Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions were a short-lived acoustic jug band formed in the Palo Alto area in spring 1964. The group brought together Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, along with other local musicians, creating the first important musical partnership among the three musicians who would soon form the core of the Grateful Dead.
The group performed traditional jug-band, folk, blues, and string-band material, initially emphasizing the acoustic music that Garcia had been exploring through the Bay Area folk and bluegrass scene. A July 1964 performance at the Top of the Tangent was recorded by Stanford students for KZSU-FM and was eventually released decades later.
Mother McCree’s is one of the most important direct precursors to the Grateful Dead. By late 1964, the musicians began experimenting with electric instruments at Pigpen’s urging, and the group evolved into the Warlocks. The Grateful Dead’s own history describes Mother McCree’s as the jug band that “plugged in” and transformed into the Warlocks.
