Bob Weir

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Robert Hall Weir (October 16, 1947–) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead.

Weir was born in San Francisco, California and raised by his adoptive parents in the suburb of Atherton. He began playing guitar at age thirteen after less successful experimenting with the piano and the trumpet. He had trouble in school because of undiagnosed dyslexia and was expelled from nearly every school he attended. One of the many schools he attended was Fountain Valley School in Colorado, where he befriended John Perry Barlow, who would become one of the two main lyricists for the Grateful Dead (along with Robert Hunter).

On New Year's Eve, 1963, 16-year-old Weir and another underage friend were wandering the back alleys of Palo Alto, looking for a club that would admit them, when they heard banjo music. They followed the music to its source, Dana Morgan's Music Store", where a young Jerry Garcia, oblivious to the date, was waiting on his students to arrive. Weir and Garcia spent the night playing music together and then decided to form a band. The band they formed was Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, which became the Warlocks, and then the Grateful Dead.

Weir played rhythm guitar and sang a portion of the lead vocals throughout the Dead's 30-year career. He is perhaps most recognizable for his lead vocal on the Dead's song "Truckin'", released on the 1970 album American Beauty. Although overshadowed as an instrumentalist by lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, Weir was considered to have the strongest (if not sweetest) voice in the group, and also was considered to have the most sex appeal for female heads [link]. In the late 1970s, he began to experiment with slide guitar techniques, and to this day plays a mixture of classic blues slide but with his own rhythmic sensibility. His unique guitar style is strongly influenced by the hard bop pianist McCoy Tyner and he has cited artists as diverse as John Coltrane, the Rev. Gary Davis, and Igor Stravinsky as influences.

Weir's first solo album, Ace, was released in 1972. Another side project of his was a Bay area endeavour in 1975, with friends Matt Kelly and Dave Torbert, called Kingfish. Yet another Weir effort was a group named Bobby & The Midnites.

Shortly before Garcia's death in 1995, Weir formed another band, Ratdog Revue, later shortened to Ratdog, which is now his primary band. As of May 11, 2006, Weir had performed approximately 500 shows with Ratdog. Known for his raspy, deeper tone, Weir sings covers by Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, and Willie Dixon while also performing many of his own songs.

Weir has also participated in the various reformations of the Grateful Dead's members, including 1998 and 2000 stints as The Other Ones and in 2002 as The Dead.

On July 15, 1999 Weir married Natascha Muenter. They have two daughters, Shala Monet Weir and Chloe Kaelia Weir.

Discography

Albums

Ace (1972)
Heaven Help The Fool (1978)
Bobby & The Midnites (1981)
Where the Beat Meats the Street (1984)

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