What was the Grateful Dead's original name?

Answer 1

The Grateful Dead began their career in Palo Alto, California, playing live shows at Kepler's Books [3].

They began as "The Warlocks", a group formed from the remnants of a Palo Alto jug band called "Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions." But as another band (which would later become The Velvet Underground) was already recording under the "Warlocks" name, the band had to change its name in order to get a recording contract. After meeting their new manager Rock Scully, they moved to the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco. Many bands from this area, such as Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother & the Holding Company, and Santana, went on to national fame, giving San Francisco an image as a center for the hippie counterculture of the era. (Also see entry for the San Francisco Sound.) Of these bands, the Grateful Dead had members with arguably the highest level of musicianship, including banjo and guitar player Jerry Garcia, blues musician Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, the classically trained Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann [4]. The Grateful Dead most embodied "all the elements of the San Francisco scene and came, therefore, to represent the counterculture to the rest of the country" [5].

Answer 2

The Warlocks:

On a Friday night in 1989, the word started drifting through certain circles that a band called The Warlocks was putting on a show outside of Hampton, Virginia. Considering this was the Grateful Dead's original name (they changed it in 1965), many people along the eastern seaboard began scratching their heads, huddling together, wondering if something unique was about to occur.

Answer 3

Original Grateful Dead

Answer 4

i am a deadhead, so i answer all dead questions even if they have been answered. the warlocks.
pigpen -vocals /harmonica/keys
jerry - guitar / vocals
bobby -guitar / vocals
phil - bass / vocals
billy - drums
tom - sometimes on keys

mickey hart would later join the band as a second drummer, get fired from the band for a few years, then come back again.
keith godcheaux would replace pig on keys, and his wife donna would join to sing backup.
brent mydland would replace keith.
and vince welnick replaced brent.
bruce hornsby would also play some keys during the vince years in the 90's
the songwriters were robert hunter, who cowrote songs with jerry.
and jack barlow who cowrote songs with bobby.
i've met bobby briefly once, and he was not smelling or high. he smelled nice and appeared to be sober.

Answer 5

The Warlocks

Answer 6

The Living Ingrates??

Answer 7

That is their original name, but they grew out of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters.

Answer 8

"The excuses to abuse controlled substances", but they thought that was too obvious.

By the way, Grateful Dead has always been terrible

Answer 9

Who cares, they were a bunch of smelly hippys who didn't shower and smoked to much pot and ate to much acids.