Bob Weir remembered: “He was a mountain of music”

We’ll carry a full tribute to Bob Weir in the next issue of Uncut. But in the meantime, here are two exclusive tributes to the Grateful Dead’s co-founder, who left us on January 10. The first is from Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo – a committed Deadhead since the 1970s. The second comes from Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman, who also worked with Weir on his 2016 album, Blue Mountain…

“This music is in the American canon”

LEE RANALDO
I spent the 1970s immersed in the Dead’s universe. I saw quite a few shows, including Watkins Glen ’73 and Barton Hall ’77, and had reel-to-reel bootleg tapes before cassettes came in. Then, once punk hit, I moved quite far away from them for a long time. When I finally returned to their music, in the early ‘00s, it felt like coming home. So many of the tunes and performances were ingrained in my head. This music is in the American canon, these are folk songs every bit as certainly as The Basement Tapes are. I loved the interplay between Bob, Jerry and Phil. Folks keep referring to Bob as a ‘rhythm’ player, but I never saw it as such. He and Jerry both played lead and both played rhythm. They twined between them in a dance of interlocking parts.

Later I’d find myself interested in the same such interplay and band dynamics in Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd of Television. And to my ears Sonic Youth evinced that same interplay, all three of us up front potentially playing the lead, or holding down the rhythm, of a song.

I learned so much from Bob Weir’s playing – his rock moves onstage too – and I take inspiration from his subtle touch and harmonic sense to this day. How does one voice a chord? There are some very standard positions you’ve heard a million times. And then there was Bob, finding impossible inversions and voicings and extensions of his own design.

His playing, his phrasing, was so unique, and the rest of us guitar-pickers could only look on in amazement. I spent about six weeks getting “Weather Report Suite” [1973] down on acoustic guitar. Such a beautiful and unexpected Dead number at the time. As Sonic Youth moved further and further into our explorations of alternate tunings, I often had Bob in the back of my mind as we worked out parts together in one dumb basement after another.

Bobby carried on his own Never Ending Tour, when you think about it. Never happier than with a guitar in hand, singing for the crowd. And both Bob’s and Jerry’s voices took on further gravitas as they aged, giving additional weight to the lyrics and emotions behind them. They were both ballad singers of great skill, and their harmonies were part of the backbone of the Dead’s music. On the masterful “Jack Straw” – one of Bob’s, and the band’s, supreme achievements – the two were characters conversing inside their own outlaw western story. Highway riders.

Bob was often the rocker in the Dead, he was “One More Saturday Night” in Chuck Berry tribute, and “Mexicali Blues” and “Greatest Story Ever Told” in Marty Robbins genuflection. So many moods to Bobby’s songs. And in [lyricist] John Barlow, he found a sympathetic compadre, a like-minded partner in crime, to match the Hunter and Garcia partnership.

Jerry was the face of the band for so many, and Bob often seemed to defer to him as figurehead. But in their best days onstage together, he was never less than a perfect partner, driving each other to further-out heights. For all the years I’ve been absorbing Bob’s craft, I never really felt I had him figured out. He managed to maintain a certain air of mystery, a certain opacity or mischievousness behind his eyes. For all his openness, I think he kept quite a private side as well, following his own path in or out of the spotlight. He died with dignity, saying something about looking forward to see where the journey took him next. Roll on Bob.

“He wasn’t afraid of time, in music or in life”

Josh Kaufman
When I heard of Bob Weir’s sudden passing the other night I felt a shift. The front line of the greatest American rock‘n’roll band was now officially gone. No doubt the music will live on – we will always congregate around it and listen to it – play it and share it, but without those cats here, in this realm, it just feels different. The freedom they stood for in life and on the bandstand is being threatened these days and we could use their brand of magic now more than ever to fight the good fight.

Man, I love the Grateful Dead. And I loved Bob Weir and the way he glued that band together. He played rhythm guitar – capital ‘R’ rhythm guitar, to be real about it. He wasn’t afraid of time, in music or in life, as far as I could tell. And he found the cut and played it down, up, around, side to side – anywhere but where you expected it. A wild dancer of a musician. He was free and imaginative and pure rock‘n’roll and I continue to find it a crazy miracle that I called him a friend and a collaborator.    

Through my close pals in The National – Aaron and Bryce Dessner and Scott and Bryan Devendorf – I had the chance to meet and perform with him at a benefit concert for the voter registration group HeadCount back in 2012. The gig was held at Bob’s studio, TRI, located in San Rafael, California. I was brought on as the musical director for the event and that came with some responsibilities to fulfil, the first of which would be to hop on the phone with Bobby and discuss a proposed setlist. I can still hear his voice when I picked up the ‘No Caller ID’ call and said “Hello?”, to which he responded, “Weir here…” with his unmistakable voice. A voice I’d been listening to my entire life.

