Global Ganja Report

Bob Weir, who helped define the sound of the Grateful Dead, flagship band of the 1960s San Francisco scene, died Jan. 10 at the age of 78. His life was synonymous with the Dead, which he saw through its various incarnations—from its early roots in the Bay Area folk revival and bluegrass circuit to preeminent symbol of the youth counterculture, to an American institution and grand-daddies of the "jam band" tradition.

The first kernel of what would become the Grateful Dead was an impromptu acoustic jam session in a Palo Alto music shop on New Year's Eve 1965, which began when a teenaged Weir, guitar in hand, was walking by and heard banjo playing within. This proved to be his future bandmate Jerry Garcia, who was working as a banjo instructor at the shop. The two formed Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, dedicated to preserving the old-timey sound.

They later went electric and embraced rock'n'roll as the Warlocks, which became the house band at Ken Kesey's notorious "Acid Tests." It was at these affairs, under the influence of LSD, that their ethic of long exploratory free-form jams took hold.

As San Francisco's hippie scene exploded, they became the Grateful Dead, which came to define the city's "acid rock" sound. Along with fellow San Francisco musical pioneers the Jefferson Airplane, they played the Monterey International Pop Festival, which kicked off the 1967 "Summer of Love," the utopian-spirited Woodstock festival in August 1969—and that December's disastrous and violence-plagued Altamont Speedway free concert.

After this, they mellowed their sound, returning to their folkie roots for a number of albums—and became perhaps the country's hardest working tour band. Their in-concert improvisatory excursions blended folk, country, blues, rock and jazz influences (later funk and reggae too), and won them a dedicated and ever-growing following of Deadheads. A subculture of these nomadic ecstasy-seekers emerged, following the band cross-country on their tours.

The interplay of Weir and Garcia on rhythm and lead guitar, respectively, was an essence of the Dead's zeitgeist. Sometimes they switched roles, as in Bobby's extended slide guitar solos on the Chicago blues standard "Little Red Rooster." The two generally swapped singing and song-writing duty, with Weir forming a collaboration with lyricist John Perry Barlow.

Weir sang on what many see as the Dead's signature song, the autobiographical "Truckin'." It contains the memorable line "Busted down on Bourbon Street"—a reference to the day in 1970 that the band was arrested for possession of cannabis and other drugs when their hotel was raided by New Orleans police.

Weir also had several side projects, including the bands Kingfish, RatDog and Bobby & the Midnites. After Garcia died in 1995, the Grateful Dead came to a formal end, but the surviving members continued to perform widely in a series of post-Dead conglomerations, most notably Furthur, the Other Ones and Dead & Company, which did a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas in 2024 and '25. Weir continued to perform even after being diagnosed with cancer.

In 2024, Weir and the Grateful Dead became Kennedy Center honorees. He and the other members of the legendary band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2007.

Weir's passing appears to mark the end of an era. Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh died in 2024. Percussionists Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann are now the only surviving original core members of the Grateful Dead. (NYT, Hollywood Reporter, BBC News)

The Bob Weir website indicates that he is survived by his wife Natascha Münter and daughters Monet and Chloe.

Image: Wikimedia Commons