‘Ramrod’ Shurtliff, the ‘Dead’s’ rock

HE was a psychedelic cowboy who rode the bus with Ken Kesey and took virtually every step of the long, strange trip with the Grateful Dead.

Known to one and all solely as Ramrod, has he died of lung cancer. He was 61.”He was our rock,” said guitarist Bob Weir.Born Lawrence Shurtliff, he was raised a country boy in eastern Oregon and once won a county fair blue ribbon in cattle judging.He got the name Ramrod from Kesey while he was travelling through Mexico with the author and LSD evangelist, at the time a fugitive from justice.”I am Ramon Rodriguez Rodriguez, the famous Mexican guide,” he boasted, and he was known ever after as Ramrod.Ramrod joined the Dead in 1967 as truck driver and was held in such high regard by the members of that sprawling, brawling organisation that he was named president of the Grateful Dead board of directors when the rock group actually incorporated in the ’70s.It was a position he held until the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995.Like the rest of the band’s few remaining staff, he was laid off last year.He travelled the full length of the Dead’s tangled odyssey, joining up with the band when the it first began playing out of town, about a year after the Dead got is start playing gin mills on the Peninsula.Ramrod went to work setting up and tearing down the band’s equipment for every show the Dead played.He puzzled his way through elaborate situations and circumstances: from the myriad psychedelic dungeons the band played through the ’60s, to a concert at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt in 1977 to the baseball parks the Dead filled on the endless tours of the ’80s and ’90s up until Garcia’s death.”He was always there,” said Hart, “making sure everybody was taken care of.”Hart also remembered one New Year’s Eve when he thought he might be too high to play.Ramrod solved the problem by strapping Hart to his drum stool with gaffer’s tape.Hart recalled another show in San Jose with Big Brother and the Holding Company, where the starter’s cannon the band used to punctuate the drum solo of ‘St Stephen’s’ went off early.”I looked back,” Hart said.”His face was on fire.He’d lost his eyebrows.You could smell his flesh.And he was hurrying to reload the cannon in time.That was the end of the cannons.”Ramrod was a quiet, unflappable road warrior.Hart and fellow crew member Rex Jackson once decided to see how long it would take Ramrod to say something on a truck trip across the Midwest.He said nothing through three states before speaking.”Hungry?” he finally said.”He was never a loudmouth,” said Parish.”He was never anything but an honest, hardworking guy with a grip of steel and a hand that felt like leather.”- San Francisco ChronicleHe was 61.”He was our rock,” said guitarist Bob Weir.Born Lawrence Shurtliff, he was raised a country boy in eastern Oregon and once won a county fair blue ribbon in cattle judging.He got the name Ramrod from Kesey while he was travelling through Mexico with the author and LSD evangelist, at the time a fugitive from justice.”I am Ramon Rodriguez Rodriguez, the famous Mexican guide,” he boasted, and he was known ever after as Ramrod.Ramrod joined the Dead in 1967 as truck driver and was held in such high regard by the members of that sprawling, brawling organisation that he was named president of the Grateful Dead board of directors when the rock group actually incorporated in the ’70s.It was a position he held until the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1995.Like the rest of the band’s few remaining staff, he was laid off last year.He travelled the full length of the Dead’s tangled odyssey, joining up with the band when the it first began playing out of town, about a year after the Dead got is start playing gin mills on the Peninsula.Ramrod went to work setting up and tearing down the band’s equipment for every show the Dead played.He puzzled his way through elaborate situations and circumstances: from the myriad psychedelic dungeons the band played through the ’60s, to a concert at the base of the Great Pyramids in Egypt in 1977 to the baseball parks the Dead filled on the endless tours of the ’80s and ’90s up until Garcia’s death.”He was always there,” said Hart, “making sure everybody was taken care of.”Hart also remembered one New Year’s Eve when he thought he might be too high to play.Ramrod solved the problem by strapping Hart to his drum stool with gaffer’s tape.Hart recalled another show in San Jose with Big Brother and the Holding Company, where the starter’s cannon the band used to punctuate the drum solo of ‘St Stephen’s’ went off early.”I looked back,” Hart said.”His face was on fire.He’d lost his eyebrows.You could smell his flesh.And he was hurrying to reload the cannon in time.That was the end of the cannons.”Ramrod was a quiet, unflappable road warrior.Hart and fellow crew member Rex Jackson once decided to see how long it would take Ramrod to say something on a truck trip across the Midwest.He said nothing through three states before speaking.”Hungry?” he finally said.”He was never a loudmouth,” said Parish.”He was never anything but an honest, hardworking guy with a grip of steel and a hand that felt like leather.”- San Francisco Chronicle