Grateful Useless Founding Member Bob Weir Useless at 78

Bob Weir — the guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Useless — has died … in line with a press release posted to his official Instagram account.

In response to the publish … Weir handed away whereas surrounded by family members attributable to an underlying lung problem after he beat most cancers.

Weir was apparently recognized with most cancers over the summer time shortly earlier than acting at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for 3 reveals celebrating the Grateful Useless’s sixtieth anniversary.

The household goes on to say Bob usually spoke of the Grateful Useless’s lasting legacy … including he imagined the songs would reside on for a whole bunch of years.

They write, “Could that dream reside on by means of future generations of Useless Heads. And so we ship him off the way in which he despatched so many people on our means: with a farewell that isn’t an ending, however a blessing. A reward for a life value livin’.”

When Weir was simply 16 years outdated, he famously adopted the sounds of a banjo right into a Palo Alto, California music retailer the place he discovered Jerry Garcia strumming the instrument.

The 2 performed music collectively all evening … and finally determined to kind the group which might later be often known as the Grateful Useless. They — together with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh and Invoice Kreutzmann — have been the founding 5 members of the group.

Weir spent the following three many years — apart from a short interval in late 1968 when he and McKernan have been left off the band’s roster — enjoying rhythm guitar and sometimes singing songs for the Useless.

Throughout his time within the band, the group launched 13 studio albums, many singles and performed sold-out reveals everywhere in the world broadly attended by their devoted fanbase the “Deadheads.”

The Grateful Useless formally got here to an finish in 1995 after Garcia’s loss of life … although Weir performed with The Different Ones and The Useless — successive teams made up of Grateful Useless members — over the following 20 years. Weir was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame as a member of the Grateful Useless in 1994.

Weir additionally struck out on his personal by founding the music group Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros in 2018 … famously enjoying a sequence of reveals with symphony orchestras on the Kennedy Heart in 2022.

Like many members of the Grateful Useless, Weir additionally cared about social points — he was a longtime vegetarian and animal rights activist.

Weir is survived by his spouse Natascha Münter and their two youngsters, Monet and Chloe, who’re asking for privateness presently.

Bob was 78.