\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBob Weir<\/a>, the singer, songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of the Grateful Dead<\/a>, has died at age 78.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,\u201d Weir\u2019s rep, Samantha Tillman, wrote in a statement. \u201cHe transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music,\u201d the statement added. \u201cHis work did more than fill rooms with music; it was warm sunlight that filled the soul, building a community, a language, and a feeling\u00a0of family that generations of fans carry with them.\u00a0Every 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAs the band\u2019s co-lead singer, writer, and guitarist beside Jerry Garcia, his elliptical riffs, eccentric song structures and slightly off-kilter stage presence made him an intrinsic ingredient to the Dead, up to and beyond its demise following Garcia\u2019s death in 1995. Weir often went under-recognized compared to the larger-than-life Garcia (one of the first songs he wrote in the Dead was called \u201cThe Other One\u201d). Yet, the band\u2019s bassist Phil Lesh characterized Weir\u2019s contribution as that of \u201ca stealth machine.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRobert Hall Weir was born in San Francisco on October 16, 1947, to a college student who gave him up for adoption. He was raised in an affluent Bay Area suburb, where he managed to get kicked out of both preschool and the Cub Scouts, and suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia. At Fountain Valley, a Colorado school for boys with behavioral problems, he met John Perry Barlow<\/a>, who would become his most frequent lyricist.<\/p>\n \n\tWeir began playing guitar at thirteen and was soon hanging out at the Tangent, a Palo Alto folk club, where he performed bluegrass numbers with the Uncalled Four and first saw Jerry Garcia playing banjo during a \u201choot\u201d night. Weir picked up his first guitar licks from David Nelson and future Jefferson Airplane member Jorma Kaukonen. On New Year\u2019s Eve, 1965, Weir and his friends heard banjo music emerging from Dana Morgan\u2019s Music Store. He went in and found Garcia, and the two decided to form a band. The acoustic Mother McCree\u2019s Uptown Jug Champions evolved into the electric Warlocks, who changed their name to the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n \n\tAs the youngest and best looking member of the macho Dead, Weir had to pay some dues. \u201cI was definitely low man on the totem pole,\u201d he told Rolling Stone in 1989, \u201cespecially at the beginning. And for a long time I had to just shut up and take it.\u201d Too much LSD during the group\u2019s stint as house band for Ken Kesey\u2019s Acid Tests made him somewhat withdrawn as Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh were entwining more deeply on a musical level. The lyrics to \u201cThe Other One\u201d described Weir\u2019s introduction to both LSD and Neal Cassady, the trickster hero of Jack Kerouac\u2019s beat-generation masterpiece On the Road, with whom Weir shared a room in the Dead\u2019s infamous 710 Ashbury Street house. In 1968, Weir and fellow founding member Ron \u201cPigpen\u201d McKernan were booted from the band for their musical deficiencies, though both returned within months.<\/p>\n