Taking A Step Back with Bobby Weir

photo: Todd Michalek

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“Our departed friend, if he proved anything to us, he proved that good music can make sad times better.”

I heard this stirring sentiment originate from the stage, while I stood in the audience at the Hampton Beach Casino on August 9, 1995.

The individual offering this counsel was Bob Weir, as we all gathered together for a RatDog performance just hours after many of us learned that Jerry Garcia had passed away.

Bob would cancel the dates that followed on this early RatDog run but he made the decision to perform the gig at the New Hampshire venue. It remains one of the most memorable shows I’ve ever attended, teetering between somber and celebratory.

That’s the thing about Bobby, he had a tremendous sense of balance.

Come to think of it, that’s true on a few levels, as anyone can attest who was in proximity to him while he was in the midst of a yoga pose or a meditation posture.

As befits a sports fan, who played football for many years in a local flag-football league, Bobby also had deep field vision.

When I first heard the news about Bob Weir’s passing, I felt a bit numb. He’s been a fixture in my life (both directly and indirectly) for decades, and I know that he will continue to be. Still, some part of me remained dazed and almost detached as I struggled to process the information.

Ultimately, it was Bobby’s words that set me back in motion.

What came to me first (and elicited a chuckle) was his entreaty to “Take a step back…and now take another step back.”

That’s not only sound advice for bug-eyed Deadheads squashed against the rail in GA venues, it’s salutary for all of us.

So I took a step back, which landed me on 8/9/95. From there, as per Bobby’s advice, I began cycling between versions of “Cassidy,” “Playing,” “Looks Like Rain,” “Let It Grow,” “The Music Never Stopped,”  “Black-Throated Wind,” some “Sailor” > Saint” action and then “Ashes and Glass.”

It was “Ashes and Glass,” which he played with RatDog during the third annual Jammys, that landed me at Roseland Ballroom on 10/3/02. This time I wasn’t on the floor in front of him, I was standing over his left shoulder, while he riffed on the Grateful Dead.

Bobby was there to receive a lifetime achievement award on behalf of the band. So prior to RatDog’s performance, he stood behind a podium, accepted the Jammy and remarked, “This is an event that’s basically accolades for jambands, and I want to debunk a myth. The Grateful Dead is oftentimes credited as being the original jamband. That’s horseshit. When I was a kid, I was listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Then you go back before that and you get Louis Jordan and you get back into Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson and Louis Armstrong. If you go back before that, you go to the turn of the century and Buddy Bolden, before recordings were made.

“You have to wonder when was the first time a bunch of guys got together to make music, started playing a song, and each of them was saying, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to be playing or how I’m going to be playing it, and I won’t know until I hear what the other guys are playing.’ I think that tradition comes in large part from the African musical heritage and at least in our culture—in American musical heritage—we owe a great debt to the confluence of African musical heritage and European music. There was European musical heritage, mostly classical, and African musical heritage, mostly rhythmic. They came together in New Orleans. Then in the 50s, the last part of the puzzle came in with country, and we had rock-and-roll. Maybe the Grateful Dead brought rock-and-roll into the open-ended improvisational way of doing things. Maybe that’s what we did.”

I mention this to underscore all the other extraordinary artists whose music you can revel in while still paying homage to Bobby. I daresay he would appreciate it if you directed such attention to all of his musical antecedents. The same holds true for savoring the sounds of his peers and acolytes (although I suspect he’d identify all his acolytes as peers, which says so much about Bobby).

By the way, back to the Jammys for a moment, I do wish to note that following his comments, he led the musical charge that peaked with a climatic final sequence alongside Trey Anastasio, Warren Haynes, John Popper and many others, spanning two stages at Roseland for what The New York Times dubbed “The Jam of the Titans.”

Beyond the music, whenever I spoke with him I came away enlightened and energized. Not that there needed to be a beyond the music, but because Bobby was Bobby—a citizen of the world, committed to so many righteous causes—of course there was. This was true whether we were speaking for Relix, Jambands.com., the Wetlands documentary, the Blue Mountain EPK or even just a casual exchange with our mutual friend Peter Shapiro.

It was such a joy to talk with Bob because he would fully commit and be with you in the moment. One afternoon, as we reached the top of the hour conversing about matters in the context of a Relix feature, he said to me, “I don’t feel like we’re done. Let me call you back after this Zoom I have scheduled.” And that’s exactly what he did…twice, just to keep the ideas flowing given his stacked daily itinerary.

I can recall his words the last time we spoke face-to-face, on the red carpet prior to the 47^th Kennedy Center Honors. He addressed a number of subjects, then looked back at the early days of the Grateful Dead in noting, “We had no plan, we had no itinerary. We were just playing and that’s all we’ve ever done. Our entire agenda has been, ‘Let’s make some more music.’”

That is the majesty of it all, going back to May 1965 when the Warlocks made their debut with a 17-year-old (!) Robert Hall Weir on rhythm guitar.

At the Hampton Casino in August of 1995, after observing that “good music can make sad times better,” Bobby added, “We’re got our work cut for us this evening.”

Given his wry sense of humor, as I begin the task at hand in his honor, I can imagine him adding, “It’s good work if you can get it.”

And we’re all the better for it.