Bob Weir, Grateful Dead guitarist and founding member, dies at 78
- - Bob Weir, Grateful Dead guitarist and founding member, dies at 78
Shania RussellJanuary 12, 2026 at 2:48 AM
0
Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty
Bob Weir or the 67th Annual Grammy Awards at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on February 2, 2025.
Bob Weir, the legendary rock guitarist who co-founded the Grateful Dead and led the group through decades of success and evolution, has died. He was 78.
"It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir," began a Jan. 10 Instagram post from the musician's daughter Chloe Weir. "He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues."
Her statement continued, "Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music. His work did more than fill rooms with music; it was warm sunlight that filled the soul, building a community, a language, and a feeling of family that generations of fans carry with them. Every chord he played, every word he sang was an integral part of the stories he wove. There was an invitation: to feel, to question, to wander, and to belong."
Ron Pownall/Gett
Bob Weir at Boston's Paradise Rock Club in 1978
Across more than six decades, Weir toured tirelessly with several groups. Three of those decades were spent with the Grateful Dead, who helped pioneer the jam-band scene, ultimately earning generations of followers as one of the highest-grossing American touring acts. Weir was the youngest member of the band, whose blend of rock, folk, and blues emerged in San Francisco amid the rise of 1960s counterculture.
Born on Oct. 16, 1947, in San Francisco, as Robert Hall Parber, Weir was given up for adoption and raised by Frederick and Eleanor Weir. By 1964, the budding musician had joined fellow guitarist Jerry Garcia in the folk group Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Band. A year later, the duo teamed up with bassist Phil Lesh, keyboardist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and drummer Bill Kreutzmann to form a rock & roll group, briefly named the Warlocks. Upon learning that another band was already using that name, they became the Grateful Dead.
Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead perform at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen in April 1972
Known to fans as "Bobby," Weir wrote and co-wrote the lyrics to several iconic Dead songs, including "Sugar Magnolia," "Truckin'," "Cassidy," and "Throwing Stones." He was also known for his inventive timing on his rhythm guitar and providing soulful vocals as a singer. Weir's tendency to forget lyrics became a treat for fans at shows, who greeted his slipups with cheers and thunderous applause.
The group did not win Grammys during their career, but they eventually picked up the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. Still, their esoteric acid rock was revered and adored by their huge and loyal fanbase, known as Deadheads.
Following Weir's death, Kreutzmann is now the only surviving original member of the Grateful Dead. Lesh died in 2024, Garcia died in 1995, and McKernan died in 1973.
C Flanigan/WireImage
The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir performs during the 'Move Me Brightly' 70th Birthday Tribute for Jerry Garcia at TRI Studios in San Rafael, Calif., in August 2012
Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.
Weir's final performance with Dead & Company — a band formed in 2015 featuring former Grateful Dead members Weir, Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and Jeff Chimenti — was in August 2025 when the Dead's remaining members reunited for concerts at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to celebrate the original group's 60th anniversary. He began cancer treatment that July, just weeks before the concerts, his daughter said.
"There is no final curtain here, not really," Chloe Weir said in her statement following her father's death. "Only the sense of someone setting off again. He often spoke of a 300-year legacy, determined to ensure the songbook would endure long after him. May that dream live on through future generations of Deadheads."
She continued, "And so we send him off the way he sent so many of us on our way: with a farewell that isn't an ending, but a blessing. A reward for a life worth livin'."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
