Bob Weir, Founding Member of the Grateful Dead, Dead at 78
Bob Weir, founding member and guitarist of psychedelic rock band, the Grateful Dead, has died at the age of 78, according to a statement posted to his Instagram account.
Prior to his death, Weir had beat cancer, which he had been diagnosed with in July. Just before the diagnosis, he preformed at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, which consisted of three shows celebrating the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary.
Despite beating the cancer, he succumbed to an underlying lung issue, according to the statement made by his family.
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Weir’s path to helping found the Grateful Dead began when he was 16 years old. He reportedly heard the sound of a banjo coming out of a Palo Alto, California music store, and followed the tunes inside, where he found Jerry Garcia strumming away.
Weir and Garcia reportedly played music together well into the night, which began a partnership that eventually led to the founding of the Grateful Dead. The two musicians would be joined by Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, making the five-piece band a reality.
Aside from a brief period in 1968, Weir spent the next three decades as a core member of the group. This included contributions to 13 studio albums, which helped cultivate one of the most dedicated fanbases in all of rock music; the “Deadheads.”
After Garcia’s death in 1995, the band would split up. Despite this, Weir was a part of a few Grateful Dead spinoffs, including The Other Ones and The Dead. He later founded his own solo band, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, in 2018.
With Weir’s death, Kreutzmann is the sole remaining founding member. McKernan died in 1973, and Lesh died in 2024.
