keeping up with the new direction the band was headed. One afternoon after Weir and Pigpen had left a recording session, Jerry ordered the band manager, Rock aside and ordered him to fire them both.That idea was ridiculous, and Rock knew it. You dont fire your lifetime friends and your partner, and if you do you do it yourself, and Garcia refused. Pigpen, whose legend grew as he himself began to dwindle away with liver disease, was a tougher case. He rarely came to band meetings, but he still did know how to work the crowd. As late as 1970-1971, when the Grateful Dead took the college circuit by storm, he was often the star, rapping the blues in a way that drew his student audiences into a magic circle of warmth that left them hungry for more. We can calling ourselves the Grateful Dead but after Pigpens death, Garcia said at Ron McKernans funeral in 1973, we all knew this was the end of the original Grateful Dead.Mickey Hart once stated If you only know a band by its records, you wouldnt like the Grateful Dead very much. The Dead made many records throughout the years but the prize possessions are the bootleg albums and tapes from many shows, personally the only albums I really enjoy from them are their live ones or bootlegs of course. The Grateful Dead was and band who played for you and not to you like most bands do. The only reason they were out there was for the audiences. It was a short step for the Grateful Dead to envision recruiting a lager community of heads and freaks, a Deadland of airwaves and albums and concerts, which would help the band steer clear of obstacles in its path. These included internal problems of uneven talent and colliding music styles, and more importantly, record prices that the Dead wanted to lower the level that Waner had set.The step that soon sent the Dead off the track from all other bands of their time was taken in1971, when a brief notice was slipped in the jacket of the live album Skull and Roses....
