Grateful Dead's Bob Weir Dead at 78
Source: Pitchfork
Grateful Dead founding member Bob Weir has died. Weir played rhythm guitar and sang lead vocals for the entirety of the Grateful Dead's 30-year tenure. He also founded and played in several bands during and after his time with the Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with other former members of the band in a group called the Other Ones, later known as the Dead. Weir recently continued playing with Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, along with John Mayer, in an outfit called Dead & Company.
"It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir," said a statement posted to his official Instagram. "He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues."
It added that Weir's "final months reflected the same spirit that defined his life. Diagnosed in July, he began treatment only weeks before returning to his hometown stage for a three-night celebration of 60 years of music at Golden Gate Park. Those performances, emotional, soulful, and full of light, were not farewells, but gifts. Another act of resilience." You can read the full statement below.
Weir was born in San Francisco to Jack Parber and a fellow University of Arizona student, who later gave him up to his adoptive parents. He was raised in the suburb of Atherton, picking up piano and trumpet until finally picking up the guitar at age 13. Due to his undiagnosed dyslexia, Weir was expelled from nearly every school he attended--including Fountain Valley School in Colorado, where he met future Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow. On New Year's Eve, 1962, Weir stumbled upon Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto, where Jerry Garcia taught guitar. Garcia was there waiting for his student who didn't show up, and the two ended up jamming together all night. They later started a band called McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, which then evolved into the Warlocks, and finally became the Grateful Dead.
-snip-
Read more: https://pitchfork.com/news/bob-weir-dead-78-grateful-dead/
Rest in music and light.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
gay texan
(3,160 posts)
Codifer
(1,163 posts)Anybody know where I can find a time machine?
I think I need one.
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)SheltieLover
(76,914 posts) 
ificandream
(11,702 posts)RIP, Bob. Glad I got to see you a few times.
ificandream
(11,702 posts)It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir. He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.
For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road. A guitarist, vocalist, storyteller, and founding member of the Grateful Dead. Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music. His work did more than fill rooms with music; it was warm sunlight that filled the soul, building a community, a language, and a feeling of family that generations of fans carry with them. Every chord he played, every word he sang was an integral part of the stories he wove. There was an invitation: to feel, to question, to wander, and to belong.
Bobby's final months reflected the same spirit that defined his life. Diagnosed in July, he began treatment only weeks before returning to his hometown stage for a three-night celebration of 60 years of music at Golden Gate Park. Those performances, emotional, soulful, and full of light, were not farewells, but gifts. Another act of resilience. An artist choosing, even then, to keep going by his own design. As we remember Bobby, it’s hard not to feel the echo of the way he lived. A man driftin’ and dreamin’, never worrying if the road would lead him home. A child of countless trees. A child of boundless seas.
There is no final curtain here, not really. Only the sense of someone setting off again. He often spoke of a three-hundred-year legacy, determined to ensure the songbook would endure long after him. May that dream live on through future generations of Dead Heads. And so we send him off the way he sent so many of us on our way: with a farewell that isn’t an ending, but a blessing. A reward for a life worth livin’.
His loving family, Natascha, Monet, and Chloe, request privacy during this difficult time and offer their gratitude for the outpouring of love, support, and remembrance. May we honor him not only in sorrow, but in how bravely we continue with open hearts, steady steps, and the music leading us home. Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings.
📸 Chloe Weir
mahina
(20,436 posts)Too many shows to count.
This loss really shakes me.
Fare thee well
ybbor
(1,711 posts)I am now very sad I didn’t make it back out to the Sphere this year! Wow! Very sad!! He was an amazing talent, and I am so lucky to have seen him so many times! Wow!!
Rest in Peace! Give Jerry, Phil, Brent, Pigpen, Keith, Vince, Barlow, and Hunter hugs! I’m sure you’re all jamming up there right now! Thanks for all of the Lovelight you shared with us!! Damn!! 😢
chowder66
(11,861 posts) Botany
(76,422 posts)
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)friends and loved ones who are already there, and young and healthy again. I hope his loved ones here will be able to sense that he is very much alive and they will see him again.
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)Bob, Jerry. Phil, Pigpen, Brent, Keith, and Donna are putting the band back together.
https://music.
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)He said this after mentioning that he takes death "fairly lightly" and adds, "I don't know how much of a divide death puts between us and the hereafter—if after is even an applicable adjunct there."
-snip-
Then Garcia arrived. “He was looking really splendid. His hair was black again. He was tall. And he had a velour cape on.” Weir tried to show Garcia his invisible paint, but his friend was preoccupied. “He had a real sort of intense look in his eye. He looked straight at me, and then through me”—and here he adds the new part—“and then he stepped into me.”
When he woke, he learned that Garcia, who had checked into a rehab facility for another try at kicking his heroin addiction, had died of a heart attack at about the same time he had his dream.
“So Jerry came to me pretty directly that night,” he says.
-snip-
SheltieLover
(76,914 posts)Ty for sharing.
