New Riders of the Purple Sage

New Riders of the Purple Sage
New Riders of the Purple Sage in 2015. Left to right: Buddy Cage, Michael Falzarano, Johnny Markowski, David Nelson, Ronnie Penque.
Background information
Origin	San Francisco, California
Genres	Country rock
Years active	1969–97, 2005–present
Labels	Columbia, MCA, A&M, Relix
Associated acts	Grateful Dead, Peter Rowan, Donna Jean Godchaux, Robert Hunter, David Nelson Band
Website	thenewriders.com
Members	David Nelson Buddy Cage Michael Falzarano Ronnie Penque Johnny Markowski
Past members	John Dawson Jerry Garcia Mickey Hart Phil Lesh Dave Torbert Spencer Dryden Skip Battin Stephen A. Love Patrick Shanahan Allen Kemp Bobby Black Michael White Billy Wolf Val Fuentes Rusty Gauthier Greg Lagardo Gary Vogensen Fred Campbell Evan Morgan Bill Laymon Bob Matthews

New Riders of the Purple Sage is an American country rock band. The group emerged from the psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco, California, in 1969, and its original lineup included several members of the Grateful Dead. Their best known song is "Panama Red". The band is sometimes referred to as the New Riders, or as NRPS.

The roots of the New Riders can be traced back to the early 1960s Peninsula folk/beatnik scene centered on Stanford University's now-defunct Perry Lane housing complex in Menlo Park, California, where future Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia often played gigs with like-minded guitarist David Nelson. The young John Dawson (also known as "Marmaduke") also played some concerts with Garcia, Nelson, and their compatriots while visiting relatives on summer vacation. Enamored of the sounds of Bakersfield-style country music, Dawson would turn his older friends on to the work of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens and provided a vital link between Timothy Leary's International Federation for Internal Freedom in Millbrook, New York (having boarded at the Millbrook School) and the Menlo Park bohemian coterie nurtured by Ken Kesey.

Mutually inspired by the emergence of blues rock, and folk rock, Garcia formed the Grateful Dead (initially known as The Warlocks) with blues singer Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, while Nelson joined the similarly inclined New Delhi River Band (which would eventually come to include bassist Dave Torbert) shortly thereafter. Although they lacked the managerial acumen and cultural cachet of the Grateful Dead and elected to remain in East Palo Alto, California vis a vis the former group (who soon relocated to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco), the New Delhi River Band were considered to be the house band of The Barn (one of the region's few viable concert venues outside of San Francisco) in Scotts Valley, California by late 1966. The group continued to enjoy a cult following in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties through the Summer of Love until their dissolution in early 1968.