Bobby Weir

Robert Hall Weir ( ; né Parber, born October 16, 1947) is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with the Other Ones, later known as the Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead. Weir also founded and played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur, which he co-led with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. In 2015, Weir, along with former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, joined with Grammy-winning singer/guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form the band Dead & Company.

During his career with the Grateful Dead, Weir played mostly rhythm guitar and sang many of the band's rock & roll and country & western songs. In 1994, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead.

Early life

Weir was born in San Francisco, California, to John (Jack) Parber (1925–2015), of Italian and German ancestry, and a fellow college student, Phyllis Inskeep (1924–1997), of German, Irish, and English ancestry, who later gave him up for adoption; he was raised by his adoptive parents, Frederic Utter Weir and Eleanor ( Cramer) Weir, in Atherton. He began playing guitar at age thirteen after less successful experimentation with the piano and the trumpet. He had trouble in school because of undiagnosed dyslexia and he was expelled from nearly every school he attended, including Menlo School in AthertonMcNally, Dennis. ''A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead.'' New York: Broadway Books, 2002; and Fountain Valley School in Colorado, where he met future Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.

Career

On New Year's Eve 1963, 16-year-old Weir and an underage friend were wandering the back alleys of Palo Alto, looking for a club that would admit them, when they heard banjo music. They followed the music to its source, Dana Morgan's Music Store. They encountered a 21-year-old Jerry Garcia, oblivious to the date, waiting for his students to arrive. Weir and Garcia spent the night playing music together and then decided to form a band. The Beatles significantly influenced their musical direction. "The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band," said Bob Weir. "What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing." Originally called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, the band was later renamed The Warlocks and eventually the Grateful Dead.

Weir played rhythm guitar and sang a large portion of the lead vocals through all of the Dead's 30-year career. In the fall of 1968, the Dead played some concerts without Weir and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. These shows, with the band billed as "Mickey and the Hartbeats", were intermixed with full-lineup Grateful Dead concerts. In his biography of Jerry Garcia, Blair Jackson notes, "Garcia and Lesh determined that Weir and Pigpen were not pulling their weight musically in the band... Most of the band fights at this time were about Bobby's guitar playing." Late in the year, the band relented and took Weir and Pigpen back in full-time.

The incident apparently led to a period of significant growth in Weir's guitar playing. Phil Lesh said that when drummer Mickey Hart left the band temporarily in early 1971, he was able to hear Weir's playing more clearly than ever and "I found myself astonished, delighted and excited beyond measure at what Bobby was doing." Lesh described Weir's playing as "quirky, whimsical and goofy" and noted his ability to play chord voicings on the guitar (with only four fingers) that one would normally hear from a keyboard (with up to ten fingers).

In the late 1970s, Weir began to experiment with slide guitar techniques and perform certain songs during Dead shows using the slide. His unique guitar style is strongly influenced by the hard bop pianist McCoy Tyner and he has cited artists as diverse as John Coltrane, the Rev. Gary Davis, and Igor Stravinsky as influences.

Weir's first solo album ''Ace'' appeared in 1972, with the Grateful Dead performing as the band on the album, though credited individually. Included in this line-up were Keith Godchaux and his wife Donna, both of whom would be in the band by the time of the album's release. A live version of the album's best-known song, "Playing in the Band", had been issued on the ''Skull & Roses'' album of the previous year. While continuing to perform as a member of the Grateful Dead, in 1975 and 1976, Weir played in the Bay Area band Kingfish with friends Matt Kelly and Dave Torbert. He later contributed to Kelly's 1987 album ''A Wing and a Prayer'', on Relix Records. In 1978 he fronted the Bob Weir Band with Brent Mydland, who joined the Grateful Dead the following year. In 1980 he formed another side band, Bobby and the Midnites.

Shortly before Garcia's death in 1995, Weir formed another band, RatDog Revue, later shortened to RatDog. In RatDog, Weir performs covers of songs by various artists, including The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, and Willie Dixon while also performing many Grateful Dead songs. In addition, Ratdog performs many of their own originals, most of which were released on the album ''Evening Moods''.

