The Many Faces Of The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir [Feature]

Bob Weir spent nearly his entire life onstage. He co-founded the Grateful Dead in 1965 at the age of 17 and never stopped playing, culminating with a three-night celebration of the Dead’s 60th anniversary in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park last summer. Headlined by Weir’s post-Jerry Garcia spinoff Dead & Company and featuring support from Billy Strings, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, and Johnny Blue Skies (formerly known as Sturgill Simpson), the spectacle encapsulated the past, present, and future of the movement Weir started in that same city when he was still in high school.

Similar to Michael Jackson or Ron Howard, Bob Weir knew little of life outside the spotlight. Performance and, eventually, fame were ever-present from his adolescence all the way through the end of his life. As the decades passed, Bobby grew from the wild-eyed kid to the suave frontman to the exalted elder, preserving his boyish mischievousness all the while. He somehow embodied both eternal youth and the wisdom of age.

Bob Weir was a kaleidoscopic figure clad in short shorts that Deadheads peered through to connect with who they once were, or would like to be. His personhood evolved like the Grateful Dead’s open-ended playing, transitioning from one form to another as all the years combined.

As we all continue to make sense of what Bob Weir meant to us, in this tribute we’re looking back at the many faces he wore through the decades.

The Kid

As the story goes, Bob Weir entered the Grateful Dead legacy through a Palo Alto alley on the night of New Year’s Eve 1963, when he followed the sound of a banjo to find Jerry Garcia, readying to give music lessons.

“His students weren’t showing up because it was New Year’s Eve. And he was unmindful of that, I don’t think he had thought that through,” Weir later recalled in his 2014 Netflix documentary, The Other One. “So we got to talking, and he asked me would I grab some instruments from the front of the shop, and so we played all night.”

Two years later, Garcia and Weir co-founded The Warlocks, later renaming themselves the Grateful Dead after discovering another band was already called The Warlocks. At 17, Weir was the youngest of the group that featured Garcia (23), bassist Phil Lesh (25), keyboardist Ronald “Pigpen” McKernan (20), and drummer Bill Kreutzmann (19). Weir was still in high school when the band began performing at bars around the Bay Area, as well as at author Ken Kesey‘s famed Acid Test gatherings of psychedelic-fueled artistic experimentation.

Trey Anastasio remembered Weir telling him about the first Acid Test: “When it was over, the sun came out, and he had to do his math homework as he raced back to school on the train. He said after the second or third Acid Test, he looked down at his homework and said, ‘Nah.’ And that was it. The rest of his life was on the road, in the Grateful Dead and other bands.”

At the Acid Tests, the Grateful Dead dialed into the free-flowing style of improvisation that became their trademark and launched an entire jam band subculture to follow. The Acid Tests were also where Bob Weir earned his nickname “The Kid” from the Merry Pranksters, Kesey’s ragtag band of psychedelic guerrillas who spread mischief across the country on the Furthur bus.

The Kid was an apt moniker for Bobby at the time. His childlike ingenuity came through during the making of 1968’s Anthem of the Sun, when he tried to capture the sound of “thick air” by recording silence in the streets of San Francisco (much to Warner Brothers executive Joe Smith‘s chagrin).

That same year, as his older bandmates aimed for more complex musical frontiers, he was briefly fired from the Dead due to his then-limited abilities as a rhythm guitarist. As Phil Lesh recalled in his memoirs about an August 1967 performance, “Jerry and I started grumbling to each other about the music. With too many shows and not enough rehearsal, the music wasn’t moving forward to our satisfaction. Bobby, being years younger and a bit spaced, became our target. We confronted him after the show about working harder to keep up. The end result…we all played better the next night.”

But his quest to expand the contributions of a rock and roll rhythm guitarist came to define his singular approach to the instrument. “I was there to supply chords and rhythm for Jerry to play over the top of,” Weir explained in The Other One. “But the traditional roll of a rock and roll rhythm guitarist is somewhat limited. At the same time I was listening to a lot of jazz and stuff like that, and I was listening to the piano players: Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner. And I listened to the way they chorded, particularly McCoy Tyner, the way he chorded underneath John Coltrane, supplying John Coltrane with all kinds of harmonic counterpoint to what he was doing. That appealed to me greatly, and so I started trying to learn to do that on guitar for Jerry.”

