Bob Weir, Grateful Dead co-founder and rhythm guitarist, dead at 78

Reuters: Veteran rock musician Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead's rhythm guitarist who helped guide the legendary psychedelic jam band through decades of change and success, has died at age 78, his family said in a statement on Saturday.

 

He was diagnosed with cancer in July and "succumbed to underlying lung issues" surrounded by loved ones, according to the statement, posted on Weir's verified Instagram account. It did not mention when or where he died.

 

Just weeks after starting cancer treatment last summer, Weir had returned to his "hometown stage" at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to play in a three-night celebration of his 60 years in music, his family recalled. Those shows turned out to be his final live public performances, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

 

Along with his late fellow Grateful Dead co-founder and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, who was at the center of the universe for "Deadheads," as diehard Dead fans are known, Weir was one of the group's two frontmen and main vocalists for most of the band's history.

 

It was Weir who sang the verses on the band's trademark boogie anthem, "Truckin'," and who wrote such key songs as "Sugar Magnolia," "Playing in the Band" and "Jack Straw."

The youthful, ponytailed "Bobby" grew into an eclectic songwriter whose handsome appearance and diverse musical influences helped broaden the band's appeal. British newspaper the Independent called Weir "arguably rock's greatest, if most eccentric, rhythm guitarist."

 

After Garcia's death at age 53 in 1995, Weir carved out an interesting if somewhat neglected solo career - much of it with his band, RatDog - and participated in reunions of surviving Dead members in different configurations.

"As the one good-looking guy in the Dead, baby-faced Weir was always what passed for the band's sex symbol," the San Francisco Chronicle's Joel Selvin wrote in 2004. "He didn't care about that, either. In fact, he always seemed to secretly relish subverting that image."

 

Weir was the subject of the 2014 documentary "The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip of Bob Weir," which made a case for the Dead's "other" guitarist as a musical force. Though some Deadheads adopted the trappings of tie-dyed psychedelia, the group itself was deeply attached to American roots music and was credited with bringing experimental improvisation to rock music.

 

Weir's own musical tastes ranged from Chuck Berry to cowboy songs to R&B and reggae.

 

Thanks to relentless touring, constant musical evolution and a passionate fan base, the Grateful Dead - who existed from 1965 to 1995 - did not have to rely on producing hit records.

 

"Bob was the wild one," journalist Blair Jackson wrote in 2012. "He was the rock 'n' roller, but also the confident, smooth-voiced narrator on all those dramatic country-rock numbers about desperadoes and fugitives; a perfect fit for those tunes. He was the guy who would screech and scream himself hoarse at the end of the show, whipping us into a dancing frenzy."

 

Weir, whose birth name was Robert Hall Parber, was born on October 16, 1947, and raised by adoptive parents in Atherton, California.

 

He did not excel in school, due in part to his undiagnosed dyslexia. In 1964 at age 16, he met Bay Area folk musician Garcia, with whom he formed the Warlocks, who soon morphed into the Grateful Dead.