Bob Weir, guitarist, singer and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has died at age 78.<\/p>\n
Weir’s death was announced on Saturday in a statement on his Instagram page.<\/p>\n
“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”<\/p>\n
Weir joined the Grateful Dead \u2014 originally the Warlocks \u2014 in 1965 in San Francisco at age 17.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir were all members of the Grateful Dead. (AP: Supplied)<\/p>\n
He spent the next 30 years playing on endless tours with the Grateful Dead alongside fellow singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.<\/p>\n
Weir wrote or co-wrote and sang lead vocals on Dead classics, including Sugar Magnolia, One More Saturday Night and Mexicali Blues.<\/p>\n
In the decades since, he kept playing with other projects, including Dead and Company.<\/p>\n
Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n
“For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road,” the Instagram statement said.<\/p>\n
“A guitarist, vocalist, storyteller, and founding member of the Grateful Dead. Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music.”<\/p>\n
Weir’s death leaves drummer Bill Kreutzmann as the only surviving original member. Founding bassist Phil Lesh died in 2024.<\/p>\n
Dead and Company played a series of concerts for the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary in July at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bob Weir, guitarist, singer and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has died at age 78. Weir’s death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[214952,214953,43,215006,44,215005,215004,215003,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-405513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-bob-weir","tag-dead-and-company","tag-headlines","tag-mexicali-blues","tag-news","tag-one-more-saturday-night","tag-sugar-magnolia","tag-the-grateful-dead","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}