Although Weir wouldn’t emerge as a major songwriting contributor until the early ’70s, during his time as The Kid, he did chronicle his journey from a nubile youth to Acid Test graduate in “The Other One”. With a rollicking thrum of percussion and appearances by the Furthur bus and “Cowboy” Neal Cassady, the song became a live staple through the Dead’s entire career and a springboard for some of its most adventurous jamming.

Grateful Dead — “The Other One” — Columbia University — New York, NY — 5/3/68

[Video: davidaron60]

Cowboy Bob

As Weir’s creative output progressed alongside his partnership with lyricist John Perry Barlow, Bobby developed his own unique songwriting voice. Each member of the Grateful Dead brought a particular musical viewpoint to the hive mind: Garcia’s guitar-playing was rooted in bluegrass, Lesh was classically trained, Kreutzmann came from a jazz background, later addition Mickey Hart brought world rhythms, and Bobby—among other motifs—loved his cowboy tunes.

Weir/Barlow originals like “Mexicali Blues” sketched settings that helped develop the Dead’s musical landscape. Tales of dusty lawlessness from the American West set to traditional folk music were central to the Dead aesthetic, mirroring Garcia/Robert Hunter compositions “Loser” and “Brown-Eyed Women”, with Bobby and Jerry coming together in perfect symbiosis for “Jack Straw”.

While Jerry sang in a reserved tenor, Bobby assumed an emboldened baritone to tell his stories and others’ like John Phillips‘ “Me and My Uncle”, Marty Robbins‘ “El Paso”, Merle Haggard‘s “Mama Tried”. This approach would snowball through the rest of Weir’s career, as he transitioned from a musician to a storyteller. On “Me and My Uncle”, Weir does his best to make you believe he left his uncle by the side of the road for his sack of gold. The Grateful Dead were mostly devoid of the typical classic rock machismo dressings, but for four minutes, Bob Weir could be the most chauvinistic, woman-stealing sunofabitch in rock n’ roll. He’d later revisit the cowboy motif, albeit from an older and wiser perspective, on his beautifully vulnerable 2016 folk album, Blue Mountain.

Grateful Dead — “Me & My Uncle” (John Phillips) — Jahnrhundert Halle — Frankfurt, West Germany — 4/26/72

Bob Weir — “Ki-Yi Bossie”

But I’ll Still Sing You Love Songs

On the other side of that ruff n’ tumble outlaw, there was a sensitive writer of gorgeous, complex ballads. Weir’s 1971 solo debut, Ace, balances the folk-inspired “Mexicali Blues” and “Cassidy” with his love letter to the road, “Black-Throated Wind”, and “Looks Like Rain”, which features some of the finest lyrics in the entire Weir/Barlow collection.

It’s just that I, have gotten used to havin’ you around.
The landscape would be empty, if you were gone;
But it’s all right cause I love you, and that’s not going to change.
Run me around and make me hurt again and again.
But I’ll still sing you love songs, written in the letter of your name.
The rain is gonna come, oh it surely looks like rain.

Grateful Dead — “Looks Like Rain” — Boston Music Hall — Boston, MA — 6/9/76

As the Dead’s sound continued to evolve past the folk traditions of American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead, Weir and Barlow’s songwriting developed beyond four chords and the truth. On 1973’s jazz-inspired Wake of the Flood, Weir turned in the three-part “Weather Report Suite” that, at 12 minutes, took up over half the album’s second side. As a whole, the “Weather Report Suite”, penned alongside “Thirsty Boots” songwriter Eric Anderson, stands as Bobby’s compositional magnum opus.

After opening with a baroque instrumental, “Prelude”, the suite’s ensuing “Pt. 1” constructs a lyrical allegory likening the changes of the season to changing moods and passing love, all set to lush church organ and angelic backing choir. On “Pt. II (Let it Grow)”, the “Weather Report Suite” makes a hairpin turn into early-’70s progressive rock complete with howling, call-and-response choruses.