Weir has participated in the various reformations of the Grateful Dead's members, including 1998, 2000, and 2002 stints as the Other Ones and in 2003, 2004 and 2009 as The Dead. In 2008 he performed in the two Deadheads for Obama concerts. In 2009 Bob Weir and Phil Lesh formed a new band called Furthur—so-named in honor of Ken Kesey's famous psychedelically painted bus.

In 2011, Weir founded the Tamalpais Research Institute, also known as TRI Studios. TRI is a high-tech recording studio and virtual music venue, used to stream live concerts over the internet in high-definition.

In 2012, Weir toured with Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes and singer/songwriter Jackie Greene as the Weir, Robinson, & Greene Acoustic Trio.

Weir resuscitated RatDog in March 2013. The RatDog Quartet, featuring Weir, Jay Lane, Robin Sylvester, and Jonathan Wilson debuted on March 3, at the Sweetwater Music Hall. Jason Crosby was their featured guest at the first two shows.

On April 25, 2013, Weir collapsed onstage during a Furthur performance at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York. The band finished the show without him. He performed with the band two days later in Atlantic City, but on April 29 a representative announced that Weir would be "unable to perform in any capacity for the next several weeks" for unspecified reasons. Weir resumed performing that summer.

On April 23, 2014, '' The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir'' premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival directed by Mike Fleiss husband of Miss America 2012, Laura Kaeppeler.

On August 10, 2014, Weir abruptly canceled all of his upcoming appearances, according to The Huffington Post, "The cancellations include all shows for the rest of the year with his band Ratdog, as well as a concert with Furthur". According to Jambase, Ratdog performed without Weir in Las Vegas in July 2014. "A statement from the venue said Weir was 'under the weather'."

In early July 2015, Weir joined the other original living members of the Grateful Dead —Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Phil Lesh — for three shows at Soldier Field in Chicago. These four surviving members (known as the "Core Four") were joined by Jeff Chimenti on keys and Phish's Trey Anastasio on lead guitar and shared vocals, and Bruce Hornsby on piano. The reunion was 20 years nearly to the day since the band's final concert with Jerry Garcia at the same venue in 1995. "Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead" was billed as the original four members' last performance together. Based on demand, two additional Fare Thee Well concerts were added to the series, performed in late June 2015 at Levi Stadium in California.

On October 5, 2015, Weir performed with Ratdog at a special celebratory 60th Birthday Bash for Steve Kimock. It was the first time Ratdog had performed since the cancellations of his 2014 summer tour.

In late 2015, Weir teamed up with former Grateful Dead bandmates Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann as well as guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form Dead & Company. They played 22 shows starting at the end of October, concluding with a four show New Year's run including two shows in San Francisco and two in Los Angeles, ending with a three set show on New Year's Eve. The band concluded its final tour on July 16, 2023, at Oracle Park in San Francisco. On January 31, 2024 the band announced a residency at Sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada, to begin in May 2024. While eighteen shows were announced initially, the residency was extended to thirty shows, ending in August 2024.

In May 2016, Weir was a guest speaker and performer for the second annual Einstein Gala, in Toronto, Canada, an event honoring the legacy of Albert Einstein and new visionaries in the arts and sciences. Weir spoke about what science and innovation had meant to him. Weir performed a solo acoustic set, and was joined mid-set by guitarist Dan Kanter. In the same month, Weir also confirmed, in an interview with ''The Guardian'', that he was writing a book.

In 2016, a live recording of Weir performing with The National was included in the ''Day of the Dead'' release. Weir's 2012 collaboration with members of The National as part of The Bridge Session helped pave the way for the Grateful Dead tribute.

In June 2016, at the Bonnaroo Arts And Music Festival, Weir received the first ever Les Paul Spirit Award, from the Les Paul Foundation. "I cannot think of anyone more fitting to be honored with the first annual Les Paul Spirit Award than Bob Weir. Not only is he an extraordinary talent who has given us an amazing array of legendary music, but he is an innovator who understands music, technologies and the spirit of Les Paul," said Michael Braunstein, executive director of the Les Paul Foundation. "If Les were still alive today, I have absolutely no doubt that he and Bob would be experimenting together at TRI Studios or at Les's house and the results would be extraordinary."

Weir received the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2016 Americana Honors & Awards in Nashville.

In September 2016, Weir released a new album of "cowboy songs" titled '' Blue Mountain''. The release was followed by a tour beginning in October 2016. The album was inspired by his time working as a ranch hand in Wyoming when he was fifteen years old.

During the spring of 2018, Weir performed a series of concerts with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. The duo, with guest musicians, was billed as Bobby and Phil.

In 2018 Weir formed a band called Wolf Bros. Billed as Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, the group initially was a trio, with Weir on guitar and vocals, Don Was on upright bass, and Jay Lane on drums. They toured the US in the fall of 2018, the spring of 2019, and in early 2020. In late 2020 and early 2021 the band played several concerts at TRI Studios with Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and Greg Leisz on pedal steel guitar. After the first of these shows the band also added a horn and string section called the Wolfpack, comprising Brian Switzer on trumpet, Adam Theis on trombone, Sheldon Brown on saxophone, clarinet, and flute, Mads Tolling on violin, and Alex Kelly on cello. In the summer of 2021 this larger ensemble, now billed as Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, played several concerts in Colorado and California.

In 2022, after the pandemic put a temporary stop to touring, Weir and Wolf Bros resumed playing shows, touring the US in the spring with The Wolfpack string section. Included was a May 1, 2022 show with Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain and a revived Planet Drum and a pair of shows at Radio City Music Hall in April marking the 50th anniversary of Weir's album ''Ace''.

The fall 2022 "Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring The Wolfpack" tour included four shows at the Kennedy Center in October. The 2023 winter tour included three February concerts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at Atlanta Symphony Hall. In April 2023, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros Trio played four shows at the Guild Theatre in Menlo Park.

As part of the band's fall 2023 run, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring The Wolfpack joined Willie Nelson's Outlaw Music Festival for seven shows in September. The band's tour ended with a residency at the Capitol Theatre in New York. Weir performed at the first Dead Ahead Festival in Cancún in January 2024. Weir's other 2024 appearances included a show with the String Cheese Incident, billed as "The Bob Weir Incident," and a New Year's Eve run in Fort Lauderdale. In December he was present as the Grateful Dead were inducted at the Kennedy Center Honors.

In January 2025 Weir returned to curate the second Dead Ahead Festival at Riviera Cancún, Mexico, where he also performed along with a lineup that included Sturgill Simpson, Rick Mitarotonda, Oteil Burbridge, Brandi Carlile and others. A two-month spring 2025 residency was booked for Dead & Company at the Sphere in Las Vegas. In the meantime, on January 31 Weir, Mickey Hart and Grateful Dead family members accepted MusiCares Persons of the Year awards for their philanthropic work.

Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros symphony project

In 2022 Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros launched a series of performances with symphony orchestras, with four sold-out shows with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. The concerts feature "sonic elaborations" of Grateful Dead classics, Weir solo numbers, and covers.

The series resumed in February 2023 with three concerts in Atlanta with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. In October 2023 Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros performed with the Stanford Symphony Orchestra at Frost Amphitheater.

The series picked up with a fall 2024 tour, as Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros featuring The Wolfpack were backed by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in Cincinnati, the Chicago Philharmonic in Chicago, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra in New Orleans, for a total of five shows. The concert programs included "A Grateful Overture" by Giancarlo Aquilanti and music from Grateful Dead albums including ''Aoxomoxoa'', '' Wake of the Flood'' and ''Shakedown Street''.

The next symphony show was scheduled for June 21, 2025 at the Royal Albert Hall in London with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.

Personal life

Weir remained single throughout his years with the Grateful Dead, although he lived for several years (1969–1975) with Frankie Hart. Hart had been a go-go dancer at the Peppermint Lounge in New York, had worked in Apple Records American marketing department, for Apple Records in London, and had performed on the TV shows '' Hullabaloo'' and ''Shindig!

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases