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Bob Weir
Robert Hall Weir (/wɪər/ WEER; 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.
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 (née 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 Atherton and Fountain Valley School in Colorado, where he met future Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.
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.
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Bob Weir
Robert Hall Weir (/wɪər/ WEER; 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.
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 (née 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 Atherton and Fountain Valley School in Colorado, where he met future Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.
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.
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