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts) SheltieLover
(76,914 posts) OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)I had that kind of experience in October, 1976. I was sleeping at home, in the cellar, where I had a lot more freedom, than the bedroom upstairs. Perhaps I had rewired my brain over the last 5 years with psychoactive inputs, but I seemed to have a lot of "out of body" experiences....mainly, looking at myself sleeping. One night, in September, I experienced the same "out-of-body" scenario, sleeping, but looking at myself sleeping. But then, I had a strange moment where I heard my dad's voice, "what the hell are you doing"? Heard that a lot in my life.
I woke up instantaneously from that moment. Dad had passed in July of that year. Since then, I believe there is a connection to life/death that we don't we really understand. Maybe we aren't supposed to.
SheltieLover
(76,914 posts) highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)from your dad that night.
I've had a lot of experience with grief support groups over the years - both being helped by them and trying to help others who are grieving - and I discovered that when people feel it's ok to talk about these connections with loved ones who've crossed over, you'll hear a lot of personal stories about them. They're often called ADCs, after-death communications. Direct, unmediated - no psychic medium necessary. Loved ones can find ways of getting through, trying to reassure.
Bob had that reassurance from Jerry. And Jerry looking younger, looking "really splendid" as Bob put it - that kind of appearance is typical with a lot of these stories, too.
Bob's looking like a kid again. Picture him smiling...
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)Bob's influence in the late 60's onward was always apparent to me. 
It was the Bob and Jerry show......
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)article, this one with a writer for Men's Health. Bob was a jock. a fitness buff, still working out in his 70s. But here he's talking about transcendence after death.
https://www.rossmccammon.com/bob-weir-grateful-dead-mens-health-workout-story
Bob Weir: My current thought is that it will be ultimately achievable, but you will have transcended, probably died, and not be hindered by the laws of physics and what can't be done with a human body. At that point you go beyond grace to being what's behind grace. I don't know if you can follow me there. The next level. You go through grace. Another level opens up.
RM: By engaging in physical activity, we're trying to get through the physical realm, do you think?
BW: Yeah. And maybe every now and again I go there in my dreams.
RM: What kind of dreams do you mean?
BW: Well, either the kind that you have when you're sleeping or the kind that you're having when you're daydreaming. Either one, in either case you're not bound by physical constraint. You're not bound by the abilities of your body. You're not bound by the laws of physics. In either case you're free. I'm not sure that that kind of freedom is achievable when you're in your waking state and working with your physical body.
RM: Do you feel the same way about music?
BW: I've been there with music. With working out I haven't gotten quite to the self-propelled grace that every now and again comes and visits when we're on stage.
That page links to the long article about his fitness routine: https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a29491632/the-grateful-dead-bob-weir-workout/
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)The Ace Album connected with them. They liked him.
Du916
(144 posts)In a ski resort town in the Rockies.. This was just when mountain biking were beginning to become a thing. Bobby was playing in town with his band Kingfish. He and his bandmates came in and rented MTBs from me. They had not done it before. Bobby came back a few hours later exuberant, raving about how much fun he had and how excited he was to take up mountain biking. It was a really fun experience and a thrill meeting Bobby. I had seen my first show as a teenager in 1978 and had gotten on the bus by then. When I lived in NYC in the 90s, Conrad’s Bike Shop in Tudor City had a picture of Bobby on the wall with a Merlin Titanium mountain bike he had purchased. It was pretty cool. I last saw Dead & Co at the Sphere last spring. It was an awesome experience. I had been hoping for another residency this year. This has been a really sad night.
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)He was on top of his game in the 80s/90s.....he became another person as he aged, as we all do
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)starting to read about what he did to stay physically on top of his game, and I posted about that in my last reply.
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)Archive: https://archive.ph/K3VLb
Every day, things change. I’ll say this: I look forward to dying. I tend to think of death as the last and best reward for a life well-lived. That’s it. I’ve still got a lot on my plate, and I won’t be ready to go for a while. I wish … well, Phil made it to his eighties. Jerry didn’t, and there was a lot that Jerry had to offer that he didn’t get to offer.
Fifty-three is very young.
Yeah. There’s a cautionary tale in that. He burned brightly while he was alive. But …
We did an interview with Trey Anastasio recently, and he spoke about Jerry: “I wish everybody had just stopped, and left him alone, and let him get his shit together.”
It would’ve been nice. Jerry made attempts. He went vegetarian for a while, or he made a stab at it. He was into living healthy. We used to vacation together, and he got me into scuba diving. He made attempts. Really, I think it was the fact that he was too goddamn famous. And too many people had too many notions about who he was. All erroneous, none of them really hit home.
It’s easy to say we wish Jerry had been able to take a break, but realistically, there were so many people who were depending on him to keep the circus going.
Well, he had to play. He had to connect with people. He found an equilibrium of being on the road a certain amount of time and being home a certain amount of time. And that worked for him, pretty much. What didn’t work for him was the diet. He couldn’t go out, and it wasn’t easy to eat healthy in hotels back then. It was the diet and lack of exercise, really. The only exercise he ever got was onstage, and he got that pretty much nightly when we were on tour. And that kept him alive for 53 years, in spite of a horrendous diet. You can’t eat like he ate and live for all that long. It’s not going to happen for you.
