Tom Constanten, former keyboardist for the Grateful Dead, at the Old Waldorf in San Francisco in 1983. Two Bay Area benefit concerts for him highlight medical struggles among members of the band’s former circle.
Ed Perlstein/Redferns via Getty Images
In the long, strange saga of the Grateful Dead, keyboardist Tom Constanten’s brief but consequential tenure stands out as the most unusual in the band’s history.
Officially joining the group in November 1968 — the day after mustering out of the Air Force — he provided a direct connection between the Dead’s psychedelic experiments and European avant-garde composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez, with whom he had studied. His contributions played a key role in expanding the forms and textures on the band’s most adventurous albums, 1968’s “Anthem of the Sun” and 1969’s “Aoxomoxoa.”
Tom Constanten Benefit Concert: 8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 22. $20. O’Reilly’s Pub, 1840 Haight St., S.F. https://oreillyssf.com. • 8 p.m. (VIP 6 p.m.) Tuesday, Dec. 23. $30-$80. Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. www.ashkenaz.com
Then, after 14 months, he amiably departed. But his ties to the band’s fans remained undead.
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Now facing that most American of dilemmas, struggling to pay for medical care, he’s in the midst of radiation treatments for lung cancer, and the 81-year-old Constanten has once again been embraced by Deadheads. Over the past four months, nearly 1,000 contributions have flowed into a GoFundMe campaign that’s approaching its $60,000 goal.
“I’m going for a round of chemo tomorrow,” he told the Chronicle on a recent phone call from his home in New Mexico. “Each round knocks me out for days, though so far that’s the one symptom. It’s pretty intense.”
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Tom Constanten from the Grateful Dead performs at the Woodstock 40th anniversary Blu-ray release party at Hard Rock Cafe Times Square in New York City in 2009.
George Napolitano/FilmMagic
The support continues on Monday, Dec. 22 at O’Reilly’s Pub in San Francisco and Tuesday, Dec. 23, at Ashkenaz in Berkeley with benefit concerts featuring an extended cast of musicians led by Phil Lesh & Friends keyboardist Scott Guberman.
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Some musicians set to perform at Ashkenaz aren’t on the O’Reilly’s bill, like Further vocalist Sunshine Garcia Baker and keyboardist Bob Bralove, who has worked and recorded widely with Constanten in the improvisational double-keyboard duo Dose Hermanos. But there’s a good deal of overlap between the two events, including bassist Reed Mathis, drummer John Hanrahan, and Grateful Dead scholar, producer and guitarist David Gans.
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“Remember that the Dead started as a blues band,” said Gans, host and producer of the nationally syndicated “Grateful Dead Hour” radio show.
Grateful Dead scholar, producer and guitarist David Gans in his home recording studio in Oakland in 2011.
Michael Macor/S.F. Chronicle
Dead bassist Phil Lesh and Constanten were friends from UC Berkeley with similar musical passions, and years later, “when the Dead got ambitious in the studio, Phil brought TC in,” Gans explained. “His contributions included a preexisting tape piece that Tom had done that was laid into side one of ‘Anthem of the Sun.’ He’s a brilliant musician and a lovely guy.”
Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 with the Grateful Dead, Constanten traveled far and wide musically in the decades after his short stint in the band. But it wasn’t until about 2005 that he plunged back into the legacy of the psychedelic era.
And Constanten wasn’t just sitting in with Dead tribute bands like Dark Star Orchestra and Terrapin Flyer and touring with Alphonso Johnson’s improvisation-laced instrumental combo Jazz Is Dead. The keyboardist became part of the extended Summer of Love constellation, performing with former members of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, and several Jefferson Airplane/Starship units.
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Bruce Hornsby, from left, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, Tom Constanten (with cut-out of Jerry Garcia) and Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame event at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City in 1994.
Steve Eichner/WireImage
“I diversified through this one large family,” Constanten said. “Coming back to this music years later, I heard it a lot more intensely and clearly. Each band has its own harmonic flavor — the way the chords move, the way the melodies move. That was clearer than ever.”
He’s hardly the only member of the Dead’s extended clan facing health crises. Deadheads have also rallied to the aid of Candace Brightman, the Grateful Dead’s lighting director from 1972 to 1995. Currently dealing with failing eyesight, among other issues, fans have already helped raise more than $80,000 through GoFundMe for her mounting medical bills and other financial struggles.
Harry Popick, the Dead’s onstage monitor engineer, suffered a series of health setbacks and an ongoing GoFundMe has reached two-thirds of the $100,000 goal. Dead roadie Kidd Candelario has been the beneficiary of several fundraising efforts, though the latest GoFundMe was launched before he had a series of strokes early this year.
Most recently, Betty Cantor-Jackson, a producer and sound recordist whose high-quality tapes of Dead shows are treasured by fans, has faced a series of setbacks. Deadheads responded to a GoFundMe launched in February with more than $60,000.
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Betty Cantor-Jackson, sound engineer with the Grateful Dead, poses at Santa Barbara Stadium in 1978.
Ed Perlstein/Redferns
Word of each new fundraising campaign spreads quickly on the Grateful Dead Reddit, where announcements are often followed by queries about why Dead & Company or another Dead-related configuration doesn’t host a benefit concert or contribute funds to help out the former employees.
Gans takes issue with that expectation.
“What do any of them owe to ex-employees?” he said. “We’re surrounded by a culture that feels like we’ve been living in a house together all these years. We see it as a family and communal social scene. But the actual structures are different. What is the obligation?
“And we have no idea of who has given money to anybody.”
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Keyboardist Tom Constanten performs at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville in 2010.
Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images
For his part, Constanten isn’t aware of any contributions from his former bandmates.
“I haven’t heard anything from other members,” said Constanten, who was closest to vocalist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, who died in 1973. “That’s their affair. I don’t give it much thought.”
Instead, he’s thinking about all the people who’ll be jamming to help him get through his fight against cancer, though he figures he won’t be in any shape to travel.
“I would love to be there,” Constanten said. “Catching up with old friends and making new ones.”
Andrew Gilbert is a freelance writer.
