1

He was the cute one.

The history of the Grateful Dead is presently well-known, but at the turn of the decade, from ’69 to ’70, that was not the case. The Dead were a fringe band from San Francisco which had a deal with a major label but had no radio hits, never mind a Top 40 hit, unlike Jefferson Airplane, another act that was seen as a collective, living together in a house. Eventually news squeaked out about the Warlocks, but unless you were living in San Francisco, the Dead were an enigma.

They finally got press with their 1969 double album “Live/Dead,” but that didn’t move the needle significantly. Whatever audience the Dead had was built on the road. And since the band had to survive, they worked.

And then came “Workingman’s Dead” and “Uncle John’s Band,” which was perfect for the summer of 1970, it sat right alongside the CSNY hits. And it was a double whammy, in the fall came “American Beauty,” the true breakthrough, much more accessible than anything the band had released previously, and this is when their touring footprint increased and they garnered new fans. It was really three tracks: “Friend of the Devil” and “Ripple” and “Sugar Magnolia.” Easily digestible, as opposed to the space rock that preceded them, this is when new fans came aboard, casual listeners. And when they went to see the band they expected something conventional, short songs as opposed to extended jams, which turned out to be a bonus.

Not that the audience was completely ignorant. Let’s be clear, the Dead were not an AM thing, they existed on FM and turntables. But that’s where the passion was, that’s where the action was, that’s where the exploration was, that’s where the envelope was being pushed. The listeners of FM were always eager to have their horizons expanded. They might have known about the long Dead shows, but it was the short songs that were the entry point.

And live, it might have been Jerry Garcia’s band, but Bob Weir was the frontman.

The rest of the band did not look like people you knew, the suburbanites who cottoned to the Dead were used to more freshly-scrubbed acts. Sure, some might be rough around the edges, but the Dead looked like they rolled right off the bus, maybe without a shower. They were not physically appealing.

Except for Bob Weir. He was younger than the rest, and he had that shoulder-length hair. How did he end up in this band? It was as if the act recruited from summer camp…how did he get a chance, how did he get included, how did he stay in the group?

But he was definitely a member, as delineated in “Truckin’.” They were all drinkin’ and druggin’ and although the one-two punch of the 1970 albums brought them closer to the mainstream, right thereafter they steered away. The Dead were sui generis. Maybe influenced by what had come before, blues, jug band music, but no one sounded like the Grateful Dead, no one even went down the jam band path until that scene flowered in the nineties.

But to have a band this big, women must be interested. And women were, and Weir has to get credit for that. Otherwise, the Dead would have been Rush, a cadre of male acolytes, but very few females.

Bob was a member of the band, overshadowed on wax until his solo album “Ace” came out in 1972.

By this point people were hungry for everything Dead affiliated, there’d been an album released from the era before Warner Bros. And earlier in the year, Jerry had released “Garcia,” his first solo album. It started with the infectious “Deal” and contained “Sugaree,” which became a standard, but it was definitely a side project, a ramble down the road of Garcia’s personal interests.

That was January. “Ace” was released in May. And it delivered what “Garcia” did not, in your face upbeat playability, with one bonafide standard, “Playing in the Band,” and “One More Saturday Night,” which became a staple of the Dead’s live shows, and “Cassidy.”

This was a surprise. From a distance it almost seemed like a rivalry. But “Ace” lifted Bob Weir’s cred dramatically, he and Jerry were now clearly the leaders of the band…if not quite equals, Bob was now right there alongside him. 

2

I could recite the rest of the Dead’s history. From their own label to the hit with Clive Davis to the eighties when Gen-X glommed on and cities didn’t want the Dead in their buildings because of the penumbra they brought with them, the hangers-on.

And then Jerry Garcia died. In 1995. Before his time, at age 53. It wasn’t surprising his body gave out, after all the abuse he’d put it through, but Jerry was seen as the heart and soul of the Dead and the rest of the members decided not to operate under that moniker. Not that they didn’t play, they just called it something else, like the Other Ones, whose double album “The Strange Remain,” with Bruce Hornsby in the group, is my favorite late “Dead” work.

