https://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/liberal-arts-and-sciences/saint-of-circumstance-the-music-of-bob-weir/20261_MUS-205

Class will meet on Zoom Tuesdays 5:30-7:20 Pacific time, starting September 29.

20% discount available for students over 65!

At 17, Bob Weir dropped out of high school to join a band. He began as its least accomplished musician; within a decade, he had become one of its central creative forces. Often overshadowed by Jerry Garcia, Weir shaped the sound and evolution of the Grateful Dead through a highly original approach to rhythm guitar, using shifting chords, open space, and constant interplay with the band. This course traces that transformation, from the Dead’s early years in the 1960s through Weir’s creative surge in the 1970s, when his songs pushed them into new harmonic and structural territory and his stage presence defined their live shows. After the band’s final chapter in 1995, Weir continued to reinvent his work through new collaborations, including performances with symphony orchestras, and remained a vital creative presence until his death in January 2026. Participants will gain a deep appreciation for Weir’s restless creativity and artistry and the sound he wove into the fabric of American music.

Guest speakers include:

Blair Jackson
A leading chronicler of the Grateful Dead’s history, Blair Jackson is the author of Garcia: An American Life and Grateful Dead Gear, and co-author of This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead. He co-founded and published The Golden Road, a celebrated fanzine devoted to the band.

Jesse Jarnow
Writer, DJ, and co-producer of the official podcast The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, Jesse Jarnow brings deep context and enthusiasm to the world of the Grateful Dead. Since 2009, he has been documenting every era of the band’s history, and his book Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America reveals his knack for connecting music to broader cultural stories.

Gary Lambert
With more than five decades in the music industry and a deep affinity for the Grateful Dead, Gary Lambert is the founding editor of The Grateful Dead Almanac, the band’s official newsletter. He is the co-host of the SiriusXM radio show Tales from the Golden Road. His rich archive of commentary and storytelling makes him a trusted voice on the band’s legacy.

Nate LaPointe
Multi-instrumentalist and freelance musician Nate LaPointe’s connection to the Grateful Dead began in childhood and included a backstage experience with Jerry Garcia. He studied jazz at California Institute of the Arts before becoming a longtime member of the SoCal Dead tribute band Cubensis. He has also shared the stage with Phil Lesh, Stu Allen, Barry Sless, and other luminaries of the Dead and jam band scenes.

Don Was
A Grammy-winning producer, bassist, and president of Blue Note Records since 2011, Don Was has shaped albums for artists from The Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. His ties to the Grateful Dead run deep—from 2018 until Bob Weir’s death in 2026, Was toured as a member of Weir’s band, Wolf Bros, bringing his signature musicianship to the Dead’s continuing legacy.

This course combines close listening, guided discussion, and guest speakers.

DAVID GANS

David Gans has been curating Grateful Dead music on the radio since 1985 as the producer and host of the nationally syndicated Grateful Dead Hour. Since 2008, he has been a co-host of Tales From the Golden Road, a two-hour weekly talk show on SiriusXM’s Grateful Dead Channel. Gans is the author or co-author of five books about the Grateful Dead. He has also produced several box sets and compilation albums of Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia music.

I sent the link to Bralove, and he replied:

Fantastic. Love the opening and how it leads into the groove. You give a feel that is so different from mine. Couldn’t be a bigger compliment to me. You are so vocally confident in it. I just love it.

And that in turn makes me very proud!

Denise hosts a weekly program on WKZE titled Covered in Dead (Monday 7-9pm ET). She plays covers of Grateful Dead songs by others and she plays songs the Dead “covered,” too.

“Cover” is a term that is applied to artists’ performances of songs they didn’t write, but I prefer the word “interpretation” because it’s really about what I call “telling the story in your own voice.” When I play someone else’s song, I’m not looking to sound like the original; I am making it into something of my own. That’s certainly what the Grateful Dead were all about. Just compare their versions of “Morning Dew,” “Viola Lee Blues,” etc with the originals and you’ll hear what I’m talking about.

Denise is now doing a podcast, also called Covered in Dead, and I was delighted to talk with her. Please take a look!

I am delighted to be returning to the Chicago area to play music with my friends! This edition of David Gans and the Broken Angels: Joe Day: keyboards and vocals; David Gans, guitar and vocals; Janis Wallin, bass and vocals; Brett Baxter, drums and vocals

Thursday, June 18: The Venue, Aurora IL
Friday, June 19: With Another One at The Argo, Milwaukee WI
Saturday, June 20: Sister Lakes Brewing, Dowagiac MI, opening for Mr Blotto
Sunday, June 21: Garcia’s, Chicago

Click on the date for tickets and more info.

