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Wed 9 September 2026 21:00, UK
New Year’s Eve. A banjo plays in the distance. And what would become the Grateful Dead looms like midnight.
Bob Weir heard the music of Jerry Garcia from a distance at Dana Morgan’s Music Store and decided to strike up a conversation with him about what he was playing and what kind of style he enjoyed. Their connection was pretty instant, as the two of them realised that they had very similar tastes, and they wanted to start making music with new people.
It seems fitting that the band which would eventually become one of the most famous jam bands on the planet, during one of their first official meetings, saw in the new year by jamming. From that point on, Weir and Garcia effectively became musical soulmates, as they started one band which eventually became another, which wound up being the Grateful Dead.
It’s worth noting that when they spoke on that New Year’s Eve, the conversation tended to focus on jug music, as that’s what they were both into at the time. The first band that they formed was very much a reflection of their adoration of this style of music, too, as they became Mother McCree’s Upton Jug Champions.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that their sound evolved so much over time, firstly because that’s what a lot of bands were doing. Keep in mind, this was the ‘60s, and music was in a very experimental phase. Different genres were cropping up left and right, and the idea of assigning strict genre labels to various songs seemed frivolous. Secondly, while Weir and Garcia originally bonded over jug music, there were a lot of different bands and styles they were fans of, one in particular that they were desperate to give a second wind.
The Everly Brothers are very much a by-product of the golden age of rock ‘n’ roll, and their influence is evident in many of the artists who came after them. Their approach to rock was calm, less chaotic than a lot of the other artists who were championing the genre, and it meant that this style of music became a lot more accessible for listeners around the planet. Pair that calm approach to rock with their sweet-sounding harmonies, and you have a timeless duo.
The two had a pretty horrendous split, and after that, their approach to rock music was left somewhere along the wayside. Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia were both big fans, and they always intended on trying to bring this unique style of music back to the mainstream.
Further reading: From The Vault
“Early on, Jerry and I worked up a lot of Everly Brothers tunes. And tunes of that nature, you know, country tunes,” said Weir, “We patterned ourselves after The Everly Brothers [laughs]. Their style was fading then, but they were hugely influential on us. Jerry and I had a similar range. Either one of us could catch the high part, and the other guy could catch the melody. So we would create a back-and-forth in that regard, so each of us had ample time to sing the melody, and also take a break and sing the bird-call.”
Dennis McNally, the Grateful Dead’s publicist, once spoke about how difficult it was to put such a band into words, noting, “It was always a challenge because there’s so much distraction about them”.
A lot of people put this distraction down to the drugs, the sheer numbers of the band, and their improvisational nature, which is fair enough. However, such a scattered nature was always imminent, given that two of Weir and Garcia’s major influences before the band had even officially been formed were jug music and the work of The Everly Brothers.
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