcia (a former bluegrass banjo player), Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan (a blues harmonica player), Bob Weir (a folk guitarist), Bill Kreutzmann (an R & B drummer), and, soon after, Phil Lesh, a jazz trumpeter and classical composer, on bass. They begin working at a variety of area bars, but as fall passes, their music, influenced by John Coltrane-style improvisation and the psychedelic experience, grows much stranger. In November the Warlocks change their name to the Grateful Dead, and in December they hook up with friends by the name of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, who are experimenting with LSD in social environments called the Acid Tests, where the division between performer and audience vanishes. By year's end, they aren't anybody's idea of a regular rock band anymore.