1946
Summer: Tiff Garcia accidentally chops off half of 4-year-old brother Jerry's
right middle finger with an ax.
1963
Dec. 31: Garcia meets Bob Weir, 16, in Palo Alto, Calif.
1964
Garcia and pals begin hanging out with
Ken Kesey in La Honda, Calif., experimenting in ‘‘purposeful
hedonism.''
1965
April: First gig for the warlocks (Garcia, Weir,
Bill Kreutzmann, Ron ‘‘Pigpen’’ McKernan, and Dana Morgan Jr.) in Menlo
Park, Calif.
June 7: Phil Lesh replaces Morgan on bass.
Dec. 4: Band members attend first acid test, a bacchanalia organized by Kesey in San Jose. Strobe lights enter zeitgeist.
1966
Jan. 21-23: Dead attend the trips festival, a San Francisco dance
concert-cum-Acid Test organized by Bill Graham, Stewart Brand, and
the Pranksters.
July 1: The Dead release their first single: ‘‘Don't
Ease Me In’’/ ‘‘Stealin’.’’
September: Dead and families move into 710
Ashbury Street in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district.
Oct. 6: California legislature criminalizes LSD.
1967
Jan. 14: The great
Human Be-In, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Rock meets anti-Vietnam
movement. Dead join Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger
Service before 20,000.
March 17: First album, The Grateful Dead,
released on Warner Bros. and disappears.
June 18: Monterey
International pop festival. Performing between Jimi Hendrix and the
Who, the Dead are bummed by the commercial nature of the event .
Sept. 29: Mickey Hart joins the band as second drummer.
Oct. 2: McKernan,
Lesh, and Weir busted for marijuana possession at 710 Ashbury.
Charges dropped on technicality.
1968
Feb. 4: Spiritual godfather Neal
Cassady dies in Mexico. Lesh: ‘‘He showed by example how to
live in the weirdest possible way.’’
April: Dead flee the Haight's
crime and hard-drug scene for Marin county.
1969
June 7: Janis Joplin
joins Pigpen for duet on ‘‘Turn On Your Love Light’’at Fillmore West.
July 10: Band appears on Playboy After Dark. Sid Caesar is among
Hef's other guests.
Dec. 6: Altamont: Dead criticized for their role
in hiring Hell's Angels after one kills a gun-toting spectator. End
of the hippies.
1970
Jan. 31: ‘‘Busted down on Bourbon Street’’in New
Orleans for marijuana (entire band except for McKernan). Case
dismissed on technicality.
March: Hart's father, Lenny, the band's
manager, is caught embezzling roughly $150,000 from their coffers. No
charges are filed.
1971
Winter: ''Truckin'''hits no. 64 on Billboard charts.
Feb. 18: Hart leaves the band to pursue his own music.
Oct. 19: With Pigpen's alcohol-battered health failing, Keith Godchaux
joins on keyboards.
1972
March 25: Keith's wife, Donna, joins band on
vocals. Lesh: ‘‘you know how difficult it is having a husband and
wife in the same band?’’
June 17: Pigpen's final show, at the
Hollywood Bowl.
Aug. 27: Concert at old Renaissance Faire Grounds in
Veneta, Ore., an acid-laced reunion with Kesey, regarded by tape
connoisseurs as one of the Dead's finest.
1973
March 8: Pigpen dies of
liver failure and internal bleeding. Hart: ‘‘he was just living the
blues life, singin’the blues and drinkin’whiskey.’’