The call was like a dream. I asked him if he’d be interested in covering Dylan’s “Most Of The Time” and I heard him pick some chords through the phone and hum a couple of bars. “Oh yeah”, he said. “I could play some slide on that one too.”  It was immediately easy and cool.  He just wanted to chat about the music and he was so encouraging and sweet. Just a really considerate and hilariously funny, in a dry way, kinda dude. I loved our conversation and was so excited to hang with him in real life.

A few weeks later we all flew out from Brooklyn and showed up to rehearse for a couple of days together – hanging with him, jamming, listening to his stories. The show was amazing and we all had a blast. Bobby was vital and swinging and present. Being there with my friends and having that experience was life-changing for all of us, and those vibes continue to ripple through everything we do. 

Throughout rehearsal he kept referring to a special kind of feel he was looking for us to catch with him. In his words: “Cowboy swagger”. It was a groovy little bend in the pocket he wanted on a bunch of tunes like “Me And My Uncle”, “Cassidy” and “El Paso”. And I think/hope we got close.

After I got back home from California the words kept ringing in my ears: Cowboy. Swagger. I had to learn more about it and I had to figure out a way to hang with Weir more. I was jazzed. So I called up his manager and asked if Bob would be interested in collaborating on some new music together, to explore what a modern cowboy western song might sound like. I was expecting to hear something like, ‘Nice idea kid… shop is closed’, but instead he was like, “Sounds cool, I’ll set up a call with you guys and you can ask him yourself.”

During that time I was also playing guitar in Josh Ritter’s backing band and had become obsessed with his songwriting and in particular his brand of American imagery – clearly touched by classic dustbowl folk stuff but also somehow modern and filled with a mystical longing and searching. I asked Josh if he’d be interested in working on some modern cowboy/cosmic country folk tunes together and that we might share them with Bob Weir. He was psyched and we both got to work. 

Not long after, I finally got a call from Bobby and pitched him the idea. He lit up. That voice again on the other line – that unmistakable croon – he started singing to me over the phone: “Blue Mountain you’re azure deep, Blue Mountain your sides are steep, Blue Mountain with a horse head on your side, you’ve stolen my love to keep, stolen my love to keep”. I had to pause to keep from crying right then and there. This actually seemed possible. Unreal. Again, like a dream. 

A month later I found myself on a flight back out west to hang with Bob again at TRI and in his words, “See what kinda trouble we can get into”. It went great and over the next two years we kept on working on a catalogue of tunes that would eventually become his third and final solo album, Blue Mountain [2016]. 

That time in my memory is absolutely brimming with deep, deep musical and personal moments, but right now I’m kinda moved to share this one sort of ridiculous story and I hope that’s OK. I share this with the utmost love and respect for Bobby, and I hope it comes off that way!

In August 2015, Bob and I were working out of Dreamland Recording Studios outside of Woodstock, New York, and had just wrapped a very late session. It was after midnight by the time we checked into the rental house and we were both pretty exhausted from the long day of tracking. I brought our bags in from my car and plunked his down in the doorway of his room. I was about to just flop into my bedroom across the hall and pass out when I hear Weir in the living room yell, “Oh shit, look at this!” I bolt over to see what’s up and he’s smiling at me holding up a copy of Art Blakey And The Jazz Messengers on vinyl. I’m like, “Sick, I love that record!” And he’s like, “Hell yeah, it’s the shit. Let’s listen to it!”

It’s after 1am now, but fuck it. We find the turntable and amp set-up and turn it on. Right away Bob says, “Nah, the speakers are set up all wrong”. He was totally right, they were reversed – left on the right and the other way around, and they were in a kind of lame spot in the house for listening. So we spend the next 30 minutes rewiring them and getting it just right so we could chill on the couch with the lights off and enjoy the LP together. So Weir it hurts! 

We got to know each other well during that time and I felt a real kinship with him. It would’ve been easy for a guy, a legend like that, to pull rank over me, being 30-plus years my senior. And I can honestly say he always treated me as a comrade and equal. After the release of the album we toured all over the country in support of it as the Campfire Band. It was the deepest of hoots getting to hang with his crew and musical family.

Like many of us I thought he’d keep going and going – he was a mountain of music, standing tall – so why wouldn’t he? He was always so generous with his time and creative energy. So much so that I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling it. Thanks Bob. I’m looking back through our last few texts. Man, you were so funny and wise and curious and singular and true to the muse. Always ready to plan the next chance to play. We’re gonna miss you, Ace, and we “bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight”.