This tour is also a BOOK PARTY! Last year I had the pleasure and privilege of collaborating with photographer Bill Lemke on the book Aging Gratefully: Deadheads Then and Now. It’s a collection of photos of Deadheads on tour, including pairs of images taken 30+ years apart. Bill will have books for sale at all of these shows!

Come Hear Uncle John’s Band: The Music and Culture of the Grateful Dead

Guest speakers:

Jim Newton
Jesse Jarnow
Rebecca Adams
Charlie Miller
Len Dell’Amico
Gary Lambert

It all happens on Zoom, 5:30-7:30pm Pacific time on six consecutive Tuesdays starting 4/28.

I have 175 students signed up already!

MUS80 – Come Hear Uncle John’s Band: The Music and Culture of the Grateful Dead will be the fifth iteration of this class.

Six Tuesday-evening classes starting April 28 (5:30-7:20 pm Pacific time)

It all happens online, so anyone can take the class from anywhere!

I bring a unique set of assets to my teaching. I am 72 years old: I’ve been a musician since I was 15, a Deadhead since I was 18, a journalist/oral historian since I was 23. I saw hundreds of Grateful Dead (and related outfits) shows; I have been playing Grateful Dead music with bands and on my own for more than 50 years; I have interviewed nearly every member of the band (and countless associates) multiple times; I have played music with members of the Grateful Dead a few times; I contributed (uncredited) two and a half lines to Bob Weir’s songs, and my catalog includes two songs co-written with Robert Hunter. What I lack in formal training is more than made up for by my direct experience of the music and the people who make it and consume it.

I will not be delivering any lectures. I characterize the class as “conversational and improvisational, like the music we’re studying.” If you’re looking for a comprehensive history of the Grateful Dead, I recommend Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary The Long Strange Trip, the brilliant Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, and numerous memoirs and histories (see below).

The best thing you can do to prepare for MUS80 is to watch the musicians making music. The Grateful Dead Movie is loaded with wonderful footage of the band members interacting onstage, and the bonus disc has lots more. Sunshine Daydream is another essential document. The Closing of Winterland, So Far, Dead Ahead, Downhill from Here, all the View from the Vault DVDs – and you can find lots of bootleg video (as well as lots of official releases) on YouTube.

Our primary mission is helping non-musicians (and musicians, for that matter) to understand how this music works, though we’ll also be looking at other aspects of the culture a little more this time around.

The class happens on Zoom, Tuesdays 5:30-7:20 Pacific time. I usually open the room at around 5:15 so we can schmooze a bit before class, and we also hang out for half an hour or so after its official end. The sessions are recorded and available via Canvas during the current quarter, so if you aren’t able to attend a session live you can catch up later. We’ll probably have at least one guided listening session, also on Zoom.

Guest speakers:

Like me, my longtime radio colleague and friend Gary Lambert has been listening to this music, playing this music, and documenting this music for most of his life. We have been presenting guided listening sessions in between the class meetings, and we will continue that very popular bonus feature this quarter.

We’ll also be talking about the Deadhead culture – Shakedown Street vendors, rail rats, taping and tape trading, and all that. Prof. Rebecca Adams has been studying it (and living it!) for decades.

Jim Newton will talk about the life experiences that shaped Jerry Garcia’s charismatic personality and the band’s place in the cultural and economic history of California.

I am delighted to bring Charlie Miller to the class this quarter; he started out as a taper and wound up doing sound and recording for Steve Kimock and others, and he has become a kingpin of the unofficial Deadhead audio archiving community.

Jesse Jarnow will share the immense trove of stories he has collected as the co-producer/co-host of The Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, and wisdom he has acquired while writing about psychedelic drugs and folk music.

Len Dell’Amico will share his experiences working directly with Jerry et al as the band’s in-house filmmaker. His book Friend of the Devil is a brilliant and insightful look at the Dead’s internal culture, and he’s a wonderful storyteller.

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There are no requirements for this class other than interest in the topic, but if you’re new to the culture here are some books you might find informative (including books by our guest speakers):

Here Beside the Rising Tide – Jim Newton

Friend of the Devil: My Wild Ride with Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead – Len Dell’Amico

Deadhead Social Science: ‘You Ain’t Gonna Learn What You Don’t Want to Know’ – Rebecca Adams and Robert Sardiello

Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America – Jesse Jarnow

This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead – Blair Jackson and David Gans

Garcia: An American Life – Blair Jackson

Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead – Phil Lesh

A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead – Dennis McNally

Dancing with the Dead – A Photographic Memoir 1964-1974: My Good Old Days with the Grateful Dead – Rosie McGee

Growing Up Dead: The Hallucinated Confessions of a Teenage Deadhead – Peter Conners

Loud and Clear: The Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and the Quest for Audio Perfection – Brian Anderson

Duke University Press has several titles in their Studies in the Grateful Dead series: https://www.dukeupress.edu/series/studies-in-the-grateful-dead

I would also recommend a film: Box of Rain by Lonnie Frazier, “A Grateful Dead Fan Documentary - A film about a road trip, acceptance, and the healing power of music.”

