Is the Grateful Dead keyboard seat really cursed?
Death had always been a spectre that followed the Grateful Dead. From the tragic accidental death of Jerry Garcia’s father in 1947 to Garcia’s own premature death in 1995, there was hardly ever a time when the Dead weren’t facing the stark reality of their own mortality. Never has that been more apparent than it was with regard to the supposed “cursed” nature of the band’s rotating keyboard role.
Over the band’s 30-year existence, there have been five official keyboard players: original founder Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan, brief organist Tom Constanten, pianist Keith Godchaux, keyboardist Brent Mydland, and synth player Vince Welnick. Constanten is the only one who is still alive, with all four other members having died before the age of 60. McKernan and Mydland both died while they were still members of the band (at ages 27 and 37, respectively), Godchaux died only a year after his departure in 1979 (at age 32), and Welnick took his own life almost exactly a decade after Garcia’s death put an end to the Grateful Dead in 1995 (at age 55).
After Mydland’s death in 1990, Deadheads began to wonder if the keyboard seat carried a nefarious aura around it. No other band members had died throughout the band’s career, although Garcia probably came closest after entering a diabetic coma in 1986. Other than the brief departure of percussionist Mickey Hart in the early 1970s, no one else had left the band or otherwise was unable to play. It was just the keyboard spot that seemed to court darkness.
The idea that the keyboard spot was “cursed” conveniently ignores a few facts. Constanten’s avoidance of the so-called curse has a few explanations, most of which revolve around his brief tenure or avoidance of most drugs, but his current status as a living human does throw a wrench in the works. The Dead also had guest keyboard players over the years, notably touring members like Ned Lagin and Bruce Hornsby, who seemed to avoid the curse.
Most true Deadheads will shake their head at the notion of a curse. McKernan died due to ongoing health problems that had plagued him since the late 1960s, the likes of which were probably exacerbated by his alcoholism. Godchaux died in a car accident with Dead family associate and tie-die artist Courtenay Pollock. Mydland died from a drug overdose, while Welnick took his own life after struggling with depression for a number of years. Of these deaths, only Godchaux’s could be considered a freak accident.
Garcia’s coma wasn’t the band’s only brush with death. Hart got into a car accident in 1977 that almost cost him his life. Phil Lesh nearly died from a hepatitis C infection of his liver in 1998. Other members had their own swipes with mortality as well, whether it was Bill Kreutzmann falling off a horse and breaking his wrist right before the band’s Egypt concerts in 1978 or Bob Weir getting blown back by a massive electrical shock during the Dead’s rain-soaked performance at Woodstock in 1969. These events haven’t been associated with a “curse”, but the recurring fatalities at the keyboard station have.
The rock and roll lifestyle wasn’t synonymous with healthy living – quite the opposite, in fact. But for every Grateful Dead keyboard player who shuffled off the mortal coil far too soon, the notion that they had been cursed is too silly for even a band named after a mythical story of death. A gastrointestinal haemorrhage, a car accident, a drug overdose, and a suicide simply don’t have enough in common to draw a straight line through. Besides, what McKernan, Godchaux, Mydland, and Welnick did while they were alive matters more than what caused their deaths.