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)No negative meant to a great guitarist. John Meyer. I can only imagine what the beat keepers - Bill and Micky - are feeling
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)As you did Bob. Thanks for the musical experience.
Brother Buzz
(39,593 posts)I didn’t mention it in my other post to you, but Donna Jean flew out from Alabama to visit Jerry in the rehab center. She knew his medical history, and told the powers that be he should be transferred to a hospital. Her pleading fell on deaf ears and she became bitter how things shook out.
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)
ancianita
(42,909 posts)With your Grammy and Americana Music Association Lifetime Achievement Awards, your Les Paul Spirit Award, and as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, you've done America proud. Rest in peace.
Brother Buzz
(39,593 posts)A weird coincidence, today they are holding a memorial service for her in Florence, Alabama (think Mussel Shoals). We couldn’t attend but my cousins made it.
I’ve got Ripple cycling through my mind today.
Ripple (1970)
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air
Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men
There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone
Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow
You, who choose to lead, must follow
But if you fall you fall alone
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home
La dee da da da
La da da da da
Da da da, da da, da da da da da
La da da da
La da da, da da
La da da da
La da, da da
highplainsdem
(60,090 posts)Brother Buzz
(39,593 posts)We’ll get the full accounting when they return. Donna’s family is front loaded with MAGA idiots so I expect some curious stories.
I REALLY miss Dona Jean. She never discussed her time with the Dead, but talked a lot about other projects she did with Jerry Garcia; they were very close.
Pluvious
(5,252 posts)I remember reading in her bio that she had performed back up vocals on the hit Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley
I liked their Keith and Donna album, played it nan6 times
Brother Buzz
(39,593 posts)was a much bigger plum in her mind; it was totally a local Muscle Shoals area effort, including Percy Sledge.
She became a lifelong friend with Percy Sledge and was crushed when he died.
flashman13
(2,044 posts)Half-step
(116 posts)Thanks for all the bone-shaking fun and wonderful music.
Clouds Passing
(7,040 posts) 
underpants
(194,996 posts)That bumper sticker used to crack me up.
3 months to the day since my brother passed.
He saw about 300 shows. I saw 5. The Dead coming to the Morhership (Hampton) twice a year was a big deal whether you were a Deadhead or not.
OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)NY fans were hardcore.
underpants
(194,996 posts)I don’t think he ever went to NYC. Maybe Atlanta but I’m not sure.
He managed a restaurant for much of that time. Monday - Wednesday open to close. Not 40 hours for him but the other managers got a 3 day break. Everybody was cool with it.
Really good times and really good food.
Pluvious
(5,252 posts)He could really get a-spraying when he sang
And so many times forget some lyrics and mumble his way through it lol
EarthFirst
(3,959 posts)Sure the fuck gonna miss you!
IcyPeas
(24,877 posts)
Sailingdiver
(342 posts)
Rver
(238 posts)OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)Rver
(238 posts)he has nothing to honor.
My .02
halobeam
(5,086 posts)turbinetree
(26,998 posts) OAITW r.2.0
(31,522 posts)This song explained a lot about the Dead. Did not really see Jack or Jorma was playing on this.
Talitha
(7,693 posts)
CaptainTruth
(8,051 posts) yardwork
(68,983 posts)This one is very sad for me.
ForgoTheConsequence
(5,168 posts)I thought he would live forever. = (
SamuelTheThird
(604 posts)But he was with many underaged girls according to a biographer of the band.
Du916
(144 posts)Maybe don’t say anything.
SamuelTheThird
(604 posts)Can you explain precisely why without just saying 'dont speak ill of the dead'?
And yes, I've seen deadheads excuse the pedophilia.
Response to SamuelTheThird (Reply #61)
Du916 This message was self-deleted by its author.
flamingdem
(40,794 posts)Those were heady days!
Deal was to run to the front where they'd throw acid.
Or at least that was the rumor. So down from the
rafters where the addicts were to the front we'd go.
$3.50 tickets... Dark Star would last for 40 minutes.
Pig Pen on the drums.
Then as an oldster went to Bob Weir's club in Marin.
What a great scene!
There he was still playing.
RIP Bob
airplaneman
(1,373 posts)EuterpeThelo
(181 posts)Growing up in the Bay Area, I was fortunate enough to see them on their home turf a few times while Jerry was still around. My daughter's first concert at age 4 (and she's been my concert buddy ever since) was at Shoreline with The Black Crowes and the remaining members of the Dead the year after Garcia passed.
I wanted to go to last summer's 60th anniversary show in Golden Gate Park but the ticket prices were OBSCENE (which felt very un-Dead like to me, sadly). So guess I'm left now to cherish those memories of witnessing this very special band perform back in my teens and 20s, when life was happy and much simpler.
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul...