Bob Weir, co-founder of the Grateful Dead, has died aged 78.
Bob Weir, co-founder of the Grateful Dead, has died aged 78.
The news was broken on Weir’s Instagram account on Saturday, January 10. “It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir. He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”
Weir, who was born on October 16, 1947 in San Francisco, California, met Jerry Garcia on New Year’s Eve 1963; Weir was 16 and Garcia was 21. The pair formed Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, later renamed The Warlocks and finally The Grateful Dead.
Writing about the Dead in The Philosophy Of Modern Song, Bob Dylan said, “A very unorthodox rhythm player. Had his own style, not unlike Joni Mitchell but from a different place. Plays strange, augmented chords that somehow match up with Jerry Garcia – who plays like Charlie Christian and Doc Watson at the same time. All that and an in-house writer poet, Robert Hunter, with a wide range of influences – everyone from Kerouac to Rilke – and steeped in the songs of Stephen Foster. This creates a wide range of opportunities for the Dead to play almost any kind of music.”
After Garcia’s death in 1995, Weir played with several touring iterations of the band – including the Other Ones, the Dead and Furthur.
In 2015, the four surviving core members of the Dead – Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann – performed together in a series of concerts, Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead.
The Dead’s most recent spin-off, Dead & Company, led by Weir, took up residencies at the Las Vegas Sphere in 2024 and 2025.
Weir also worked on other projects. He released Ace, his solo debut, in 1972; his fourth and most recent solo album, Blue Mountain, came out in 2016. He also played with Ratdog, Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnights and most recently the Wolf Bros – with whom he performed at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2025.
Speaking to Uncut ahead the Albert Hall show, Weir outlined an afterlife for the Grateful Dead’s music, long after the original players had passed on.
“I had this dream a few years back now when we were all onstage with Dead & Company,” he told us. “I looked across the stage and John [Mayer]’s hair was turning silver. I looked back and the drummers were a couple of kids who had been understudies. It panned back and it wasn’t me who was playing the guitar. That’s what I’m looking for, that’s where I wanna take this. I have a notion that in music schools in three or four hundred years, they’ll be talking about The Beatles and they might be talking about us as well, if we stay true to form.”
Among those paying tribute to Weir, Bob Dylan posted a photo from the Dylan & The Dead tour in 1987.
Here’s our buyer’s guide to Weir’s post-Dead trips…
BOB WEIR
ACE
WARNER BROS, 1972
A Dead album in all but name, adding to the band’s recent roots explorations in footloose style. “Playing In The Band”, first heard on ’71’s live Grateful Dead, became a centrepiece of Dead setlists, where most of this work seamlessly migrated.
KINGFISH
KINGFISH
ROUND, 1976
Weir joined this breezy Bay Area band in 1974-76, sharing vocals with New Riders Of The Purple Sage’s Dave Torbert. “Lazy Lightnin’” and “Supplication” became a Dead medley, while Weir relishes country gunfight yarn “Big Iron”.
BOB WEIR
HEAVEN HELP THE FOOL
ARISTA, 1976
A detour into slick, disco-era AOR with crack LA sessioneers, creamy female harmonies and Terrapin Station’s commercial producer Keith Olsen. “I got what I wanted,” Weir said, contrasting this polished regime with the Dead’s chequered studio work.
BOBBY & THE MIDNITES
WHERE THE BEAT MEETS THE STREET
ARISTA, 1984
The second album by this ’80s side project with Dead keyboardist Brent Mydland, Eddie Cochran’s nephew Bobby and Miles/Mahavishnu drummer Billy Cobham was squarely if forlornly aimed at radio play. Weir takes most interest in his Sting-like ballad “Gloria Monday” as it floats on suspended synths.
BOB WEIR/ROB WASSERMAN
LIVE
GRATEFUL DEAD, 1998
Weir’s acoustic duo with bassist Wasserman finds the quiet heart of solo and Dead cuts in ’88. Long unavailable, but 2013’s Fall 1989: The Long Island Sound offers a lengthier set in a double-bill with the Garcia Band.
RATDOG
EVENING MOODS
GRATEFUL DEAD, 2000
This group adopted the RatDog moniker the day after Garcia’s death, making their studio effort more than a side-project. “Ashes And Glass” looks to Weir’s child’s future despite nuclear dread, while an impromptu “Corrina” nods to the Dead past.
BOB WEIR
BLUE MOUNTAIN
LEGACY/COLUMBIA, 2016
Weir’s first solo album since 1978 employs co-writers including Josh Ritter and musicians from The National for spare, trail-dusty songs inspired by teenage time as a cowboy, finally going beyond the Dead’s legacy.
BOBBY WEIR & WOLF BROS
LIVE IN COLORADO/LIVE IN COLORADO VOL 2
THIRD MAN, 2022
An expanded lineup of Weir’s latest outfit saw Greg Leisz sub for Garcia’s pedal steel and the Wolfpack’s strings and brass suggest Allen Toussaint’s Band work, in a languidly expansive set encompassing his whole career.
The post Bob Dylan leads tributes to The Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir, who has died aged 78 appeared first on UNCUT.
