The Warlocks were formed in Palo Alto in late 1964 when Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan from Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions decided to move toward an amplified electric sound. Dana Morgan Jr. initially played bass and Bill Kreutzmann joined on drums; Phil Lesh subsequently replaced Morgan on bass.
The Warlocks made their first performance at Magoo’s Pizza in Menlo Park on May 5, 1965, with the Garcia–Weir–Lesh–Kreutzmann–Pigpen lineup that would become the original core of the Grateful Dead. The band rapidly developed a louder, more improvisational approach, incorporating blues, R&B, folk, and emerging psychedelic rock into an increasingly open-ended live performance style.
Late in 1965, after discovering that another band was already using the name Warlocks, the group adopted the name Grateful Dead. They debuted under their new name at a Ken Kesey Acid Test in December 1965, marking the formal beginning of the Grateful Dead.
