Biography
In Grateful Dead lore, Bob Weir was "the Other One"-- the singer, guitarist and songwriter who wasn't Jerry Garcia. But Weir was both a productive solo artist and a crucial part of the Dead mix, where his rhythm guitar anchored the psychedelic jams and his more straightforward songs balanced Garcia's cosmic epics (though he wrote a few of the latter himself). "The Other One" was also the name of Weir's first Grateful Dead song, which concerned a life-changing psychedelic bus ride that Weir took with writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. Raised in San Francisco, Weir was pulled into the Dead orbit when he met the young Jerry Garcia at the music store where he taught in 1963; he was in place for the early Dead incarnation as the Warlocks. Weir became a stronger force as the band grew, though he wouldn't contribute another song until "Sugar Magnolia" in 1971. As the youngest member of the Dead (and by general consensus, the only good-looking guy in the band), Weir was also a focal point onstage. His strongest musical moment was arguably his 1972 solo debut Ace. Though billed as a solo album it featured the Dead throughout, and "Playing in the Band" and "One More Saturday Night" became popular live tunes for decades. Weir also proved willing to go in a more commercial direction outside the Dead, notably with the side band Bobby & the Midnites, whose two albums edged toward conventional arena rock. However he was back in the groove for the Dead's late-'80s resurgence, writing the key tracks "Throwing Stones" and "Hell in a Bucket" for their 1987 comeback album In the Dark. In 1985 he formed the side band RatDog, originally with bassist Rob Wasserman, doing jam-friendly music in the Dead tradition. He was touring with that band when news broke of Jerry Garcia's death in August 1995, and opted to keep playing so that he and the fans could deal musically with their grief. After Garcia's death, Weir largely devoted himself to the Dead legacy. The first post-Garcia incarnation of the band, called the Other Ones, toured in 1998, the group was renamed The Dead in 2009 and, with a reshuffled lineup, later became Furthur (named after Kesey's psychedelic bus). In 2015 the surviving Dead members Weir, bassist Phil Lesh, and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart played a show billed as "Fare Thee Well," meant to be the last of the Grateful Dead. However a new version-- minus Lesh, and with guitarist John Mayer--emerged later that year, billed as Dead & Company. Weir was particularly active between 2016-18, working with that band, playing separate duo concerts with Lesh and releasing the cowboy-themed Blue Mountain, his first solo album in nearly 40 years. An indie movie telling his life story, "The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir," premiered in 2014.
