Bob Weir was a co-founder of the great 1960s counterculture band The Grateful Dead. Born in 1947, Weir found school challenging due to undiagnosed dyslexia and moved from school to school. He met lifelong music collaborator John Perry Barlow when attending a school for boys with behavioural problems, and together they wrote some of the band’s most famous lyrics. His music career really began on New Year’s Eve 1963 when he met Jerry Garcia while wandering the streets of Palo Alto looking for something to do. The pair soon formed the first of many bands before forming The Grateful Dead in 1965. For the next 30 years, Weir supported Garcia’s melodic lead lines with his own idiosyncratic style of rhythm guitar playing. Weir’s unique approach to playing also manifested in his compositions, many of which rely on strange time signatures or intricate playing styles. Following the death of Garcia in 1995, Weir participated constantly in elaborations and continuations of the band’s legacy. When he wasn’t touring with iterations of the band like Dead & Company or Further and The Dead, Weir was still pushing his solo projects. From 2018 he performed under Bob Weir and the Wolf Brothers, a more minimalist outfit without a lead guitarist. Bob Weir died on January 10 aged 78. — Agencies/Allied Media
