“There is not another guitarist in the world who plays like him. As raw as John Lee Hooker and sophisticated as Andrés Segovia from one phrase to another”: The life and times of Grateful Dead icon Bob Weir

A portait of Bob Weir shot against a light gray background. Weir wears a wide-brimmed hat and has his D'Angelico semi-hollow slung over his shoulder.

The announcement of Bob Weir’s death on January 10 sent shock waves of sadness and grief through the Grateful Dead community. Coming just over a year after the passing of bassist Phil Lesh, it seemed to signal a real, definitive end to a 60-plus-year era.

Lesh and Weir carried the torch high and mighty, together and separately, since Jerry Garcia’s 1995 death, giving the Grateful Dead a robust after-life that was hard to imagine when Garcia “left this mortal coil,” to use Weir’s preferred term.