Bobby Weir, Part 2

Summary

GOOD OL' GRATEFUL DEADCAST — “Bobby Weir, Part 2”

Date: May 14, 2026
Host(s): Rich Mahan & Jesse Jarnow, with special guests
Episode Overview:
The second part of a comprehensive tribute to Bobby Weir traces his musical evolution, innovations, and legacy from the Grateful Dead’s peak into his expansive post-Garcia career. Through interviews, archival recordings, and stories from fans and collaborators, the episode highlights Weir’s unique contributions to the Dead’s sound, his forays into other bands, the development of his singular guitar style, and the mark he left on American music.

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MAIN THEME

Bobby Weir’s musical journey is explored as a story of constant reinvention. The episode follows Weir from the Grateful Dead’s arena-filling days through his solo and collaborative work, chronicling his evolution as a guitar innovator, composer, bandleader, and steward of the Dead’s legacy.

“It's hard to encapsulate everything Bobby did in his musical life into two episodes, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate him in our own special way.” — Rich Mahan (03:33)

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Arena Rock Years and Style Evolution

• Arena Peak Era: Firsthand accounts (David Lemieux, 04:57) recall Weir’s rock star persona during the Dead’s late-’80s period, including his signature Barney’s silk shirts and commanding stage presence.
• Evolving Guitar Approach: Weir describes (18:07 onward) how his style shifted from rhythm chords into upper-register, single-note lines to make musical space amidst the Dead’s increasingly layered sound.

“I like to hang notes and let them change color... and just watch as they change color.” — Bobby Weir, reflecting his ‘slow hand’ approach (35:25)

2. Compositional & Rhythmic Experimentation

• Unconventional Time Signatures: Weir’s fascination with complex signatures like 7/4 led to songs like “Estimated Prophet”—allowing multiple rhythmic feels to coexist (20:07).
• Continuous Progress: He compared each performance of a song to a new prism of color, shaped by the band’s collective, nightly fluctuations (15:39).

3. Fan Stories & Moments of Grace

• Connecting with Fans: Several fans share stories highlighting Weir’s accessibility — from returning prank calls (12:39) to politely defusing party crashers (21:22).
• Band Life Insights: Weir’s sense of humor and easygoing nature shine through in anecdotes and rare interview snippets.

“You could probably find a better party somewhere else.” — Bobby Weir to a fan, gently enforcing backstage boundaries (21:22)

4. Songwriting and External Projects

• Solo Work & Kingfish: Weir’s attempt to carve a separate musical identity included work with Kingfish, Bobby & the Midnights, and solo albums like Heaven Help the Fool.
• Preference for Road Testing: Weir long favored letting songs gestate on stage (“Throwing Stones,” “Hell in a Bucket”) before committing to studio versions (26:10).
• Slide Guitar and Harmonic Curiosity: He adopted slide guitar to fill sonic gaps and took inspiration from classical string quartets for harmonic exploration (23:51, 24:52).

5. Collaborative Experiments and Later Bands

• Bob & Rob/Scaring the Children/Ratdog: His work with bassist Rob Wasserman not only produced stunning reinterpretations of Dead material but also original songs written sometimes with legends like Willie Dixon (57:04).
• Wolf Bros and the Wolf Pack: Later bands assembled by Weir continued his quest for new textures, sometimes with orchestral components (“Wolf Pack,” 95:02).

6. Mentorship, Legacy, and Adaptation

• Mentor and Collaborator: By the late 1990s and 2000s, Weir evolved into a scene elder, working with new generations and inviting reinterpretation of the Grateful Dead’s music (82:30).
• Stewardship of the Dead’s Songbook: Weir gradually embraced performing both his and Garcia’s songs, letting each evolve with the times:

“We're not trying to perform the songs to the letter of any particular specification. We're just trying to get them up and living. If they want to take another form, that's their business, not ours.” — Bobby Weir (80:07)

7. Activism and Influence Beyond Music

• Voter Registration & Social Engagement: Inspired by Hunter S. Thompson, Weir became an outspoken advocate for voting rights, helping launch HeadCount (83:29).
• Philanthropy and Community: Countless performances at benefits and local events, underscoring his deep engagement with fans and causes.

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MEMORABLE MOMENTS & QUOTES

• On the Transitory Nature of Stage Performance:

  "When we're playing I go to, I go to an entirely other realm where the world... consists just basically of all the time that I spend on stage..." — Bobby Weir (13:59)

• On Song Evolution:

  “Every time we play a tune, we're going to focus on a slightly different aspect of it...” — Bobby Weir (15:39)

• Perspective on Fame:

  “You became for me and I think for a lot of people, kind of symbolic of what the 60s were when they were happening. We're not a 60s band.” — Interviewer & Bobby Weir (09:00–09:06)

• On Mentorship:

  “Well, it's more interesting to me to see what their take is on it and then for me to try to embody that a bit...” — Bobby Weir (82:46)

• On His Legacy:

  “If we do it right, they will be talking about it in two or 300 years.” — Bobby Weir, on symphonic Dead projects (101:18)

• Final Goodbye:

  "All right, thanks for your kind attention. And now, how do I hang this thing up?" — Bobby Weir (103:08)

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IMPORTANT SEGMENTS & TIMESTAMPS

• 04:57 — David Lemieux recalls “Arena Peak” and Weir’s onstage presence in 1988.
• 07:09 — Weir discusses thinking in centuries for his music’s legacy.
• 13:59 — Weir describes entering a different reality on stage.
• 18:55 — Discussion of Odd Time Signatures (“Money, Money,” “Estimated Prophet”).
• 23:51–24:52 — Innovation: Adopting slide guitar, studying string quartets for harmonic ideas.
• 26:10–30:06 — The emergence of a new, less chordal guitar approach in the Dead ensemble.
• 35:25, 35:58 — ‘Slow hand’ guitar approach, letting notes change and create atmosphere.
• 41:01–42:09 — Inside the complexity of “Lost Sailor / Saint of Circumstance.”
• 54:37–56:30 — The origin of the Bob & Rob duo with Rob Wasserman; stories of their spontaneous musical chemistry.
• 57:04–59:59 — Co-writing with Willie Dixon and lessons in musical simplicity.
• 74:51–76:14 — Fan story: Winning a hike with Weir; showing his personable, down-to-earth side.
• 80:07 — Weir’s approach to performing Dead songs post-Garcia: letting them evolve.
• 83:29–84:52 — HeadCount and voter registration advocacy.
• 95:02 — The Wolf Pack, orchestral performances, and Weir’s late-career expansions.
• 101:18 — Weir’s vision: “they will be talking about it in two or 300 years” — symphonic performances.
• 103:08 — Weir’s closing thanks to fans.

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NOTABLE GUESTS AND CONTRIBUTORS

• David Lemieux: Archivist, sharing memories of Weir on stage and in the later Dead years.
• Gary Lambert: Insights into Weir’s evolving style and role within the Dead.
• Rob Wasserman: Recollections of forging a musical bond with Weir.
• Don Was: Perspective on forming Wolf Bros and symphonic projects.
• Scott Metzger, Jeff Chimenti, and others: Commentaries from musicians influenced by Weir.
• Listener Stories: Personal Weir anecdotes from Tim (New Haven), Tony (Waitsfield), Willie (Fremont), Brett (Bothell), and more.

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EPISODE TONE & STYLE

Conversational, reflective, occasionally irreverent—true to the Dead and Deadhead ethos. The hosts balance deep-dive musicology with accessible storytelling. Weir’s own voice, whether in historic interviews or contemporary reflections, is earthy, self-effacing, and ever-curious.

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CLOSING THOUGHTS

This episode offers a mosaic of Bobby Weir’s musical and personal journey—from Deadhead lore to his restless experimentation and finally, a portrait of an artist who lived for the evolution of music and the connections it forged. The closing message echoes Weir’s approach to both life and music: constant growth, openness to surprise, and an invitation for all to join the ongoing jam.

"If we do it right, they will be talking about it in two or 300 years." — Bobby Weir (101:18)

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For further exploration:

• Visit dead.net/deadcast for archival episodes and deep dives into discussed topics.
• Seek out band projects mentioned: Kingfish, Bobby & the Midnights, Ratdog, Wolf Bros, and the Wolf Pack.
• Dive into featured live tracks and rare interview audio in the episode.

Transcript

[A]

Step into the sunshine with the latest collab from Dogfish Head and the Grateful Dead. Citrus Daydream Lager this refreshing American Lager is brewed with sustainable fonio grain and kissed with citrus and floral notes. It's easy drinking, refreshing and brewed for good vibes only. It joins their fan favorite Juicy Pale Ale for a duo that hits all the right notes. Find these brews near [e-mail] Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly. The Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to season 13 of the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast. I'm your co host Rich Mahan. Thank you very much for tuning in. In this episode of the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast, we have the second part of our two part tribute to the one and only Bobby Weir. There are some recent releases worth noting. First and foremost, check out the recently released hi Fi vinyl pressing of Working Man's Dead as well as a very cool reel reel version. That's right, actual reel to reel tape. Both of these high fidelity versions of Working Man's Dead are available exclusively at rhino.com so hurry over there before they disappear. Also new on the release front and just announced is the 50th anniversary edition of Steal youl Face, the Dead's 1976 live album. It's been remastered and is available for pre order [e-mail] as a 2Lp set with beautiful red, blue and black splatter vinyl. This anniversary edition was newly remastered by Grammy Award winning engineer David Glasser at Air Show Mastering. Sourced from the plangent processes restored and speed corrected tapes so you know it's going to sound better than ever. Lacquers were cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundmann Mastering the steal youl Face 50th Anniversary Edition is available for pre order now at dead.net and it hits the streets on June 5th. Head on over to dead.netdeadcast and check out all of our past episodes including the complete seasons 1 through 12 and you can link from there to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how you like to listen. Please help this podcast by subscribing, sharing us with your friends on social media, hitting that like button and if the spirit moves you, leave us a review. It helps more than you know. Thank you. We have transcripts for many of your favorite Deadcast episodes available for your reading pleasure. Head on over to dead.netdeadcast index and check them out. Well, today we have the second part of our two part series about Bobby Weir, the singularly unique guitarist and vocalist who was every bit as important to the Grateful Dead's sound and legacy as his best buddy Jerry Garcia was. He's always been here playing music for us and thankfully, so very much of what he did was recorded for us to relish for generations to come. It's hard to encapsulate everything Bobby did in his musical life into two episodes, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate him in our own special way. Let's get to it. Here's Jesse Jarno.

[B]

In the first part of our extended tribute to the great Bobby Weir, we traced how he went from a fresh faced Atherton folkie.

[C]

My name is Bob Weir and I play a whole misadventure in this guitar

[B]

washtub bass jug kazoo to genuine rock star.

[D]

Is just a man playing playing man Daybreak daybreak on the land

[B]

and that's where we begin today's episode with Bobby Weir suspended in the timeless space of stage being. But we also begin at the Grateful Dead's arena peak. Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux.

[E]

April Fools 88 Brendan Byrne arena and I was probably 8 or 10 throw right in front of Phil. So right between Phil and Bobby, like just, I mean, I'm 17 years old and these guys, my heroes are like right there. And Bobby was such a rock star that night in a great way.

[D]

One man gone and another to go My own body a movin Watch this.

[E]

Bobby was a Barney's model, Barney's clothing store from New York. And so he was wearing long sleeve, they look like silk shirts, button down, really nice shirts. And he wore those most nights on the spring tour of 88. And I remember and his hair was getting a lot longer too. But his hair looked great and his hair was perfect. And he did Ballad of a Thin man and he was inside that song. And I remember I was. And I love Ballad of a Thin Man. I was at the time of 17, I was a Dylan fan. I love that song. But to hear Bobby sing it and own it and sing it, growling it, that is a memory I'll never forget.

[D]

You raise up your head and you ask, is this where it is? And somebody point to you and they say, it's his. And you say, what's mine? And then somebody else says, well, what is? And you say, oh my God, am I here? Alone.

[E]

That whole show was incredible. It became a road trips. One of the road trips releases, that'd

[B]

be volume four, number four. But Bobby Weir was a lot of things and one of those was a constantly evolving human. There's a good chance you've heard him say this or some variation, but here's how he put it when we last spoke to him for the dead cast in 2022.

[C]

My major considerations when I'm trying to decide this or that with the music is what are people going to think about it or going to be saying about it in two or 300 years?

[B]

The idea of Bobby Weir and the Dead leaving a multi century legacy doesn't seem too far fetched. What's perhaps most surprising is the grace that Weir could bring to statements like that. It's our bittersweet endpoint today, and one that very few Deadheads could probably envision during the 70s and 80s. A rolling stone gathers no moss. What it does accumulate though, is gravity.

[D]

Let's have a big hand for Bob Weir.

[C]

Hey now, this is Bobby Weir of the Grateful Dead in the studio.

[D]

You know it's gonna get stranger, so let's get on with the show.

[C]

His earthy rhythm guitar work was the

[A]

best perfect foil for Garcia's spacey songs.

[B]

He signed the combination of rock and

[A]

roll fire and bluesy emotion and wrote

[B]

or co wrote Deadhead favorites like One

[C]

More Saturday Night Playing in the Band and Sugar Magnolia. While we're taking all this time to tune up, I might as well announce that it's Billy's birthday tonight. So everybody want to wish a happy birthday to Billy Christ? Hi, this is Bobby Weir of the Grateful Dead in the studio.

[B]

Weir's extracurricular work already includes his own

[C]

band, two solo albums, a stint with

[A]

Kingfish, and most recently a brief tour

[B]

with members of the Frisco rock mo

[A]

as Bobby and the Midnights.

[B]

All that plus 15 years with the

[C]

Dead and Bob Weir still only 33 years old. Rather special evening tonight. It's Keith's birthday. I'm sure you all want to join with us wishing Keith a happy birthday. Hi, this is Bobby Weir with the Grateful Dead in the studio. You became for me and I think for a lot of people, kind of symbolic of what the 60s were when they were happening. We're not a 60s band.

[B]

I know, I know.

[C]

This is a 60s world. In a bunch of years in the 70s. All our big records happened in the 70s. All our Big Concerts happened in the 70s. We're not a 60s band. Would you like a soapbox? What is this.

[D]

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

[C]

It's a very special night tonight because tonight is one of our drummers birthdays. In fact. In fact it's both of our numbers birthdays. So you can throw stuff at him and stuff like that. Where do we find the camera here? Minimize Photoshop. All right. Little moment of triumph here. Welcome back in the studio. I'm Bobby Weird with the Grateful Dead.

[B]

Every member of the Grateful Dead was committed to making music in the present. They were a 60s band, but they were also a 70s band, later an 80s band and a 90s band. But each member of the Grateful Dead expressed that idea differently.

[D]

Makes the mind look second rate.

[B]

That interview clip was from KYW Evening magazine in Philadelphia in 1979. But Bobby Weir acclimated to the 1980s as well.

[D]

Hey, you're crazy what you want there's way too much to miss the Festiva if you're looking for romance well, you can find it down at the festive of.

[B]

But there was always a guiding spirit. Please welcome back longtime we're watcher from Tales from the Golden Road. Gary Lambert.

[F]

What Bobby always said to me at every juncture, you know, like any project he was working on in the midst of a Grateful Dead tour, I would ask him, how's it going? And Bobby would always say, it's getting there. He just said, okay, this will be good. Give us a few weeks. And his whole life was getting there, but not really wanting to get there. Always pursuing the there that was out there. That really. That struck me as a very sound philosophy.

[B]

A number of people left us stories about [e-mail] and we can't get to them all. But we'll punctuate today's episode with a handful. This comes from listener Tim in New Haven. Sorry about the clicking.

[A]

It was November 25, 1978. The Grateful Dead were scheduled to play at the New Haven Coliseum. My older brothers were going to the show. We were sitting around in our living room and they all got the idea we were going to try to call them up at the hotel they'd be staying in. And they randomly picked out a name. Out of the Europe 72 album, they chose Bob Matthews. We didn't know who Bob Matthews was at that point. I know who he is. Now.

[B]

We point you to our Working Man's Dead season for much more about and with the late great audio engineer Bob Matthews.

[A]

Anyway, we left a message, said, yeah, have him tell Bob Weir that Bob Matthews called, left our phone number, and that was that. Later on that night, Phone rings. My sister answers the phone, says, yes, this is Robert Weir, I'd like to speak to Bob Matthews. My sister kind of freaked out, gave the phone to my mom.

[B]

I'm not sure if Weir ever acknowledged or knew he'd been pranked, but as someone who I can imagine making prank phone calls when he was 11, I appreciate his ability to just roll with it. If you're not familiar with the November 25, 1978 show at the New Haven Coliseum, it's because it didn't happen. And Weir was the one who had to inform the crowd.

[C]

Garcia's real sick. Garcia is real sick. He has pneumonia. He's in a respirator right now. We can't get him out of bed. Yeah, we're not going to be able to play tonight, but we will be able to come back.

