Lenny Hart

Who was Lenny Hart?

Leonard "Lenny" Hart was a drummer, who owned and operated Hart Music, selling drums and musical instruments in San Carlos, California. He was the father of Mickey Hart, the percussionist for the Grateful Dead. Lenny Hart was also the Grateful Dead's original money manager. Lenny Hart was responsible for disappearing with a large sum of the group's profits in March, 1970. Later that same month, the Grateful Dead recorded Workingman's Dead and toured Canada by train as part of the Trans Continental Pop Festival, which was later depicted in the documentary, Festival Express.

Lenny Hart was arrested in San Diego in the summer of 1971, while baptizing people and using the name "Rev. Lenny B. Hart."

The Grateful Dead song "He's Gone" is based on Lenny Hart's embezzlement of band money and subsequent disappearance. As a result of the fiasco, Mickey Hart left the band in February 1971, not returning to the group on a full-time basis until 1974.