Co-founding Grateful Dead vocalist and guitarist Bob Weir has died at age 78, per an announcement from his official social media accounts on Saturday. Read the full statement below.

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.

Born October 16th, 1947 in San Francisco, CA, Robert Hall Weir was raised by adoptive parents Frederic and Eleanor Weir in nearby Atherton. After struggling in school due to his undiagnosed dyslexia, he picked up the guitar at age 13.

Three years later, on New Year’s Eve 1963, as he wandered the back streets of Palo Alto, he was beckoned by the sound of a banjo coming from Dana Morgan’s Music Store. He followed the music to its source and found Jerry Garcia, then a 21-year-old music teacher, playing alone as he waited for his students to show up, apparently unaware of the date. They spent the night jamming together and decided to form a band. That chance meeting sparked one of rock music’s most important partnerships.

The pair joined forces with future Grateful Dead keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and other local musicians to form a jug band, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. Inspired by The Beatles, they soon swapped their acoustic instruments for electric guitars, recruited drummer Bill Kreutzmann and bassist Phil Lesh, and changed their name to The Warlocks.

“The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock ‘n’ roll band,” Weir recalled. “What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn’t think of anything else more worth doing.”

With one more name change, The Warlocks became the Grateful Dead. Together, they revolutionized American rock music, building a sound on fearless improvisation and transforming the concert experience into an ever-evolving conversation between band and audience, where no two shows were ever the same.

The path wasn’t always smooth. In 1968, Garcia and Lesh briefly removed Weir and Pigpen from the lineup, questioning their musical contributions. But the setback proved transformative. Weir dedicated himself to developing a wholly original approach to rhythm guitar. Drawing inspiration from John Coltrane‘s pianist McCoy Tyner, he crafted a style that defied convention, creating chord voicings on guitar that evoked the harmonic complexity of a piano. Phil Lesh later described discovering Weir’s evolved playing as a revelation, calling it “quirky, whimsical and goofy” in the best possible way. What emerged was something unprecedented: a rhythm guitarist who didn’t simply keep time but wove intricate harmonic tapestries.

Weir’s distinctive rhythm guitar work and songwriting were essential to the Dead’s identity. His interplay with Garcia became the foundation of the band’s legendary live performances, and he penned some of the group’s most beloved songs. Many of his most enduring compositions were written in partnership with lyricist John Perry Barlow, a Wyoming rancher and childhood friend who became his creative collaborator.

Weir released a handful of solo albums, most notably 1972’s Ace—featuring the Dead as his backing band—which introduced several staples into the Grateful Dead repertoire, including “Playing in the Band”, “One More Saturday Night”, and “Cassidy”. He also pursued other side projects throughout his career, including Kingfish and Bobby and the Midnites.

After Garcia’s death in 1995, Weir became a tireless keeper of the flame, performing with various iterations including The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur, and most recently Dead & Company. He also led projects like RatDog and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, ensuring the music reached new generations. In recent years, he experimented with symphonic interpretations of the Dead’s catalog, collaborating with orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to create lush, orchestral arrangements of the band’s classic songs.

Weir was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead in 1994. He received the Americana Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 and was the first-ever recipient of the Les Paul Spirit Award, recognizing him as an innovative guitar pioneer. In December 2024, he accepted Kennedy Center Honors on behalf of the Grateful Dead. Beyond music, he was a dedicated vegetarian and animal rights advocate.

He is survived by his wife Natascha and their daughters Monet and Chloe.

Thank you, Bobby. We are forever grateful.