“The band has to get from 10/4 to 4/4 to 7/4 to 4/4 to 10/4. This all happens spontaneously and without prior discussion”: The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir in five songs (and a jam)

Bob weir.

Before his death at the age of 78, Bob Weir spent six decades singing and playing rhythm guitar in the Grateful Dead and its various offshoots. Given the awesome span of this career, it’s remarkably difficult to summarize what exactly Bobby did for all of that time.

The 2015 Netflix documentary The Other One: The Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir is named after one of Bobby’s songs, but it was really chosen to reflect his odd position in the Dead. Bobby was a songwriter and guitarist in a band that also included Jerry Garcia, whose songwriting and guitar playing were generationally iconic.