During this week in rock history (March 22-March 27), the Dead’s Jerry Garcia ran into some car trouble, the Black Crowes pissed off a beer company, and radio stations banned a song about getting stoned.
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Forty-eight years ago, the Dead’s Jerry Garcia found driving in New Jersey can sometimes take you to places where you rather not be. In Garcia’s case, it was a 3-hour stay in a jail cell after getting pulled over by cops on the turnpike. The Dead’s lead guitarist would have received a $15 ticket for a traffic infraction, but Garcia, like a lot of long-haired and bearded motorists in the early ’70s, aroused enough suspicion that warranted the cops to search his car. The search yielded (surprise!!) a various assortment of illegal substances. Besides jail time, Garcia was ordered to cough up a $2,000 fine.
Thirty years ago, rock band The Black Crowes got booted as the opening act for ZZ Top after making critical remarks about Miller Beer, the tour’s sponsor. .
Fifty years ago, New York radio station WNBC banned Brewer & Shipley’s “One Toke Over The Line” because of its references to ingesting weed. Other radio stations also refused to give the song air time, but it still made it on Billboard’s Top 10 chart.