We’ve got to get used to this inevitability but it doesn’t get any easier, does it? Saying goodbye to Bob Weir just doesn’t feel right but he leaves us with a revolutionary catalogue of music that is peerless in its scale and ambition.
His playing in the Dead was beyond mere rhythm guitar. In those long jams he kinda seasoned the music with chords, half-chords and notes, interweaving with Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia. It was a whole new approach and when I first heard it aged 15, I didn’t realise how creative and special it was.
A friend, a guitarist, once told me that songs like Jack Straw which appear to have dozens of chords, are actually Bob just playing the same chord in loads of different places on the fretboard. You can hear this live but also on studio albums, perhaps especially American Beauty which is full of songs with complex chord patterns.
When you see best guitarists lists Bob never features but was there ever a more flexible adaptable player? He said his sound was influenced by piano and I can see that in the way he plays around a chord with trills and fills. He achieved so much and took music to previously unexplored places and I feel privileged to have spent 50 years in his company.
Photo; "Bob Weir" by Matt Tillett is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
