Bob Weir, a founding member of countercultural icons the Grateful Lifeless, recognized for his singular guitar taking part in, emotive singing and vibrant songwriting, has died at 78.
“It’s with profound unhappiness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” the Weir household confirmed to The Instances. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by family members, after courageously beating most cancers as solely Bobby might. Sadly, he succumbed to underlying lung points.”
Weir was recognized with most cancers in July.
Weir-penned songs embrace Grateful Lifeless fan favorites “Sugar Magnolia,” “Jack Straw,” “Taking part in within the Band” and “Climate Report Suite.” His vocal efficiency on the rock-radio staple “Truckin’” counts among the many band’s best recorded moments.
The Lifeless launched 13 studio albums with Weir, amongst them “Aoxomoxoa” (1969), “Workingman’s Lifeless” (1970), “American Magnificence” (1970), “Wake of the Flood” (1973), “Terrapin Station” (1977) and 1987’s “Within the Darkish,” which featured the High 10 single “Contact of Gray” and have become the band’s highest-charting album, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard 200.
The Lifeless additionally launched eight “official” dwell albums, in addition to a long-running sequence of curated dwell reveals referred to as Dick’s Picks and, later, Dave’s Picks. The band was the primary to sanction fan taping at their live shows, spawning an abundance of homespun recordings which have been collected, traded and debated for many years.
Weir’s official function within the Grateful Lifeless was rhythm guitarist, alongside lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, however his advanced model — marked by distinctive chord voicings, exact rhythms and a willingness to play by way of his bandmates as an alternative of over them — elevated him from the usual rhythm participant. “Bob’s strategy to guitar taking part in is kind of like Invoice Evans’ strategy to piano was. He’s a complete savant,” John Mayer instructed Guitar World journal in 2017. “His tackle guitar chords and comping is so unique, it’s virtually too unique to be totally appreciated till you get deep down into what he’s doing. I feel he’s invented his personal vocabulary. … It’s a joyous factor to play together with.”
Weir’s first solo album, “Ace,” launched in 1972, contained many songs that turned requirements within the Lifeless’s dwell present, together with “Black-Throated Wind,” “Cassidy” and “Mexicali Blues.” “Blue Mountain,” Weir’s solo album from 2016, written in collaboration with musicians Josh Ritter and Josh Kaufman and impressed by Weir’s affinity for cowboy music and western iconography, turned his highest-charting solo album, reaching No. 14 on the Billboard 200.
Weir additionally performed in quite a few facet initiatives, post-Lifeless tribute acts and different rock bands, together with Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, RatDog, Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnites, and the Weir, Robinson & Inexperienced Acoustic Trio with members of the Black Crowes. Lifeless & Firm, that includes Weir, Lifeless bandmates Mickey Hart and Invoice Kreutzmann, bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and singer-guitarist Mayer, kickstarted a Deadaissance in 2015, reviving the band’s music and tie-dye-wearing, hacky-sack-kicking aesthetic for legions of recent and present followers. The band’s ultimate tour earlier than an indefinite hiatus, in 2023, drew almost 1 million individuals.
Weir additionally was a devoted collaborator, inviting associates to carry out with him or guesting on their data or in live performance. Willie Nelson, Joan Baez, the Allman Brothers, Sammy Hagar, Nancy Wilson, Stephen Marley, Billy Strings, Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, the Nationwide, Margo Worth and nouveau jam act Goose counted amongst his many musical compatriots. “Music is like transcendental medicine and Bob Weir is my spirit information,” Worth stated on Instagram in 2022. Weir’s friendship with the itinerant people singer Ramblin’ Jack Elliott started within the early Sixties, and within the new millennium, Elliott and Weir incessantly carried out low-key reveals collectively in Marin County, the place each resided.
Robert Corridor Weir was born Oct. 16, 1947, in San Francisco to John Parber and Phyllis Inskeep, a school scholar who later gave him up for adoption. He was raised by adoptive dad and mom Frederic Utter Weir and Eleanor (née Cramer) Weir in Atherton, Calif. Weir struggled as a baby as a result of undiagnosed dyslexia and was kicked out of each college he attended, together with the non-public Fountain Valley Faculty in Colorado Springs, Colo., the place he met John Perry Barlow, who would later contribute lyrics to the Grateful Lifeless.
Weir met Garcia on New 12 months’s Eve, 1963, at a Palo Alto music retailer, and shortly fashioned the jug band Mom McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions with Garcia and future Lifeless bandmate Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Weir was simply 16 years previous. “There was some pressure at dwelling as a result of I used to be neglecting my research, and I grew up below the shadow of Hoover Tower,” Weir defined in an interview with Dan Reasonably. “My of us had Stanford in thoughts for me, not an itinerant troubadour. However they might additionally clearly see that I used to be following my bliss.”
A couple of 12 months later, at McKernan’s urging, the trio, together with bassist Dana Morgan Jr. and drummer Kreutzmann, fashioned the Warlocks, an electrical rock band, and performed a handful of gigs earlier than bassist Phil Lesh changed Morgan. The group shortly found {that a} band referred to as the Warlocks already existed and renamed themselves the Grateful Lifeless, a time period Garcia present in a dictionary. Lifeless lyricist Robert Hunter and second drummer Hart joined the group in 1967.
As a member of the Lifeless, Weir was a type of shape-shifting clairvoyant, creating ever-evolving sounds and varieties that turned important to the material of American music tradition. With the Lifeless, Weir was a part of Ken Kesey’s Acid Assessments within the mid-’60s, centered round experiments with LSD, and the band’s members have been recognized to make use of nitrous oxide, marijuana, velocity and heroin. The late ’70s launched an evident affiliation with cocaine, and a interval referred to as Disco Lifeless.
The band’s predilection for dwell improvisation, through which they refashioned and prolonged their songs through intuitive jams and imaginative transitions, drew legions of adoring followers — referred to as Deadheads — who adopted the band from metropolis to metropolis, and have been the bedrock of the jam band motion that adopted within the Eighties. The Lifeless’s graphic symbols, together with “dancing” bears, the “Stealie” lightning cranium and instrument-wielding terrapins, have been plastered throughout innumerable merchandise and have become a calling card of hippie-influenced counterculture over the following a long time.
All through the Lifeless’s existence, Weir was typically seen as “the Different One” as a result of Garcia’s outsize presence within the band. Weir was its youngest member, and its most good-looking. (Stunning Bobby and the ugly brothers, the band used to joke.) He wrote and sang fewer songs than Garcia. However for others, Weir’s deference to Garcia — how he constructed a singular type of rhythm guitar taking part in to go well with Garcia’s pure model, and used his deeper voice as a wealthy vocal counterpoint — was indicative of his generosity and willingness to place ego apart. Within the 2014 documentary “The Different One: The Lengthy Unusual Journey of Bob Weir,” he stated that he takes no delight in what he’s achieved as a result of he views delight as a “suspect emotion.”
In contrast to his bandmates within the Lifeless, Weir had a long-running curiosity in private model, and incessantly opted for tucked-in button-down shirts, western put on and polo shirts as an alternative of tie-dye and ponchos. “I simply wished to be type of elegant,” he instructed GQ in 2019. “Folks have been paying good cash to see us, and at the moment I figured that meant we ought to decorate up a bit.” His denim cutoffs, which crept up in size over time, have been referred to as Bobby Shorts. Weir would develop his grey hair and beard into a method resembling actor Sam Elliott within the 1979 western “The Sacketts,” and started a collaboration with designer James Perse that landed someplace between cowboy and surfer.
Weir was single for many of his time within the Lifeless, and didn’t marry till 1999. With spouse Natascha Münter, he had two daughters, Shala Monet Weir and Chloe Kaelia Weir. He was vegetarian for a lot of his life, and was keen about animal rights, environmental causes and funding for the humanities.
In interviews, Weir spoke of Japanese faith and philosophy, and his desires, which dictated many selections he made in his life. He incessantly stated in interviews that his relationship with Garcia by no means died, even after the Grateful Lifeless chief handed away in 1995. In 2012, Weir instructed Rolling Stone that Garcia “lives and breathes in me.”
“I see him in my desires on a regular basis,” he instructed the Huffington Publish in 2014. “I’d say I can’t speak to him, however I can. I don’t miss him. He’s right here. He’s with me.”
Instances workers author Carlos De Loera contributed to this report.
