I have documented my appreciation and enjoyment of the Grateful Dead following every Meet Up at the Movies since 2017. Each of my posts elicited something like a torrent of mockery and clichéd jokes at the expense of the band. To the readers of this occasional series, please follow my version of the Latin saying De mortuis nil nisi bonum: Of the Dead, say nothing unless good.
The saying applies twice over this morning. Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir died on January 10 at the age of 78. Steve Hyden tells his story in “Bob Weir’s One Last Saturday Night.” As Hyden puts it, Weir “lived an extraordinary American life.” I also recommend the 2015 documentary The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir (available on Netflix).
In Blair Jackson’s Garcia, the author reports that Weir “was a jock growing up, into baseball and track.” He struggled in school because of dyslexia. Jackson quotes Weir saying he was “dyslexic in the extreme, and nearly functionally illiterate….But they had nevr heard of dyslexia when I was young so they figured I was lazy, which I was.” He was not a pretentious guy.
As a teenager Bob met up with Jerry Garcia. He recalled the date of their first meeting as New Year’s Eve 1963. He became an original member and mainstay of the Dead along with Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh. The three of them displayed a musical mind meld on stage for 30 years.
I only saw the Dead live once, at Hartford’s Dillon Stadium in July 1974. Despite the outdoor stadium setting, the band’s legendary Wall of Sound delivered the music with perfect intimacy. The long setlist was classic. The band’s entire four-hour show is accessible here on YouTube. I specifically remember Bob’s last-second moves up to the microphone during the show that evening.
Weir was a creative rhythm guitarist and, in my opinion, a good vocalist. He contributed to the writing of my favorite Dead songs: “Truckin,” “Jack Straw,” and “Hell In a Bucket.” I want to pay him this brief tribute with ten videos of songs on which he had a writing credit and one that he made a staple of the Dead’s live shows.
That one is “Me and My Uncle” by Mamas and Papas founder John Phillips. The song is said to have been written on the spot by Phillips in a drunken stupor. Phillips himself had no memory of it. As fate would have it, Judy Collins was on hand and saved it to tape. Extending the Dead’s musical palette, as he frequently did, Weir brought it to the band. With the exception of a few years it remained on the band’s setlist to the end. It was the second number they played when I saw them in Hartford.
This live performance of “Playing in the Band” derives from Fillmore East in 1971. Bob wrote it with band lyricist Robert Hunter and drummer Mickey Hart. The sound here is pristine.
Bob wrote “Looks Like Rain” with John Barlow. It first appeared on Ace (1972). The album was solo in theory, but he was backed on it by the members of the band. Garcia plays the wailing pedal steel. Just about everything on Ace made it into the band’s live shows.
Such as “Mexicali Blues,” also written with John Barlow. You can hear Bob’s appreciation of Marty Robbins coming through loud and clear in this one.
Bob wrote “Truckin’” with Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Hunter. It closed the band’s epochal American Beauty album (1972) and told a good story that had the additional advantage of being true. Dennis McNally borrowed from the line “What a long strange trip it’s been” for his doorstop biography of the band, A Long Strange Trip.
Like “Truckin,” “Jack Straw” is a travelogue, but of a different sort. The Dead first performed it live at the Univeristy of Minnesota’s Northrop Auditorium in October 1971. I wish I could have been there. Written by Bob along with Robert Hunter, the song made its first appearance on Europe ’72. Garcia and Weir trade vocals in the dialogue of the song’s characters, Garcia as Shannon and Weir as Jack Straw. Weir attributed the song’s inspiration to Of Mice and Men.
Bob wrote “One More Saturday Night.” He also introduced it on Ace. It became a staple of the band’s live show, as on Europe ’72.
Bob also wrote “Estimated Prophet” with John Barlow. It first appeared on Terrapin Station (1977). The live recording below from the band’s show at Cornell that year is esteemed by the likes of me. This might be a variation on Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood from the perspective of someone playing in the band.
“Cassidy” also derived from Ace and was also written with Barlow. Let’s go with the band’s acoustic version on Reckoning (1981).
Bob wrote “Hell In a Bucket” with John Barlow and Brent Mydland. It first appeared on In the Dark (1987). Matthew Zornig named his Hell In A Bucket Brewing Company (also deceased) after the song.
Bob’s last solo album was Blue Mountain (2016). “Only a River” sounds to me like a loving farewell. RIP.