[B]

And he also informed Tim's mom and

[A]

he told my mom that Jerry had laryngitis. Now my mom is a nurse, so they spoke at length about Jerry's laryngitis and when he'd be better. After a little while she said, well, my 11 year old son, he'd really like to talk to you. Handed the phone to me. Fanboy moment. I, I barely remember what I said. Not worth repeating. But it was pretty cool and I'm glad it happened.

[B]

I've seen a fair amount of chatter about whether or not Bobby Weir holds some kind of all time record for the most all time stage hours or tour miles, and he's certainly up there. Weir spoke about performing live as essentially an alternate reality he entered when he stepped onto a stage. This is from the very first time I interviewed him in February 2001.

[G]

When we're playing I go to, I go to an entirely other realm where the world, you know, and my life continuum consists just basically of all the time that I spend on stage with these songs and, and, and now with these guys. Like yesterday for me becomes very real the last time I was on stage and everything else in life just sort of falls away.

[D]

Spanish lady come to me she la this road.

[B]

I asked if he had the same relationship to the lyrics of the songs he was singing.

[G]

Yeah, absolutely. I won't say a make believe realm because I'm not entirely sure that it's make believe. I think it's every bit as real as has this realm that we can consider reality, but it's also every bit as fluid as this realm that we consider realities.

[B]

We were speaking about Evening Moods, his new album with Rat Dog, and their subsequent touring, but his comments apply. I think to pretty much his whole career.

[G]

Every time we play a tune, we're going to focus on a slightly different aspect of it, a slightly different facet. So it's like light shining through a prism or something. Coming from one angle, it rainbows out in a certain way on the other side. But if the light's coming from another angle, it does a very different thing on another side. For me, a song can do that if I'm concentrating on it can be a little thing like for some reason, on a given night, the way the sound is, I'm having a particularly swell time with my consonants, my S's, my T's and stuff like that. Maybe I can hear them really well and they sound real distinct to me. And at that point I can use them percussively, emotively. And that's going to color my perception about the whole rest of the song and how I'm going to deliver the whole rest of the song. It's going to color my approach to or my touch to my guitar playing. And the lines that come out of me are going to be really heavily influenced by just this one little thing. And then everybody else who's listening to me is going to be influenced by this new perspective that I'm having on the song. Now you take that and you multiply it by six, because everybody's going through those little anomalies on a nightly basis. And you can see where a song could be very different from. From performance to performance.

[B]

Bob Weir evolved night after night, tour after tour, year after year, in ways that might never be tangible to listeners. But also in some ways we can observe in the changing of his sound and evolution of his songwriting. Weir took a little longer than Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh before jumping into seriously customized instruments. In recent years, you may have seen several guitar makers offering versions of Jerry Garcia's signature instruments. But this is one place where Weir beat Garcia to production. Ibanez began offering Weir's custom guitar for sale in 1976. Formerly known as the Cowboy Fancy. Weir played the Cowboy Fancy on stage through mid-1983, when he switched to modulus guitars. But there were actually mini Cowboys Fancy.

[C]

And there's been a continuing progression of Ibanez guitars ever since then. They all look the same, but they're real different.

[B]

That's from a 1981 interview by the late John Sievert for Guitar Player magazine. Thanks to John the Retro Photoarchive and David Ganz for finding the tape. We'll be hearing much more from it today. Between his Projects with Bobby and the Midnights, his wireless guitar antics with the Dead, and his whole cheeked endorsement of Short Shorts. It might be easy to miss the fact that Bobby Weir was continuing to grow as a musician. It could be heard in sometimes microscopic ways, like training himself to play in new time signatures. Here's Weir speaking with our pal David Ganz in 1977. Collected in David's Conversations with the Dead, [e-mail] Deadcast I started out in 74

[C]

with a little thing called a tri Mood. So that's sort of imaginable, but it's the Concept 74 or whatever signature and just play playing with it just myself. It was a long time ago that I started becoming fascinated with 74. I just come up with little bams with 74 every now and again. I was going to sort of lay off 70. Poor profile though, because I think that might be overstating my case if I do it in the near future.

[B]

Money. Money was in 74 as well. But Weir's real 74 staple was estimated profit.

[C]

I like it because you can get, if you, if you play it right, you can get like the best of three, best of four, you can break it at Higher Line, but it gives you a chance to. To get sort of two different rhythmic feels happening at the same time and you can play them against each other and get some interesting. Essentially the basis of it is this guy that I see at nearly every backstage door every time we play anywhere. There's always some guys taking a lot of dope and he's really bug eyed and he's having some sort of vision and somehow I work into his vision or the band works into his vision or something like that. He's got some brave that he's got to deliver. So I just decided I was going to beat this, beat him to the punch and do it myself. And I've been in that space, I know where they're coming from.

[B]

And lest you think Weir was being less than gracious in a band full of musicians whose social skills weren't why they were on stage, mellow charm remained one of Weir's superpowers. Here's a story left by listener Tony from Waitsfield about the time he accidentally stumbled on what was referred to as the Hostility Suite.

[F]

The Grateful Dead were celebrating their 15th anniversary at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado.

[A]

My friend Pete and I weren't ready to head back home after Sunday show

[C]

and someone mentioned that there was something

[B]

going on at the Holiday Inn.

[A]

As we drove up, I could see

[F]

a few People hanging out in front of a couple of rooms on the second floor. I jumped out of the car and

[B]

headed up the stairs to see what was going on.

[A]

As I got closer to the top of the stairs, the gentleman who was talking with the women made his way over.

[F]

And before I got to the top,

[B]

he looked down at me and said,

[A]

you could probably find a better party somewhere else.

[C]

It took a few seconds to realize

[B]

that it was Bob Weir telling me

[C]

in the nicest way to get lost.

[B]

Weir was never a prolific songwriter. After his two songs on Anthem of the sun, the next studio album to feature two fully realized new Weira originals with lyrics was Shakedown street in 1978.

[D]

Each and every law I got a feeling and it won't go away I know. Just one thing Then I'll be okay I need a miracle every day Weir's

[B]

guitar voice continued to change in sometimes unsubtle ways, like when he took up slide guitar in 1978. This is from Dave's Pick 7, recorded on April 24, 1978 in Normal, Illinois. Shout out to Ward Q. Here's how Weir described the situation to John Sievert in 1981.

[C]

Back when we were playing with Keith, he played exclusively acoustic piano and we didn't have a sustained instrument in the group. And I'd always wanted to get. I wanted to hear a sustained instrument. I guess desperation is the mother of invention. I finally got desperate and figured, well, slide guitar is kind of a sustained instrument, especially if you have a fair bit of distortion and feedback, you can get it to sustain for a while. And so I took up playing slide guitar pretty much for that reason and just had a lot of fun with it.

[B]

Weir continued to study music and let it intentionally seep into his guitar playing.

[C]

I've got some prokop string quartets that I'm sort of studying. Trying to glean from his approach to harmonic development and voicing, I found that string quartets fall fairly aptly in hand for guitar. My guitar style pretty much develops, has developed from my writing. It's sort of once again necessity or desperation being the mother of invention. If the, if the notes have to be there, if you, if you've got to cover this particular, this particular area of the tonality, like whatever it takes, whatever it takes to cover a certain figure that needs to be there, I'll just learn to do it, you know, and I'll just. I just sort of adopt a hard headed approach to, to just making my hands do something that maybe they don't want to do. And maybe it doesn't fall immediately in hand until finally I. Until finally I get what I want to do.

[B]

But in the 1980s, especially, the dead were the opposite of a prolific recording act. Weir often expressed his preference to road test songs before they were recorded in the studio. And with the Dead taking most of the decade to finish in the dark, he got his wish with Hell in a Bucket, My Brother Esau and Throwing Stones finding their shine over a half decade on the road.

[D]

Picture a bright blue ball Just

[H]

dizzy

[D]

with eternity Hated with the skin of sky Brushing some clouds and sea Call it home for you and me.

[B]

Weir wrote a number of new originals for his two albums with the Midnights. But measuring Bobby Weir by his songwriting output is hardly a complete representation of his evolution as a musician. Reaching musical maturity inside the Grateful Dead was hardly a stable condition. Last episode we discussed how Weir found his voice in the 60s and 70s, in part by channeling jazz piano players. Here once again is some of his isolated guitar from the August 27, 1972 playing in the Band, which you can check [e-mail] playingintheband. In August 1989, Weir had an engineer make a tape of his isolated guitar at the Greek Theater, and we can hear how he continue to take new approaches. 17 years is a lot of change in the Dead tone wise between these two examples, Weir went from playing a hollow bodied Gibson in 1972 to playing his Pepto pink solid body midi enabled modulus in 1989. But much more of the change was contextual. Playing slide guitar was just the first step in a much weirder journey. In the 80s, Brett Midland was in the keyboard chair, unfurling more sustained keyboard colors than Keith Godshow's piano. Mickey Hart had returned to the band and the drummers loomed ever larger in the conversation. Not to mention Phil Lesh having access to ever higher registers with a six string bass. Weir had to find a new musical space in which to operate. When Weir spoke with John Sievert in 1981, he could hear his own style changing, and he's virtually describing the approach he would embrace more deeply over the 1980s.

