Bob Weir, Grateful Dead guitarist, dies at 78

By Emma Tucker

Bob Weir, a founding member of the iconic American rock group the Grateful Dead who seemingly never stopped touring for six decades, has died, according to a statement posted to his official website.

The guitarist, vocalist and storyteller “courageously” beat cancer after being diagnosed in July, the statement said. He passed away “peacefully” and surrounded by loved ones after succumbing to underlying lung issues, the statement added.

Weir, the youngest member of the rock, folk and blues-influenced band that dominated the jam scene for years, performed as recently as this past summer when the remaining members of the Dead reunited for concerts at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to celebrate the band’s 60th anniversary. He began cancer treatment just weeks before those summer concerts, the statement said.

He wrote or co-wrote iconic Dead songs like “Sugar Magnolia,” “Truckin’,” “Cassidy” and “Throwing Stones.”

“His work did more than fill rooms with music; it was warm sunlight that filled the soul, building a community, a language, and a feeling of family that generations of fans carry with them. Every chord he played, every word he sang was an integral part of the stories he wove. There was an invitation: to feel, to question, to wander, and to belong,” the announcement noted.

Starting out

Weir joined the Dead as a teenager when they were forming in San Francisco. They were a fixture on the Haight-Ashbury scene in the 1960s and ’70s. Their endless touring included cultural touchstones like Woodstock, and perhaps their largest concert on their own in front of over 100,000 spectators in Englishtown, New Jersey in 1977.

The group found a resurgence of popularity in the late 1980s with the band’s only top 10 hit, “Touch of Grey.” After that, they filled stadiums for years with new and old fans alike. Their fans, known as Deadheads, would tour along and revel in the constantly changing set lists and extended soloing and jamming that gave each show a unique flavor.

After the death of lead guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia, Weir reconstituted the band in several forms before inviting guitarist John Mayer to join, and they toured successfully as Dead & Company until last year, including a series of concerts at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

“Bob’s approach to guitar playing is sort of like Bill Evans’ approach to piano was. He’s a total savant. His take on guitar chords and comping is so original, it’s almost too original to be fully appreciated until you get deep down into what he’s doing,” Mayer told an interviewer back in 2016. “I think he’s invented his own vocabulary where a lot of times the root note isn’t at the bottom of the chord, it’s somewhere in the middle of it. It’s a joyous thing to play along with.”

Weir is survived by his wife Natasha, and his daughters Monet and Chloe.

CNN’s Adam Levine contributed to this report.