“My first real gig with The Band was in front of 25,000 people and we had no real rehearsal… We just flew out to Dallas and opened for Crosby, Stills & Nash”: Jim Weider on replacing Robbie Robertson – and the ’52 Tele he got while working at a car wash

Jim Weider of the Band in 1990, playing his Telecaster live in Germany as the country celebrates the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After moving from Woodstock to Santa Barbara to Nashville, then to Atlanta and back to Woodstock again, few things in Jim Weider’s life were stable but for his beloved ’52 Fender Telecaster. He was something of a rover – a nomad, if you will. Even though he could play with the best, Weider could never make a gig stick.

But that all changed when his old pals from The Band – whom Weider had befriended in Woodstock, New York, back in the 60s – came calling in 1985 with an invitation. Not just any old invitation but one to join a rebooted version of The Band as Robbie Robertson’s replacement.