[C]

Recently I've been moving my whole conception of what it is that I should be doing as a rhythm guitarist. What it is, I'm starting to register that higher and higher. Just sort of stay out of the way of the never ending confusion between the bass and the keyboard left hand. I don't want to get in the middle of that.

[B]

Incrementally his guitar playing moved away from the more traditional chord oriented Rhythm duties towards single note lines and accents that often filled out the band's already enormous rhythm. Rather than restating it, I tried to

[C]

move into upper registers. And once you get into upper registers, you have to have a fairly well defined sense of harmonic development and stuff like that. You're no longer dealing with the roots or the fundamentals of your harmonic development at this point. Once you get into the higher registers, you're almost always dealing with leading tones.

[B]

What resulted for Weir was a less busy style of guitar playing.

[C]

Brent's sort of a challenge for me because he's a little more, I guess, shall we say, jazzy. Keith could play pretty much any style, but what he did on stage was, you know, pretty straightforward rock and roll piano. He could get pretty outside as well, but he wasn't so much jazzy as just outside at that point. And Brent has a more sophisticated approach to per se, to what he does. And what that does for me is I find myself having to be sort of conversant in those harmonic realms, but at the same time, I generally don't state them so much as he generally will be able to register what he does on top of what I can do. So if there's going to be an augmented 11th or something like that, I'll let him do it.

[B]

He landed in a voice that couldn't plausibly be called either lead or rhythm guitar.

[C]

When I'm playing a bunch of chords, a lot of the notes that I'm playing in those chords, other people are playing in their chords is they're playing chords too. What we try to do is cut it so that I'm playing just voices, two notes or something. Yeah.

[B]

In 1989, he also had midi. A few things were more stable. Weir's lead guitar figure for China Cat Sunflower is one of his few guitar parts that was dictated to him by Jerry Garcia. Here it is at Veneta in 1972. And at the Greek in 89,

[C]

Though

[B]

it could also sound like this. Still, that's more a cosmetic change than architectural. Here's how he approached the peak of the China Cat sunflower jam in 1972.

[D]

Sam.

[B]

And here's what he was playing during that same section in 1989, which has evolved, certainly with more whammy bar whams and a slightly grungier tone, but he's still basically going to the same place. Some of his old signature riffs are intact, also with more whammy sustain. From Tales from the Golden Road.

[F]

Gary Lambert, the Grateful Dead were never going to sound like A conventional arena rock band. But that was the period where they sounded the most like arena rock band because they had to be a little more emphatic in the music to get across. Sometimes the music got breathtakingly delicate, even in a stadium. But a lot of the time they'd have to be hammering it harder and having the B3 organization, which is like a fairly relentless instrument in there. I think Bobby laid out more because of that, you know. So his playing may have become more minimal in that period as a result of the highly saturated sound of that ensemble.

[B]

Here's what Bobby told us in 2022. He was speaking in the context of adding pedal steel to the Wolf Brothers, but speaks to much of his development. From the 80s onwards.

[C]

I developed sort of a slow hand approach to guitar playing. And you know, I like to hang notes and let them take. Let them change color and stuff like that and just watch as they. As they change color.

[B]

Weir built himself an utterly unique guitar language that continued to curl into itself in a manner totally different than any other guitarist. But Weir's guitar playing wasn't the only part of his musical personality that had to grow inside the Dead, learning to react to his bandmates evolutions in a different way. This is from December 9, 1981 in Boulder. Now Dave's picks 20.

[D]

Listen, I was feeling sorta bad now ask my family doctor about what I have now. I said doctor, Mr. MD how can you tell them what's healing me? You see the A.

[B]

Weir told David Ganz that same year. Pigpen was our showman. When he started to slide, I sort of naturally stepped into it. It's something I don't mind doing. In fact, I rather enjoy showboating and all that kind of stuff. Somebody had to do it. Garcia's been on a long slow taper as far as his showmanship is concerned. He's become less and less showy. Way back when he was a lot more showy, he used to move on stage almost all the time.

[D]

So I'm gonna tell you about it now. You got to have loving. Ain't no two ways about it now. You got to have loving Got to have it loving way early in the morning. Got to have loving in the way tonight. About the only way you're going to make it to the day and feel all right. You know it. Listen. Got to have loving.

[B]

Just like playing rhythm guitar, Being the band's energy center was a skill set Weir had to master. He made this observation to John Sievert in 1981 and I find that the

[C]

more I move on stage, the better I play.

[B]

And to his everlasting credit, if anything, his songs perhaps got even weirder. Actively questing into new territory while building on the old. Lost Sailor grew out of ideas first developed in sage and spirit. So many musicians brought up the rite of passage of Lost Sailor and Saint of Circumstance that we can make a montage. Some of these were used in our We're 75 episode.

[G]

Jeff Comenti Sailor Saint might have been, like, one of the first things I had to chart out in Rad Dog. And I was just like, whoa, man, this is, like, beautiful. I mean, like. But this is, like, very, you know, I don't want to say adult, but it was, you know, it was, you know, it was adult. You know,

[D]

where's the dark star? Where's the moon? You're a lost sailor. You've been too long at sea.

[B]

That line is dog star, not dark star, by the way. But we still cheer for it. Anyway, we're listening to the Go to NASA version for May 15, 1980. Scott Metzger from Joe Russo's Almost Dead and Rana.

[G]

When you start talking about Lost Sailor and saying of circumstance, you're talking about, like, very, like, how did he think of this kind of stuff?

[B]

Don was. Got the initiation when they formed the wolf Bros. In 2018.

[I]

He said, yeah, you know, learn Lost Sailor saying a circumstance. We'll try it tomorrow night. Tomorrow. Those songs are really hard, man.

[C]

You know,

[I]

And I know when I got to saying a circumstance, well, I was trying to learn that I. I write it out and it's a primitive kind of chart that I make, but, like, just a chart. But at least I could keep track of, you know, odd bars and, you know, like, when there's an odd time signature change. And I remember when I was trying to break the code of saying a circumstance, I was actually mad. Like, why did he have to put all this in?

[D]

Well, I never know now. No, I never know. No, no, Never, never know.

[I]

But once you learn it, man, once you internalize it, the. It's genius, man. It's all there for a reason. And it's. And these songs,

[D]

they.

[I]

They kind of. They roll off your fingers like melted butter kind of. You know, it's just so. It's so easy to play. There's so many ideas you can have. There is an infinite amount of approaches they become. I remember after the first tour that I did with Bobby with Wolf Brothers, when we got together the second time, I. I remember the first time we played Lost Sailor. I had the same feeling I have when I see an old friend. Man, it was really good to see that song and play those changes again and I really, I missed it. That's I've never experienced like a friendship with a song.

[B]

We aspire to spend more time drifting and dreaming a few seasons down the line and then, well, Victim or the Crime was Weir's stadium sized Bartok influenced Weird Out. That might have been the most harmonically strange piece of music the Dead had debuted since Blues for Alla, let alone one that stayed in regular rotation with the band. Here's Garcia and Weir discussing it on Timothy White's Rock Stars in 1989 when it was released on Built to Last. This was an audience free song.

[D]

This is where you can see the

[B]

smiles kind of dissolve.

[C]

They stop dancing and everything.

[B]

There's you know, 10,000 people with big question marks. Scott Metzger from Joe Russo's almost got to be a really wonderful composition.

[C]

Post adolescent middle angst.

[D]

Did he learn it? Whatever happened to his precious self control?

[B]

The lyrics were by actor Garrett Greene, an occasional collaborator with Weir. Over the next decades, though he continued to work on and off with John Perry Barlow. Weir began to collaborate with a number of other lyricists while he never stopped working entirely with Robert Hunter. Korina, co written with Mickey Hart as well, was the first Weir Hunter tune that made it to the Dead stage since the 70s, though some Deadheads reacted negatively to it at the time. The loop like keyboard part makes it feel like forward looking dance music in a way no other Dead tune did.

[D]

What can I do? I found my love but I'm true to you.

