 |
| Deadheads |
I worked for a large financial company for 12 years. One of my bosses, Joe, was a straight button-down sort of guy. He came to work with freshly pressed shirts, a tie, khakis, and Johnson & Murphy dress shoes. He had been at the company for 20 plus years. But on the weekends Joe was a “Deadhead”.
He would take a plane to wherever the Grateful Dead or the “Dead” were playing and party returning to his job on Monday morning.
In 1963 on New Years Eve Weir and friends were wandering the streets of Palo Alto and heard banjo music coming from a local music store. Inside was a young guy named Jerry Garcia. Jerry was teaching music there. Garcia, totally oblivious to the fact it was New Years Eve, and the fact his students weren't coming in that day.
Shortly before Garcia's death in 1995, Weir had formed another band that he called RatDog Revue, later shortened to RatDog. In this band Weir performed covers of songs by various artists, including The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, and Willie Dixon while also performing many Grateful Dead songs. The Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995 following Garcia's demise.
In 2008 he performed in the two Deadheads for Obama concerts. In 2009 Bob Weir and Phil Lesh formed a new band called "Furthur". This band was named in honor of Ken Kesey's famous psychedelically painted bus.
The Wolf Brothers continued for several years. In September of 2023 they performed at Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival. In 2024 appearances included a show with the String Cheese Incident, billed as "The Bob Weir Incident", and a New Year's Eve run in Fort Lauderdale.
In December of that year he was present as the Grateful Dead were inducted at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Later on Weir acquired and played a Rickenbacker 365.
Weir began playing the Ibanez 2681 during the recording of Blues for Allah. This was an unusual instrument that had sliding pickups.
Weir later played the D'Angelico Deluxe Bedford, a solid body guitar, was released in 2020.
In 2024 Weir and D'Angelico introduced the Deluxe Bobby Weir 3, a semi-hollow electric guitar featuring TV Jone's pickups.
So I have to think about Joe as I remember Bob Weir, who recently succumbed to his cancer diagnosis. As a child young Robert had a troubled life. His parents gave him up for adoption.
He was raised by his adoptive parents in the stable town of Atherton, California, and took their surname "Weir" in place of his birthname "Parber".
Bob experienced difficulties in school probably due to undiagnosed dyslexia, and he was expelled from nearly every school he attended, In the early 1950’s dyslexia was unknown and not understood.
 |
| Pigpen, Weir, Garcia |
Jerry and Weir hit it off, spending the rest of the night playing music. That is where they got the idea to form a band. After going through a few name changes and recruiting members, they eventually became The Grateful Dead.
Weir played rhythm guitar and sang a large portion of the lead vocals throughout all of the Dead's 30-year career. In the late 1970s, Weir began to experiment with slide guitar techniques and perform certain songs during Dead shows using the slide.
Weir was in integral part of the band since it's inception, though he was briefly dismissed when bass player, Phil Lesh felt that he and keyboard player Pigpen (Ron) McKernan were not playing up to standard. However that did not last long.
 |
| RatDog |
Ratdog performed many of their own originals, most of which were released on the album Evening Moods.
Weir also played guitar and sang in the various reformations of the Grateful Dead's members, including 1998, 2000, and 2002 stints as the Other Ones and in 2003, 2004 and 2009 as The Dead.
 |
| Dead Heads for Obama |
In 2011, Weir founded the Tamalpais Research Institute, also known as TRI Studios. TRI is a high-tech recording studio and virtual music venue, used to stream live concerts over the internet in high definition.
 |
| Les Paul Spirit Award |
In June 2016 Weir received the first ever Les Paul Spirit Award, from the Les Paul Foundation. In 2018, Weir formed a band called Wolf Bros. Billed as Bob Weir and the Wolf Bros, the group initially was a trio, with Weir on guitar and vocals, Don Was on upright bass, and Jay Lane on drums.
 |
| The Wolf Brothers Band |
 |
| Grateful Dead Kennedy Center |
The following January 2025, Weir returned to curate the second Dead Ahead Festival at Riviera Cancún, Mexico.
Unfortunately by the summer of 2025, Weir was diagnosed with cancer. Despite beating the cancer, he died from underlying lung issues on January 10, 2026, at the age of 78.
Throughout Bob Weir's career he favored many different guitars. I am told that in the early days of the Grateful Dead, Weir played a 1953 Black Gretsch Duo Jet. This guitar was similar to the one that George Harrison played early on with The Beatles. I can find no images of Weir playing this guitar.
 |
| Weir with Rickenbacker 365 |
Later on Weir acquired and played a Rickenbacker 365.
His history state that he played a Guild Starfire IV. However I cannot find any photographs or videos of him playing this guitar.
At some point Bob Weir played a Fender Telecaster.
By 1974 he owned a 1959 Gibson ES-335. Weir also owned a Gibson ES-345.
He played a 1960's Gibson SG, as well as a 1971 Gibson Black Les Paul. guitar.
In 1974, Weir began working with Jeff Hasselberger at Ibanez to develop a custom instrument. Hasselberger is one of the men that helped Ibanez become the powerhouse it is today.
 |
| Bob Weir - Ibanez 2681 |
Weir began playing the Ibanez 2681 during the recording of Blues for Allah. This was an unusual instrument that had sliding pickups.
Weir settled on a custom version of the Ibanez 2681 he called Cowboy Fancy. He played that guitar from 1976 through the mid 1980.
Weir began using a Modulus Blackknife at that point, and continued to play the Blackknife,in Dead concerts. Modulus Guitars is known as one of the first companies building guitar necks, and guitars our of carbon fiber.
Weir also played a hybrid Modulus/Casio guitar for the "Space" segment of Grateful Dead concerts for the rest of that band's history.
Weir's acoustic guitars include several Martins, a Guild, an Ovation, and a line of Alvarez-Yairi signature models.
From 2017 onwards, Weir collaborated with D'Angelico Guitars based in Manhattan, New York, to produce several signature model instruments. The Premier, a semi-hollow guitar, was released in 2017.
 |
| D'Angelico Deluxe Bedford |
Weir later played the D'Angelico Deluxe Bedford, a solid body guitar, was released in 2020.
 |
| D'Angelico Weir 3 |
In 2024 Weir and D'Angelico introduced the Deluxe Bobby Weir 3, a semi-hollow electric guitar featuring TV Jone's pickups.
©UniqueGuitar Publications (text only) 2026
Click on the links below the pictures for sources.
Please click on the advertisements to help support this page. Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment