(under) Estimated Prophet

The Life and Times of Bobby Weir

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Bob Weir, the rhythm guitarist and co-front man of the Grateful Dead died this week.

Millions of people who had been baptized in the lysergic sacrament of a Grateful Dead show paused at the end of the end of an almost certainly ended era. (they had more than nine lives, these Dead ones, and kept reincarnating along the way).

(For anyone that’s curious, we shot a mini-doc with the band at their “last” shows in San Francisco. This includes some of Bob’s last interviews and other cool clips with NBA legend Bill Walton and some archival footage with Jerry Garcia too. Hope you dig it!)

While the majority of ink and love get spilled for Jerry Garcia, the oracular front man, gray, round and bearded like a psychedelic Saint Nick by his closing years, an unpaid debt goes to Bob Weir for holding it down on the backbeat.

Like Ringo Starr and his eccentric yet inimitable drumming, Weir created a wholly original style to his guitar playing.

With long hands to fret the impossible and a jazz sensibility, he played against the groove, rather than chunking behind it–striking minor and major chords that added layers and textures to what Garcia (and then John Mayer in Dead and Co) might explore on lead.

Now Weir was not without his critics, and some might say he was an acquired, or even temperamental taste.

If Garcia was the chocolate, Weir was the peanut butter and the jelly. A little fruity and unexpected, but still a winning combination when you mashed it all together.

Back on the lot after shows, a t-shirt with the Cheetos Mascot, Chester Cheetah made the rounds, with the caption “Be Nice to Bobby! (It ain’t easy, bein’ cheesy)

In the late 70’s and 80’s he wore infamously short cutoffs, fabulously feathered hair, Izod golf shirts with the collars turned up, looking for all the world like a misplaced frat boy turned up for a hippie hoe down.

By his later years, and after Garcia’s passing, he’d traded his boyish clean shave for his big brother’s beard, donned a serape and oilskin cowboy hat and became the Wild West oracle that so many of his songs were about.

But through the whole extended and odd trip, (60 years of playing!) he was core to the humanity of a quintessential Dead show.

Often the try-hard kid brother to his enigmatically cool elder sibling, but always deeply committed to the bit.

But by the last few decades his role had transitioned–he had become the self-effacing Pater Familias.

Godfather and elder to the whole extended clan.

By his last shows, back where it all began in Golden Gate Park this past August (and only weeks after his final diagnosis), he was bravely soldiering on.

The plane that used to lift off and soar for three hours a night weaved and wobbled a bit that weekend. The fire trucks (and rodeo clowns) were all lined up along the tarmac as they came in on final approach. But Bobby played through.

And they stuck the landing.

#justincaseyouforgotitwassunday

In one particularly tender moment that final night Bob dropped his guitar pick, scowling in frustration. John Mayer bent down and gently handed it back to him, with all the love and concern of an attentive son. He knew what these shows meant, and what was inevitably to come.

Even if the crowd didn’t.

When Bob stepped up to sing one of the closers, Dylan’s classic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” you could feel the goosebump truth of those lyrics. He really was right there on the threshold between this world and the next.

Mama come take this badge and guns off of me. I can’t use them anymore.

–just like the gunslingers, sheriffs and card sharks he used to sing about.

That long black cloud’s coming down.

It’s getting dark, too dark to see…

Feels like I’m knockin’ on Heavens Door.

***

So in the end, Bob brought us all the way back to their beginnings.

In the legends of how the band got its name, this verse crops up, supposedly an ancient verse from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

“We now return our souls to the creator, as we stand on the edge of eternal darkness. Let our chant fill the void, in order that others may know.

In the land of the night, the ship of the sun is drawn by the grateful dead.”

In these times of darkness, we’d all do well to remember the light and be grateful for it.

As Bob always reminded us, sometimes it shines from the strangest of places.

(You just gotta look at it right).