[B]

This is from Madison Square Garden in October 1994, released on Ready or Not, a version that's 16 minutes long and goes into a deep jam ready to soundtrack your next Grateful Dead dance party. It took Bobby Weir a while to build a musical identity outside the dead. In 1974, when the dead took their break, he joined Kingfish, formed by his high school buddy Matthew Kelly. We've posted a link to Corey Arnold's deep [e-mail] deadcast, their self titled debut, is the only full album besides Blues for Allah, made at Weir's home studio Aces.

[C]

Way back when I was a little kid, I remember Marty Robbins singing the

[D]

Stranger one fine day. Harley spoke about

[C]

I'm Bob Weir and now I'm singing and playing with Kingfish.

[B]

Kingfish was a serious working band. They played big gigs in Little headlining Winterland in San Francisco, but also doing unglamorous opening slots to find new audiences and taking bookings in Places you might not expect a Grateful Dead to show up. Listener Willie and Fremont left us this story. I went to Washington High School in Fremont, and when we graduated, we put together a Senior Ball event to take place at the Hyatt Cabana in Palo Alto. And that was booked for Tuesday evening, June 10, 1975. And our entertainment for that evening was Kingfish with Bob Weird.

[D]

He's an alpha, loose and running, came the whisper from each and he's here to do some business with the big iron on the tip, Big iron on the sea.

[B]

A lot of great rocking tunes, maybe not enough slow dance tunes, but there were a couple in there, and Bob sat by the side of the stage

[C]

during the break to say hello.

[B]

He signed my little Senior Ball program

[E]

that we passed out.

[B]

And it's also signed by Matthew Kelly, Dave Torbert, and I think Robbie Hodnot. Kind of hard to read one of these. Anyway, great time for all of us at the Senior Ball. And Bob also signed the COVID of my copy of Ace. So that was a really special event that I think everybody appreciated how cool it was. Several years later, and many years later, they can't even believe it happened. Not only did the Kingfish album sell well in its first few months, it sold virtually the same amount as Reflections, Jerry Garcia's brand new album, around 160,000 copies each. It wasn't a competition, of course, but it still must have felt like a breakthrough of sorts for Weird. Weir toured with kingfish from 1974 through 1976, but it didn't quite take. As he explained to David Ganz in 1977, I never really found just exactly

[C]

what it was that I was gonna be doing with Kingfish. The problem was that I never really spent enough time at it or with them, which was, in the end, the problem with me in that group

[G]

had

[C]

the Grateful to various projects, be it records or movies or one thing or another.

[B]

In 1977, we recorded Heaven Help the Fool with producer Keith Olson, fresh off of Terrapin Station, using a crop of LA session musicians.

[D]

Bombs away. Well, I guess I'm back in love again oh, and now and around we go this will bring me ruin Though I suppose it's pleasing.

[C]

Essentially what I'm doing is going fishing with the Grateful Dead. For instance, when I do a song with the Grateful Dead, I sort of throw it up to the Grateful Dead and it's subject to whatever sort of interpretation it gets. I don't know anybody who has enough energy to tell six other strong willed musicians to no play this. Now you Play that. Now you go a lot of, hey, eat my shorts. You know, I'll play what I feel, man, and all that kind of stuff. It's pointless to try to do that with the Grateful Dead, but when I get in the studio with a bunch of musicians, I can do that. I can say, I kind of want this. Plus, these musicians that I was working with down here are perceptive to the point where they know exactly. They know real well how to go for what you're looking for and then enlarge upon that. With the Grateful Dead, I get. I never get exactly what the song was supposed to have been to me. I never get the song exactly as I had imagined it when I was putting it together.

[B]

He formed the Bob weir Band in 1978 to tour behind Heaven Help the Fool. And by the next year, the Dead poached their keyboard player, Brent Midland to replace both Keith and Donagho in the dead. In 1980, the Bob Weir Band morphed into Bobby and the Midnights, featuring drummer Billy Cobham, who'd played with Miles Davis as well as the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

[D]

Better off not knowing Just don't care.

[B]

Weir described the Midnights as the Ibanez All Star Band, a squad of endorsees of Ibanez guitars and tama drums who came together in part to play the national association of Music Merchants trade show, including guitarist Bobby Cochran and bassist Alfonso Johnson. The band was named for the instrument playing Midnight the Cat, a character from the 1950s NBC Kids Show Andy's Gang, played by an actual Persian cat with a voiced over catchphrase.

[D]

Come on, come on. Three. Come on blind.

[C]

That's it.

[D]

Nice, nice.

[B]

And while delving into the intricacies of Andy's gang, the crack Dead cast research department has discovered that Froggy the Gremlin's catchphrase might also sound familiar to Dead fans.

[D]

Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy.

[B]

Higher gets higher. Higher. And Bobby Weir greeting the crowd on the final night of the Europe 72 tour.

[C]

Hiya, kids. Hiya, hiya.

[B]

The midnights lasted through two very 80s albums. Their self titled debut in 1984's where the Beat Meets the Street, sessions that included Brian Setzer, Jeff Skunk Baxter and Steve Cropper.

[D]

Looking for a new affair One that's quite beyond compare yeah, come on, take the rest of me I'll give you the best of me where the beat meets the streets where you find me where the beat meets the streets don't deny me where the beat meets the street Come on, try baby, don't run away.

[C]

I had a lot of fun but it got too serious. I had, I had to bail.

[B]

This is Weir speaking on KGO in 1991.

[C]

Well, basically what the, the deal was there was that everybody in the band, that was sort of a part time outfit for me, everybody else in the band thought, you know, we were starting to get some success and stuff like that and they wanted to make it a full time deal and that was, was drenching me about six ways from sideways because I had this other band.

[B]

But in 1988, Weir found his musical foil and a place to start building at his own pace. Though, like everything else in Weir's musical life, it unfolded so slowly that it was hard to notice it happening at first. It started with an evening out at Sweetwater in scenic downtown Mill Valley, seeing the great blues songwriter Willie Dixon. This isn't that night, but it's close.

[D]

Got ax handled Pistol on a graveyard frame Shoot tombstone bullets Wearing balls and jeans Drinking tea and tea Smoking dynamite I hope some screwballs Start a fight While I'm ready Ready than anybody can be

[B]

Also attending Dixon's Sweetwater gig was the bassist Rob Wasserman, probably the only musician to be a regular band member for David Grisman and Lou Reed. This is from a 1994 Grateful Dead interview with, you guessed it, David Ganz.

[H]

Yeah, I actually went to hear Willie Dixon. It was his last performance around here. And I went downstairs to meet Willie because I was, I rarely do that actually. And I went down there to say hi to him and introduce myself. And then Bobby was there also and he was just meeting him for the first time.

[C]

Time.

[H]

So I met Bobby. It's pretty funny. It's a small world and a small basement.

[B]

Actually, Wasserman had just put out his acclaimed duets album,

[C]

One More for My

[I]

Baby, One More for the ro.

[B]

It wasn't long thereafter that Bob and Rob played together.

[H]

I was doing a benefit for the Mill Valley Film Festival in the spirit of Duets, like a collaborative evening. I invited everyone I didn't know and knew down to the Sweetwater. And we used that place because it was intimate and fun and I didn't know who was going to show up. We had sent Bobby a duet CD and apparently he flipped out, fell in love with it, showed up and we really clicked. We played for around an hour without ever having played together and we decided to keep on doing it.

[D]

It's so easy to slip, Lord so easy to fold. It's so easy to slip, Lord so easy it's easy to pull.

[B]

That was Weir's pretty stunning version of Lowell George's Easy to Slip, which he first recorded on Heaven Help the Fool There from pretty early on in his partnership with Rob Wasserman. Recorded in September 1989 and released on the live album called Long Island Sound, they toured heavily as a duo for the next few years, sharing bills with Jerry Garcia Band and many others. As Wasserman was starting work on his Trios album, they also wrote a song with the man who had inadvertently introduced them, Willie Dixon, author of Little Red Rooster and other blues standards.

[H]

We were writing the tune in a hotel room and Willie wrote the lyrics, most of the lyrics, and Bobby wrote most of the music. I wrote some of it and we arranged it together collaboratively. And this is a demo in a hotel room with Willie singing.

[B]

Check out Grateful that hour number 294. For the rest of that demo of we're singing with Willie Dixon, we've posted a [e-mail] deadcast here's how Weir recalled the songwriting process again to David Ganz in 1997.