The Grateful Dead introduced the suite onstage in September 1973 and performed the full, three-song cycle through October 1974. When they returned from a year-long touring hiatus, they left the first two parts on the cutting room floor. “Let It Grow” remained a setlist constant through the rest of their career, while “Prelude” and “Pt. 1” went the way of “Cryptical Envelopment”, another intricate, multi-part composition largely left behind in the name of simplicity as tours wore on.

“Musicians have to enjoy the songs they are playing,” Garcia once said. “Difficult songs in difficult timings become a chore to play after a while.”

I know it’s uncouth to listen to Grateful Dead studio albums but seriously, check this out.

Grateful Dead — “Weather Report Suite: Prelude / Pt. I / Pt. II (Let It Grow)”

…and here’s a live one, the last time they played the full suite.

Grateful Dead — “Weather Report Suite: Prelude / Pt. I / Pt. II (Let It Grow)” — San Francisco, CA — 10/18/74

On the subject of complex instrumentation, let’s get into Bobby’s rhythm playing. When you see lists of the greatest guitarists of all time (no matter how arbitrary and biased they are), you invariably see names like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Eddie Van Halen. What do all of them have in common? No rhythm guitarist. How does a rhythm guitarist back up perhaps one of the best guitarists in history, Jerry Garcia, without fading into the background?

Weir’s rhythm playing was so structural to the Dead’s live performances that it was sometimes hard to notice. Good rhythm guitar is like good deodorant: if it’s doing its job, you forget it’s there. If you examine Weir’s isolated guitar tracks, it’s clear he’s doing anything but vamping on the same chord progressions. Country-style walk-downs borrowed from his cowboy saddlebag punctuate a flow of evolving phrasing, moving up the neck to play the chords in various configurations.

As Weir’s longtime friend Sammy Hagar noted in The Other One, “First time I ever played with Bob, we started playing a straight-up, 12-bar blues, and I’m noticing that in one key of E, he’s played about 12 freakin’ inversions.” As pianist Bruce Hornsby, who toured with the Dead in the early ’90s, observed in a tribute post after Weir’s passing, “Long fingers, that’s the difference.”

Grateful Dead – Bob Weir Isolated Guitar — “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” (Traditional) — Veneta, OR — 8/27/72

[Audio: Ya Boi Rockstar]

Grateful Dead – Bob Weir Isolated Guitar — Greek Theater — Berkeley, CA — 8/19/89 — Full Video

[Video: cleantones]

Short Shorts & Showman Bob

Remember when I said the Dead lacked the stereotypical rock machismo? Well, there is a six-inch denim elephant in the room: Bobby Weir’s perilously short denim cut-offs, a piece of Grateful Dead imagery as hallowed as thelightning bolt-dashed skull (aka the Stealie), the dancing bears, and Jerry Garcia’s bearded, bespectacled smiling face.

The 1980s were a strange time, but as classic rock icons lost themselves in drum machines, the Dead remained fairly immune to the passage of time—because they were from their own time. Their music was as deeply rooted in the 1960s counterculture as it was in 1860s American folklore. But that identity did not necessarily extend to their wardrobe, and starting in the late ’70s Bobby Weir went from Grateful Dead to Grateful Dad as he began rocking fringed blue-jean shorts cut considerably north of the knee.

“For me, when I’m onstage, the name of the game is ‘beat the heat,'” Weir told GQ in 2019, around the time he started to be appreciated as a fashion icon. “It’s always July under the lights, and I have something of an aversion to heat. So, short shorts made real good sense to me.”

While Jerry Garcia donned plain black t-shirts (or the occasional red, giving rise to the adage “Trouble ahead, Jerry in red”), Weir began to adopt a wardrobe of cut-off jorts, faded pastel polo shirts, and New Balance running sneakers. In that same GQ piece, Bob’s daughter Monet Weir described his ’80s wardrobe as “his inner frat boy coming out,” to which he agreed. The New York Times even published an obituary-style tribute piece for to Weir’s shorts in the wake of his passing.

Bobby also dialed up the theatrics in that era, sometimes running across the stage to climb the speaker towers during the “Sugar Magnolia” jam. While his showmanship was well-received by the increasingly large crowds, the band wasn’t always as receptive. Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Phil Lesh once colluded to end the jam slightly earlier so Weir had to dash across the stage to the mic in time for the “Sunshine Daydream” coda.

