Free Dark Star by Robert Greenfield Page B

comic strip character had long hair and he was a mess. It was just a momentary gag. But I remember Pete Albin saying to me, “That’d be a great name for a performer, man. Pigpen, man. Like Blind Lemon Jefferson. Pigpen, you know?” And we all went, “Yes!” Him being in the jug band made it really legitimate beyond belief. In that respect, we had something more than the Kweskin Jug Band. We were able to do those blues and Pigpen did those harmonica parts exactly perfect. He didn’t copy it note for note. He had perfect feeling. We were playing jug band music and doing those rags and I thought of the name. Me and Hunter came up with Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions.
    Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia: In Palo Alto, there was a club; actually it was a pizza parlor, called the Tangent. I had just moved to Palo Alto from upstate New York where I grew up. I was probably seventeen and a half, driving around Palo Alto on my bicycle when I heard this banjo music coming out of the top floor of the Tangent. I slammed on the brakes, pulled over, parked the bike, went inside, and there was this old bald guy making pizzas there. It was a scary kind of place, really funky, the windows had never been washed. It was hot in there and they had a little stage on the upstairs floor and I was listening to this banjo music floating down the stairs. This was the best banjo music I had ever heard. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. My ear was just going right up the stairs. I asked the guy behind the counter, “Who the heck is playing the banjo up there?” And he said, “Oh, that’s Garcia. He plays over here. He plays with the jug band and they’re going to be playing here in a couple of days and he’s just using the room to rehearse in.” I said, “Do you think he’d mind if I went up and had a look around?” And he said, “No, go ahead.” So I trotted up the really crusty old stairs and there was Jerry sitting on a stool in the middle of this dusty dark place, practicing the shit out of the banjo and just tearing through these unbelievable long runs, and what he was practicing was a song called “Nola.” He would rip through these long complex runs and then hit a bad note and stop, go back to the beginning, and start over. Then he looked up. He looked at me and I looked at him and I said, “Oh, just looking around.” There was no contact because he was rehearsing. I thought, “Pretty cute. Not bad.” I went back downstairs and the guy behind the counter leaned over and said, “What’d you think?” I said, “Gee, really interesting. When are they going to play here?” And he said, “Now, listen, honey. He’s married.” He could read the interest. I went back out and got on my bicycle and went away. I did come back for a show a few days later and absolutely loved it. That was Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions or one of the pretty early versions of it and it was my first look at the people who were to become my friends. But it was several years before I met any of them.
    Sara Ruppenthal Garcia: Jerry had very few role models for what it was to be a father or a husband. His grandmother Tillie had a husband at home. But she also had her boyfriends coming in and out and he thought that was normal. Tillie was the matriarch. She was the strong adult in his life. I didn’t find out until months after we split up that he had been running around. Had I known then, I would have killed him. I would have killed him! I still could kill him! We had no skills. No way to handle relational difficulties. There was no arguing. Jerry did not do emotional honesty or confrontation. I could make him mad and he’d be pissed but there wasn’t any exchange then.
    David Nelson: The jug band became a regular working band. A known band that would do parties. We got more gigs because people could dance