[C]

We sort of whipped up this, the beginning, these musical shards to start chasing. One of the reasons that Willie wanted to work with us is he wanted to sort of bust out of his, the blues bag and he wanted to go into, you know, some more extended changes, chord changes and stuff like that. And so we started working this thing up and he liked it and he started writing stuff. And by the time we had sort of fluffed up this, a verse and a chorus musically, he handed me a sheet of paper and I said, you go ahead and sing this. And I. I was reading it and it was, you know, it was so simple. And I thought. I was thinking to myself, this is awful simple. This is really pretty simple minded stuff. And it's really a great honor to be working with the, you know, the legendary Willie Dixon and stuff like that. But, you know, maybe he's getting old or something like that and, you know, maybe stuff is. Maybe he doesn't have the grip that he used to have, the edge that he used to have. He was sitting back there saying, go ahead and sing it now you just play it and sing it too. And so I figured, well, I got to do that. We're working with him. And so we started playing it and I read the lyrics off the page.

[D]

That die. I love you honey, you love me let's love each other through eternity.

[C]

And when I was done, I was transported somewhere else. I was. I was speechless at what had just happened. You know, just the elegance of the statement that had just come through my lips. And he'd been watching me. You know, he's an old guy. He's seeing me go through all these changes. He'd been watching me. And so, you know, I'm sitting there with my mouth open, my eyes just sort of wide open, and he's just cracking up. Now, you see, now that's. Now that's the wisdom of the blues. And, yeah, it was quite a moment for this boy.

[B]

As Ganz pointed out, Dixon came to Weir for extended chord changes and taught Weir something about the virtues of musical simplicity. The song was in the Dead's repertoire from 1993 to 1995, and it became a powerful springboard for the band in their last years. Authentic, existential psychedelic blues. This is from April 2, 1995. Now on ready or Not,

[D]

You love me, let's love each other.

[B]

David Lemieux.

[E]

I'd heard it before with Bob and Rob and. But then in 93, I saw the Dead play it, I think only once. And I remember telling a friend at the hotel after the show, I said, it's like Weir's Bird song. It's like a first set song that has a huge jam in the middle where the band can really go places where before bringing it back. And I think it would clock in at what, nine or ten minutes? Summer 89 to spring of 93, I think he was playing some of his most powerful and driven music. Estimated profit I go to, I find that it's first of all one of his most interesting songs, but I also feel he delivers it virtually every single time with a huge amount of passion.

[B]

That was from March 27, 1993, at the Nick. Now on 30 trips around the sun. Estimated Profit combined Weir's sweet spot in 74 with a more sparing, less busy groove that allowed him to hang his slow hand guitar shapes.

[D]

Sam I honestly think 94 and 95

[E]

is, you know, Jerry was kind of. Some nights weren't his best nights, but I found the rest of the band during that era were playing some of the best playing ever. And there was a clarity to the sound that, you know, John Cutler had started mixing in March of 94. And the clarity of each individual player and Bobby's playing in that era is spectacular.

[B]

That was Shakedown street From Boston Garden, October 3, 1994, on the recent Enjoying the Ride box. Weir's partnership with Rob Wasserman wasn't the only direction he pursued. Outside the Dead, one of his great unfinished projects, was sometimes described as an opera, sometimes as a musical Sometimes a song cycle. Thanks to David ganz for this 1997 interview. This next story begins, obviously in a bar in Mexico. Sometime in the 1980s.

[C]

Six or eight years ago, in a bar in Mexico, I was talking to this guy I just met there. And it turns out he was a writer. And what are you down here for? Well, I'm working on a screenplay. And he told me about the screenplay. And just before I left for Mexico on that trip, I'd pack my guitar down there and find a little place on the beach and just hang. Or I was reading in the Chronicle in the sports section about

[G]

the great

[C]

Satchel Page, about whom I'd heard, you know, stuff all through my life. But for some reason, something a little bell went off and pissed. Every day, every day I pitched in 160 some ball games in a row.

[D]

I did it for three years straight.

[C]

And so I was talking to this guy I met in the bar in Mexico about. I was sort of waxing profuse about the guy's accomplishments and what he amounted to in my view and all that kind of stuff. And here's a guy, if anybody, he was the greatest pitcher who ever lived. At least arguably and for sure he was the greatest picture who ever lived. He was also an incredibly colorful individual. I was a few beers in and I was in full rave at the particular point. And I said, you know, at one point I said, you know, it'd make a great musical. And then I kept on raving and the guy stopped me and said, you ought to do that. And I said, yeah, and kept raving. He stopped me two or three more times and finally, finally I realized the guy is right.

[B]

That was Shoulda Had Been Me, written with Bruce Coburn and Michael Nash, recorded by saxophone great David Murray. The final track from his album Dark Star, a duet with We Are on guitar. It's the only official release of any music from the Satchel Page project, which never quite reached public fruition. Ratdog played the song a bit in 1995 and 1996 as well.

[D]

Can't take back time Just don't work that way

[C]

still, there's just one thing

[D]

I got to say Ain't Odini it's playing to see.

[B]

The first sign that Bobby Weir and Rob Wasserman were thinking bigger than a duo was when Bob Weir decided they needed a band name.

[C]

For a while we were the Chew Toys. And for a while we were the Fabulous Woodies and Scaring the Children. Scaring the Children, we did.

[H]

Yeah, that lasted a little while.

[C]

Yeah, Actually, that Lasted a year or two.

[H]

They banned us in Canada.

[C]

Yeah, we were actually in Canada. They would not put the name on Scaring the Children. They would not put the name on the, on the, on the marquee. Can't do that here. I don't know what you, you folks down there do, but not here you don't. I had no idea what they were objecting to.

[B]

I can't find any references to gigs as the Chew Toys or the Fabulous Woodies, but the duo did gig as Scaring the children starting in 1991. It was somewhere in this period that they began to expand.

[C]

After we played together for five years or so as a duo, we decided, hey, how about a Drummer?

[B]

In early 1995, they played a few shows as Friends of Montezuma with jay Lane, a 30 year old drummer who'd been in an early version of Primus. They were filled out by one of Weir's former Kingfish bandmates.

[C]

But then by the time we got around to doing a tour again, my old pal Matthew Kelly was back in town. We thought we'd kick it around with him a little bit and that worked out.

[B]

And it was around then that they settled on the name. That stuck for a while anyway. This is all from David Ganza's 1997 KPFA interview, where he also asked about the project's newest name.

[C]

Let's talk about the name Rat Dog. Stuff just comes to me, David. And what does it say on the T shirt, if you can't run with the Rat Dogs, stay the hell off the couch. Well, you know, it came to me with the album cover too. It was one big blinding flash that all that stuff. And then there's the sort of a kitten's eye view of a snarling Pomeranian or whatever. And you'll see, it'll all fall together, it'll come into focus for you.

[B]

The booking was a bit confusing. Sometimes calling themselves the Rat Dog Review, sometimes Bob Weir and Rob Wasserman featuring Jay Lane. But they were all of three shows into their first tour in August 1995, getting ready to play in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire when tragedy struck.

[C]

Well, I guess some sad news has come our way this morning.

[H]

Jerry Garcia, our friend, my brother passed

[C]

away and I guess not much can be said about that, except that perhaps it's a big loss for the world. For anyone who loves music.

[B]

The second half of Bobby Weir's career unfolded and iterated in many unpredictable ways. Ratdog's lineup continued to shift throughout their nearly 20 year existence. Only Weir and Jay Lane played with every iteration of the group, with even Wasserman bowing out. Between 2002 and 2010 they cycled through keyboard players, including a tour with Vince Wellnick and a few with the absolute legend Johnny Johnson. More from David Ganz's 1997 interview

[C]

he was Chuck Berry's keyboard player way back when. Before that he was just a consummate blues piano player. But then he teamed up with Chuck Berry and sort of defined rock and roll piano. He and Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Rich.

[B]

That was a further fest Super Jam from June 22, 1996, in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Bruce Hornsby on accordion, among others.

[C]

Then we added Dave Ellis on sax. Dave had played with Jay in the Charlie Hunter Trio, and when we went to hear Jay for the first time live, just to see what he was like live before we invited him to join the band. And we were mightily impressed, but not only by him, but by the sax player in that trio.

[B]

And it was saxophonist Dave Ellis who introduced perhaps the single key piece of Bobby Weir's later career, keyboardist Jeff Clementi, who played his first Rat dog show in May 1997, just a few weeks after the interview we've been hearing from. It was roughly this lineup that recorded Rat Dog's one and only studio album, 2000's Evening Moods,

[D]

once Again the Crossroads and There Ain't no Moon Shining through the Trees,

[C]

God has lost my number,

[D]

Baby leave me backing Baby please. B Me standing I've been too long on my knee.

[B]

In their later years, the Grateful Dead could be mistaken for an arena rock band, or even a stadium rock band. But what they were at all points was a working band, and Bobby Weir remained profoundly a working musician, albeit one with his own definition of work. While we often shouted out to Jerry Bass here on the Deadcast a full on Weir bass, unifying all his different projects into one set of data would be an enormous challenge. We've linked to various [e-mail] deadcast but weird, his hands in so many projects, not to mention touch football games with the Tamalpais Chiefs, that we can only go skipping merrily along the surface. It wasn't too uncommon to sight Weir around Marin county when he wasn't on tour, though you might be interrupting a songwriting session if you ran into him on the trail.