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The Whiskered Elder Statesman

As the stadium fanfare faded following Jerry Garcia’s death, Bob Weir settled into a new role. By this time, a new crop of jam bands had sprouted in the tradition of the Dead and Allman Brothers Band. In the late ’90s and early 2000s, Bob Weir anointed the contemporary contenders Phish and Widespread Panic by sitting in with them, sometimes even playing their songs. Bobby and Phil separately sat in with Phish at Shoreline Amphitheatre in 1999 and 2000, setting off the first in a chain of intergenerational hat tips (or torch passes, if you prefer) that continues to this day.

Phish – Shoreline Amphitheatre – Mountain View, CA – 10/6/2000 — Full Audio

[Video: nognuisagoodgnu]

In the ensuing decades, Weir laid his Midas touch on a pantheon of artists, giving them their bona fides and exposing them to generations of Deadheads. A very limited list of his post-Jerry collaborators includes Warren Haynes, Chris Robinson, Hard Working Americans, Slightly Stoopid, Karl Denson, moe., The Disco Biscuits, The String Cheese Incident, Jackie Greene, Primus, My Morning Jacket, Grace Potter, The National, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, and many, many more, all the way through the 2020s with young guns Billy Strings and Goose.

And then there are all the familiar faces he kept in the orbit of his backing band like Rob Wasserman, Jeff Chimenti, Jay Lane, Mark Karan, Robin Sylvester, and of course, Dead & Company, with which he forever linked pop superstar John Mayer to the golden road.

Bill Kreutzmann reflected in a tribute to Weir, “[W]hen Bob was off the road, all he wanted to do was get back on it. And in the meantime, he would stop by any bar or club where there was someone playing that would let him sit in. He seemed to always be on some stage, somewhere.”

Dead & Company, Billy Strings — “Wharf Rat” — Golden Gate Park — San Francisco, CA — 8/1/25

[Video: Todd Norris]

From an outside perspective, these collaborations were as much a service to Weir as they were to any of the musicians. That same absence of ego continued into middle and late age, as Weir gracefully overlooked the fact that he had become a godfather to an entire movement, growing a whiskery white beard that only added to his sage aura. With the same exuberance that led him down an alley to jam with Jerry in 1963, he’d regularly jump in with musicians half or a third his age—and usually, all he asked for was the tempo to come down a little so he could tell his story.

Bob Weir gave the younger generations—those who came after Garcia’s death—the ability to connect to Grateful Dead history, and that didn’t just apply to musicians with whom he collaborated. For Millennial and Gen Z Deadheads who missed the bus on the original 30-year run, he made us feel that we were still part of the story. He gave us those same experiences that we mythologized from tapes and handed-down tour stories, from camping in the cornfields of Indiana to seeing Grateful Dead music performed in Golden Gate Park. Whether that came from Furthur, The Other Ones, The Dead, RatDog, Wolf Bros, or Dead & Company, Bobby kept on going year after year as more and more fans joined the tribe.

Coming into the jam scene around the turn of the millennium, there’s an unavoidable feeling that you missed out. For us younger initiates, Bobby was the answer to those reservations. It was hard to mourn the past because he was so dedicated to ensuring that we enjoyed the present.

Beyond the songs, the stories, and the shorts, one of the greatest things Bob Weir will have left behind is his altruistic love of music and mission to spread it. From 17 to 77, he lived his life onstage. With Bobby gone, some worry that this is the end of the road. For us who never saw Jerry, the end of the road is where our journey began.

As a Deadhead born in 1997, I’ve never felt fully qualified to speak to the collective ethos. But with that lineage came an inherited grief. (As the recently departed Todd Snider sang, “Losing a fight ‘fore I knew I was in it.”)

All we’ve ever known is the absence of the real thing, and rather than making us jaded, it brought us together—whether that was Bobby, JRAD, or the Dead cover band at your local bar. The Dead didn’t die with Jerry, and it won’t with Bobby. It’s still out there, down the next stretch of highway where ocean breezes blow.

“We’ll be back in a little bit, y’all hang loose.”

Grateful Dead — “Lost Sailor” > “Saint Of Circumstance” > “Touch Of Grey” — Frost Amphitheater — Stanford, CA — 10/10/82

[Audio: NuttyRiv3r]