Grateful Dead Founding Member Bob Weir Dead at 78

Bob Weir — the guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead — has died … according to a statement posted to his official Instagram account.

When Weir was just 16 years old, he famously followed the sounds of a banjo into a Palo Alto, California music store where he found Jerry Garcia strumming the instrument.

The two played music together all night … and eventually decided to form the group which would later be known as The Grateful Dead. They — along with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann — were the founding five members of the group.

Weir spent the next three decades — besides a brief period in late 1968 when he and McKernan were left off the band’s roster — playing rhythm guitar and occasionally singing songs for the Dead.

During his time in the band, the group released 13 studio albums, many singles and played sold-out shows all over the world widely attended by their devoted fanbase the “Deadheads.”

The Grateful Dead officially came to an end in 1995 after Garcia’s death … though Weir played with The Other Ones and The Dead — successive groups made up of Grateful Dead members — over the next two decades. Weir was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Grateful Dead in 1994.

Weir also struck out on his own by founding the music group Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros beginning in 2018 … famously playing a series of shows with symphony orchestras at the Kennedy Center in 2022.

Like many members of The Grateful Dead, Weird also cared about social issues — he was a longtime vegetarian and animal rights activist.

Bob was 78.