[C]

Well, my head gets pretty clear when I go running for any distance. And if something is lurking back there and really wants to come out, oftentimes it will.

[B]

This next story comes from listener Brett in Bothell, Washington, hometown to Robert Hunter in elementary school, we were among a

[E]

group of eight friends and family members

[B]

who, in a right time, right place,

[E]

stroke of luck, had won a hike up 2,500 foot Mount Tamalpais with Bobby

[C]

in April 2004 as the result of

[E]

a charitable auction bid that the weather

[I]

was stunning, the company surreal.

[E]

We laughed at Weir's stories and he at ours. He was engaging and gregarious, reflective and well spoken, patient and endearing.

[I]

He talked of getting high on Beetle

[E]

Nut with Woody Harrelson in Asia and having a numb tongue for days, of

[I]

how, for a decade around Mill Valley

[E]

after he broke his shoulder mountain biking

[C]

in 1986, that anytime someone flew over

[E]

the handlebars, it was dubbed the Weir Maneuver.

[B]

David Lemieux.

[E]

I saw the dead 100 times and I saw Bob and Rob in those early 90s half a dozen times. So until 95, I probably saw Bobby play 105, 107 times. But since 99, and then a few more times in 96, 97, 98 with the other ones, and then 99, I started working for the Dead. So I was in the Bay Area and it seemed he was playing all the time. So I tried to think how many times have I seen him play live? And it's gotta be 200 times. And that can be something like, you know, there'll be like the Mill Valley Spring Fair or something and Bobby will show up and play a couple of songs on the free stage in the court. Like things like that happened all the time in the Bay Area.

[B]

More than anything, Weir was game. He played in clubs and theaters, did the festival circuit, showed up to play memorial jams and benefits. So many benefits, probably many more rehearsal jams and studio sessions that we know nothing about. Gary Lambert, he played with David Murray.

[F]

Then you see him playing at Wetlands with Hanson, you know, and I always thought that was a great part of his appeal and kind of like fearless on his part.

[B]

I'm not sure how shocking that seems now, but in February 1999, it was a rather large surprise to see the trio of teenage Hansen brothers show up with Weir during a multi night residency at the late lamented Wetlands, celebrating the club's 10th anniversary.

[D]

Going down the road feeling better Going down the road feeling bad Going down the road feeling bad Feeling bad Don't want to be treated this way.

[B]

Over the course of the late 1990s, Weir began to add more songs written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter into his own songbook. Here's what he told David Ganz in 1997.

[C]

Well, there are A number of those tunes. And I'm not altogether prepared to live the rest of my life without plan.

[B]

When I spoke with Weir in 2001, he elaborated some on that.

[G]

I was lonesome for him. There are more coming, for that matter. Really. Garcia Hunter stuff. I know that stuff. I know where they live. I know where those tunes live. I grew up with them. They grew up with me.

[B]

He also realized that his audiences wanted to hear Grateful Dead songs, both the ones he wrote and the ones he didn't. This is him speaking with David Ganz in 2004.

[C]

Where Radog got started was me and Rob and it. Me and Rob Wasserman. Then later we added Jay the drummer, and then one by One, the Other pieces. But it started with me and Rob Wasserman playing back in the late 80s, and it was a vacation from the Dead for me. So I. I wasn't doing. I was doing hardly any Grateful Dead material. I was doing all other stuff. Otherwise it wouldn't have been a vacation. And when Jerry checked out, that was the kind of repertoire we had. And I just stayed on the road and I wasn't really ready to work up a bunch of Grateful Dead stuff. You know, I don't think I was emotionally ready to do that. But we kept touring and I kept our old repertoire up and happening. And, you know, people. Our audiences started to dwindle on account of the fact that they weren't hearing the. The. The old chestnuts. And so we started working them back up. The audiences got bigger. The All. The band also got better, for what it's worth. But I think that we found a pretty good balance.

[B]

Look, I've seen Sir Paul McCartney in concert, and it was amazing. His band sounded like the Beatles. Sometimes they sounded like Wings. Seeing Bobby Weir at any point after 1995 was no guarantee that Grateful Dead's songs would sound like they did when the Grateful Dead played them. Even when played in various Post Garcia formations like the Other Ones or the Dead or Dead and Company. It was in this exact way that Weir gradually embraced his role as a steward of the band's music, letting it breathe and develop as it would. Here's what he told me when we spoke in 2017.

[G]

We're not trying to perform the songs to the letter of any particular specification. We're just trying to get them up and living. If they want to take another form, that's their business, not ours.

[B]

The Grateful Dead created music that could age with their singers. This is from 2001.

[G]

Again, generally speaking, in my tunes, the character in the tune, their delivery's softening over the years. Maybe it's because I'm getting older and some of that's leeching into these characters, but they get different.

[B]

In 1999, Weir married Natasha Munter and started a family. In 2002, he grew his prodigious beard and whiskers, adding to his long list of styles and vibes. He also met his birth father, Colonel John Parbour, retired, a story we've linked [e-mail] deadcast it turned out as well that Weir had a half brother, James Lewis Parbour, who died in 1991. But he'd played guitar in the same general scene as the Dead and can be heard playing lead on Coyote's Dream, an album by Lawrence Hammond, the one time leader of the underrated Bay Area band Mad River.

[C]

And the kiss that she laid on

[D]

these tired old lines was light as a co stream.

[B]

Weir adopted his younger half brother's Telecaster guitar and could be seen playing it on the road over the next decades. Gary Lambert Phil essentially stopped touring and

[F]

opened Terrapin and would do his residencies at the Capitol and things like that, but he was, he was, Bobby was really continued to be the road warrior and continued to really be carrying the gospel everywhere. And I love seeing him. That transition from the kid into a sage, that was, that was like a beautiful thing. And he, he wore the sage thing quite comfortably, I thought.

[B]

Starting on the 1996 and 1997 further tours, Weir regularly played with the next generations of musicians, those influenced by the Dead in general and him in specific. Here's what he told us in 2020 about the kind of musical advice he did or didn't offer younger musicians.

[C]

Well, it's more interesting to me to see what their take is on it and then for me to try to embody that a bit and then play with a lot of folks over the last few years who did that, who came up through those ranks, and everybody has a different, a different purchase on it. And it's really wonderful fun for me to dive into that view or that view of what it is that we've

[B]

been up to in the 80s and 90s. Weir had thrown his weight into environmental advocacy and animal rights. In the early 2000s, he embraced a new cause.

[C]

If you come to a Rat Dog show or a Dead show in the, in the next few months is we have voter registration booths out front. And I think if, if people value democracy, they had damn well better, damn well it better get to get out there and exercise the right to vote. While their vote still means something, because I think that it's pretty clear to me that otherwise corporations are going to take over our government. That's going to be that. If every deadhead in the state of Florida had voted in the last presidential election, it'd be a very different world today.

[B]

Funny thing about that quote the year before, in 2003, I interviewed Hunter S. Thompson for a cover story for Relics, in which Thompson told me if every deadhead voted, the country would be a different place. My understanding is that Weir read the interview and took it as a call to arms, inspiring the formation of the voting registration organization HeadCount. Since their 2004 founding, HeadCount have registered over 1.7 million voters and expanded far beyond the jam world into pop music, most lately found at shows by Sabrina Carpenter, Brandi Carlisle and others.

[C]

If you don't think you make a difference, that's not right. You will make a difference, especially if you get your friends to vote.

[B]

For a half decade between 2009 and 2014, Weir reunited with Phil Lesh to tour his further.

[D]

Be back here too. It all depends on what's with you.

[B]

And in the midst of that, open the Tamalpais Research Institute tri to rehearse, record and host various webcasts and eventually live streams, but also the talk and musical variety show We're Here, Often with sidekicks like Steve Parish and John Perry Barlow.

[C]

Okay, here we are hanging like crows on a fence and we're gonna. We have no idea. There we go. So here we are. Let's see. Well, welcome to We're Here, all of you freaks and fellow travelers. We gotta say that. Yeah, just regular folks, you know, in case there are any regular folks watching.

[B]

In these years, Bobby Weir also engaged in an impressive and well publicized regimen of recovery and exercise, his workout routine detailed by Men's Health, which we've linked [e-mail] deadcast. He celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Dead at the Fare Thee well shows in 2015. And as you're probably well aware, Bobby Weir took a well deserved victory lap of the nation's arenas and stadiums with the formation of Dead and Co in 2015, including a few stops with Mrs. Donna Jean Godshow McKay the following summer. As Weir told me in 2017, but

[G]

we have a couple of new wrinkles that we want to iron in.

