Grateful Dead Co-Founder and Guitarist Bob Weir Dead at 78

Photo Credit: jgullo / CC by 2.0

Bob Weir, guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has passed away from underlying lung complications after a battle with cancer. He was 78.

Bob Weir, guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of the Grateful Dead, has passed away at age 78. He “succumbed to underlying lung issues” after recently winning a battle against cancer. Known to his friends and fans as Bobby, he was a member of the Dead for its first three decades.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” his family confirmed in a statement on his website. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could.”

“Bobby’s final months reflected the same spirit that defined his life. Diagnosed in July, he began treatment only weeks before returning to his hometown stage for a three-night celebration of 60 years of music at Golden Gate Park,” the statement continued. “His loving family, Natascha, Monet, and Chloe, request privacy during this difficult time and offer their gratitude for the outpouring of love, support, and remembrance.”

A San Francisco native, Weir joined fellow guitarist Jerry Garcia in a folk band, Mother Mcree’s Uptown Jug Band, when he was still a teenager. By mid-1965, the pair were joined by bassist Phil Lesh, keyboard player Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and drummer Bill Kreutzmann to reimagine their band as an electric blues rock outfit.

The group was initially called the Warlocks before they learned another band with that name already existed. But Jerry Garcia was inspired by a phrase he says caught his eye in the dictionary, and the Grateful Dead was born that December.

With the Dead, Weir was a rhythm guitarist and rarely played solos, instead using his skills to support Garcia’s distinctive sound in a way that resonated with fans and became a style all his own. This was particularly evident in the group’s extended jams, which remained core to the band’s enduring popularity and identity.

After the 53-year-old Garcia passed away in 1995, the band’s remaining members continued performing in different iterations. The longest-running of these was Weir’s Dead & Company, which featured Grateful Dead’s Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. The band concluded what Weir considered their last tour in July 2023, but returned to the stage in 2024 and 2025 for two extended residencies at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Weir also played with an acoustic, “stripped-down” version of the Grateful Dead in 2018 called Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. That outfit released a classical interpretation of the Dead’s catalog alongside a classical arranger played by the National Symphony Orchestra. The collaboration is notable, given the Grateful Dead’s penchant for never playing their music the same way twice.

“These songs are […] living critters and they’re visiting from another world—another dimension or whatever you want to call it—that come through the artists to visit this world, have a look around, tell their stories,” Weir told NPR in 2022. “I don’t know exactly how that works, but I do know that it’s real.”