Weir, Lesh and Hart were in that band, but there were also solo projects. The legend continued. And the man carrying the flag forward was Weir. Sure, Phil had his fans, and would do solo work, but it was Weir who’d written and sung those songs, Weir with the personality. Sometimes they played together, and sometimes not. And I won’t say that anybody could replace Jerry, but sans Bob, there would be no continued Dead mania, and there was.

There were highlights, like “Fare Thee Well,” and then came Dead & Company, pure heresy to many fans who’d come on board from the sixties to the eighties, but the dirty little secret was that Dead & Company were tight in ways that the original Dead were sloppy. If you went, you know.

But you can’t go no more.

Now the thing about the Dead is as important as the music was and still is, it’s a culture, far surpassing any act of its stature. You belong to a family. And just like with a family, everybody has a different take on the history, there are arguments. If I write anything about the Dead I hear from Deadheads correcting and insulting me, as if I have no right to write. When the funny thing is almost all of them came aboard in the eighties and I first saw the band in ’71. Bought my first album in ’69. But that is not enough. However I see it is wrong. But I do see it, and this is my take.

3

Joe Walsh once said he was too old to die young. That the paper wouldn’t be filled with laments about being cut down before his time. 78? Every boomer expects to live longer, but that’s a full ride. Sure, Weir wanted more, we wanted him to have more, but it’s over. Sure, there was shock hearing about Bob’s death, but there was an underlying weirdness, that the dream had died, that it was all over. Without Jerry we had the Dead. Without Phil we had the Dead. Without Bob, there is no Dead. Period.

Sure, John Mayer can lay down the licks. Hornsby can tickle the ivories. But that would be more like a tribute band.

There’s not going to be a 65th anniversary show. And no more Sphere shows either, no more pilgrimages to Las Vegas to revel in the history of the music and this band.

It’s over. That’s that.

When on some level we thought the Dead were forever.

The interesting thing is the Dead never flagged, and that’s extremely unusual. Most acts are hit dependent, the Dead never were. After “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty,” with “Europe ’72” as the cherry on top, the Dead could always sell tickets. Just as many as before. There was never a dip in their business. Bob Weir has been in the public eye for nearly sixty years. He never went on hiatus, retreated to the mountains for a decade, or to a monastery like Leonard Cohen. He was always here, playing that music.

And he aged in public. From that long brown hair to short to a white mop top and moustache, looking like a Gold Rush miner. Sure, he got his teeth fixed, but otherwise it was still the same Bob underneath. And no one with this amount of fame is a regular person, but Weir never evidenced an edge, he was always open and friendly. He’d come from a family band and treated you like family.

So it’s like the death of a loved one. Kinda like your mother or father. Someone you knew your whole life, who you never lost touch with, who you checked in with on a regular basis, who remained true to themselves, who you could count on.

So the absence hurts. Not in an Elvis way, or a Garcia way, there was shock, but Weir’s death hit me as the end of an era. Sure, classic rockers have been dying with increased regularity over the last decade, but somehow the Dead always carried on. Usually with Bob out front. But that’s gone.

So it makes me think of my own mortality. When I first saw the Dead Bob was 23, I was in college. I’m never going back to any school, and the people I studied with are in their seventies, unlike Weir, many retired. They’ve left whatever mark and now they’re running on fumes. Off the radar screen. But Weir? He was still up front and center.

So…

That’s it. A complete career arc. A lot of us saw it from start to finish, and we can’t say that we were ripped-off, Weir gave it his all, he was the last frontman standing, and every band needs a frontperson.

What happens to the Dead’s music hereafter?

I don’t know, predicting the future is a fool’s errand. Sure, there will be tribute acts, but how long will that last? And the truth is the Dead were always a live experience, the records were just a jumping off point. You had to be there.

And many of us were.

But never again.