[B]

But it was hardly Weir's only project of what proved to be his final decade. While Dead and company reprised the Dead songbook, Weider pushed forward on his own Blue Mountain.

[D]

You're measure deep blue mountain, your sides are steep. Blue man with a horse head on your side. You stolen my love to keep. You stolen my love to keep.

[B]

That was from Weir's 2016 album Blue Mountain, his final solo album and a personal favorite of mine. Working with a squad of younger musicians associated with the national, including producer Josh Kaufman, Weir co authored a dozen new songs with Kaufman and songwriter Josh Ritter. The songs drew on folk and cowboy traditions, including Only a River, built from the standard Shenandoah.

[D]

I was born up in the mountains, Raised up in a desert town. And I never saw the ocean

[C]

till

[D]

I was close to your age.

[C]

Now

[B]

one fellow songwriter who noticed was Bob Dylan, who covered Only a River a few times in 2020.

[G]

Hey,

[B]

We Are toured behind Blue Mountain, did some time substituting for David Nelson and the David Nelson Band, showed up often at the Sweetwater Music hall near his home in Mill Valley, dropped in with Phil Lesh at Terrapin Crossroads, and undertook an east coast duo tour with Lesh in 2018, which I thought was wonderful. Playing a number of sets without any kind of lead instrument at all, joined by Wally Ingram on percussion and occasionally by Trey Anastasio or Larry campbell.

[D]

I saw 10,000 talkers whose tongues were all broken. I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of small children and it's hard, it's all hard. It's all heart, it's all heart. It's a heartbreak.

[B]

To go along with Midnight, the Cat and Ratdog. He uncorked his dream inspired band, wolf brothers, in 2018. Don was told us about their formation in our Bobby 75 episode.

[I]

He called me like in 2018 and he said he had a dream that Rob Wasserman came to him in the stream from the other world, from the other side. And he said, you know, the reason I introduced you to, to Don in 1990 was because when I'm gone, he's supposed to be your bass player. So. So Bobby called me out of nowhere and said he even had. He even had the name of the band that said it's supposed to be. It was all from this one dream. It was supposed to be called the Wolf Brothers and it was supposed to be a trio with him and me and Jay. So he said, you want to do it? I was like, yeah.

[B]

Gary Lambert.

[F]

He went for that kind of harder edge tone because he was sort of the sole guitar voice in some of those bands, you know, and especially Wolf Bros. You know, I mean, I was a huge fan of the Bobby, incredibly clean jazz guitar tone of the 73, 74 period with that ES335. But I totally appreciated that he was. He wasn't willing to get stuck in that. So Bobby had this inner avant gardist which he could deploy in. In the context of these rock bands. And that. That always really kind of knocked me out. In the early days of Wolf Rose, Don was. And I used to talk a lot about Bobby's playing, which Don found amazing and said, he's really. He's like someone like Mark Ribo, you know, he play these, like, these unexpected lines.

[B]

That was Mark Ribaut's 1992 version of Caravan from Requiem for what's His Name.

[F]

And then one day at a Wolf Bros. Sound check at the Beacon, great guitarist Jimmy Vivito showed up, you know, from the Conan o' Brien Band and the Midnight Ramble and all of that, you know, just. Just brilliant, brilliant guitarist. And. And he. He was standing in the wings listening to Bobby play and he said, man, Bobby's amazing. I never knew this. Bobby's amazing. He's like James Blood Elmer or someone like that Sam.

[B]

And that was James Blood Ulmer's TV Blues from 1980s. Are you glad to be in America?

[I]

During COVID we couldn't get out and play, but we were going nuts, you know, So I used to drive up there like every other weekend. We just jam just to play, just to keep our fingers moving. We go to Tri and at some point it was like, well, let's invite Jeff to come play. You know, let's do something a little different. And then Jeff came and played and it felt great. We were like, really great, man, you know, because the conversation between Bobby and Jeff and Jay has got some deep history to it. And they. And they really. They go in real deep together, the. The three of them.

[D]

And

[I]

so that elevated the game considerably.

[B]

With the core of Ratdog reunited, they expanded further with the addition of horns and strings known as the Wolf Pack. Together they became Weir's most versatile band outside the Dead, a realization of everything he'd imagined over the previous half century. Perhaps as a celebration, Weir started officially going by Bobby for the first time in 2021, updating his websites and social media to match. I'd like to point out as well that this is Bobby Weir playing lead guitar on Eyes of the World in his Mark Ribo, James Blood Ulmer style. As the horns improvise around him, We'll be listening to bits of the Live in Colorado releases as well as the expanded ACE50 Gary Lambert.

[F]

By the time of the Wolf Bros and the Wolf Pack that was like. That was a serious jazz band. And. And Bobby wanted it to be different every night. He wanted the other musicians to constantly surprise him and subvert his expectations, and he would do the same to them. I got to know the horn section pretty well. If they were playing a song, they could have, like, three versions of the arrangement in front of them and pick any one of them, or they could, like, just come up with a head arrangement. And it worked spectacularly well because these guys were all such incredible, intuitive players. And Bobby really was turned on by those surprises.

[B]

With the Wolf Pack in tow, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of ACE at Radio City Music hall in New York, including Britney Spencer, John Mayer and Tyler Childers.

[D]

Abraham and I just sitting on a fence.

[B]

Jazz legend Ron Carter stopped by to play Dark Star.

[F]

It meant a lot to Bobby to have that level of acceptance from people he loved that much, you know, so when Ron Carter popped into the scene every now and then and, you know, received Bobby totally as a peer, it wasn't like, hello, young man, I'm going to mentor you now. It wasn't like that at all. He got to meet so many people that he just so admired. Willie Nelson and, you know, all these people who are just iconic to him, they. They became friends, they became people he could converse with. And Levon, I think, you know, toward the end, he and he. Levon struck up a really nice relationship. And having those elders, even if they weren't that much older, they were elders in terms of their musical experience, I think. I think meant a lot to him. I know he was hanging out in national war, and he was very. He became very comfortable and also very revered in that community. Like, there was this latter day acceptance of him as just, you know, Americana trailblazers. So he won the Americana Music Association's lifetime achievement award and would hang with Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale and all those people.

[B]

But even with all that and a full docket of stadium gigs with Dead and Co, it turned out that the Wolf Pack were just the foundation for something even bigger.

[I]

He's looking to change music with this.

[B]

That's what Don was told us. In the lead up to Weir's debut with the National Symphony Orchestra, the first of his many symphonic performances over the next few years, which we discussed in our Bobby75 episode.

[C]

One of the projects that we're working on is getting a symphony orchestra to improvise, and that's a pretty major challenge.

[B]

With arranger Giancarlo Aquilenti, Weir brought their Grateful Dead concerto to orchestras and symphonies, including a June 2025 trip to the Royal Albert Hall. We detailed as much of that project as we could in our Bobby75 episode and encourage you to head in that direction.

[C]

If we do it right, they will be talking about it in two or 300 years.

[B]

When Bobby Weir made his exit earlier this year, there was, of course, a round of artists paying tribute. But when that initial round faded, the Grateful Dead's music continued onward, as Weir surely wanted it to. His legacy, like the Deads as a whole, is one of both unceasing evolution and an abiding connection to the deepest roots of American music.

[D]

I'd rather be in some dark hollow where the sun don't ever shine

[C]

Than

[D]

to be home alone Knowing that would cause me to lose my mind.

[B]

His musical memory might live in Dead cover bands, but it might just as well live in a musician taking influence from the big slow chords from Bobby Weider's right hand. As Weir once found inspiration in McCoy Tyner's left. It might manifest as cowboy songs or Bartok influenced heaviness. It might just mean the need for constant change, with an occasional return to the chorus. And don't forget to wish a happy birthday to the nearest drummer.

[C]

All right, thanks for your kind attention. And now, how do I hang this thing up?

[D]

Sam,

[A]

Thanks very much for tuning in to the good old Grateful Dead cast. Friends, we'd like to thank our special guests in this episode. Bobby Weir, David Lemieux, Jeff Kameny, Scott Metzger. Don Was Gary Lambert, Tim Stevens, Tony Italiano, William Keats and Brett Pauley. Extra special thanks to friend of the Dead cast David Gans for his ongoing contributions of audio from his interview archive. Executive producer for the good old Grateful Dead cast, Mark Pincus, produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Promotions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux, Brian Dodd and Doran Tyson. All rights reserved.