A couple of additional notes:

Every iteration of this class has created a T-shirt! We collaborated on the design, and a class member printed them. We even have permission from Stanford to use their logos. I expect we’ll do it again this time.

I am happy to offer students a discount on my books and music, all available at perfectible.net – use coupon MUS80 for 20% off. I have these titles available:

· This Is All a Dream We Dreamed: An Oral History of the Grateful Dead (Blair Jackson and David Gans) (hardcover and paperback)

· Conversations with the Dead: The Grateful Dead Interview Book

· Improvised Lives: Photos and Stories 1972-1985

· The Grateful Dead by Jim Marshall: Photos and Stories from the Formative Years 1966-1977 (Amelia Davis and David Gans)

All books are autographed! Blair lives a block away, so we both sign TIAAD!

One other book I wanted to mention: Aging Gratefully: Deadheads Then and Now, a book of photos by Bill Lemke. I am the co-author, responsible for the text. Signed (by both of us) copies are available at aginggratefullybook.com

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To sum up: Thank you for being part of this wonderful experiment! I am always available via email (david@trufun.com)!

Your humble “professor,”

David Gans

I know Jim from years of festivals at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak FL, which was my destination for the weekend: The Suwannee Spring Reunion. I’ve sung with Jim a few times, and he sat in with Rubber Souldiers down there once. I love his songwriting, especially the work he did with Robert Hunter. He did a couple of those songs, and then he acknowledged me! “I want to send those songs out to my friend David Gans, who I’ve not seen for years, who probably spent more time with the Grateful Dead than anybody I’ll ever meet. So let’s hear it for David - a great singer-songwriter in his own right!”

That got my tour off to a very happy start!

Thursday I drove from Atlanta to Live Oak. There was a freeze warning in ATL overnight, but it was already 50-something when I hit the road and it was just perfect in Live Oak, a few miles south of the Georgia line.

I spent the first couple of hours visiting with people I have known for up to 28 years and haven’t seen since 2019, and I heard some fine music. Ran into Jim Lauderdale backstage and thanked him for his kind words in Decatur. Later in the evening, he called me out from the stage again!

Donna the Buffalo is one of my all-time favorite bands, since the very first festival down here. They rarely make it out west. First time I saw them onstage this weekend they were playing one of my favorite songs of theirs: “Arrows Pointing Sideways,” from Positive Friction.

Countless people came up to me over the weekend - fans, crew, staff, and musicians - to tell me they’re glad I am back.

Friday was another lovely day, exchanging hugs, catching up on the lives of friends, and listening to music. I had dinner with Joe and Hattie Craven quartet, and then we met in my cabin to rehearse and discuss our late-night set in the Dance Tent.

Hattie is Joe’s daughter, and the is a wonderful performer! She has inherited her father’s wit to go with her powerful voice and impressive stylistic range. Jordan Feinstein plays keyboards and keyboard bass, and Anna Elva is the drummer. I have worked with both of them at home in the Bay Area and I love both of ‘em. I’ve also worked with Joe quite a lot over the years, onstage and in the studio. He’s a first-call player on every record I’ve produced. Hattie and I have only sung together once before - years ago here in Suwannee, when she was a teenager.

Our Dance Tent set was scheduled for 11pm-12:30am. We were joined by my friend Billy Gilmore from The Grass Is Dead and percussionist Gaurav Malhotra, who I had never met before but who came very highly recommended. The artist at large, a brilliant young fiddle player named John Mailander, also joined us in mid-set. He and Joe blew the roof of the joint several times!

Our set:

She Loves You
River and Drown
The Harder They Come
West LA Fadeaway
Sweet Sunny South
Let It Rock
Sitting in Limbo
Friend of the Devil
New Speedway Boogie->
Cassidy->
Dixie Chicken->
Cassidy

Hattie sang “Sweet Sunny South” in a minor key - her own variation on one of her dad’s signature reimaginings - and Hattie and Jordan sang “Cassidy.” Hattie sang “New Speedway Boogie.” I was very happy to sing harmony here and there.

Joe and John played some insanely intense fiddle duets, and Anna and Gaurav did a percussion duet between “Speedway” and “Cassidy.”

There were several stretches where I just sang without playing because the band had it more than covered.

We ran out of time before getting through the final sequence; we ditched the last verse of “Dixie Chicken” (sorry to say), and Jordan deftly brought us back to the “Cassidy” groove for a quick finale. There were several hundred people in that tent, all going apeshit over our set. Here is a partial video, courtesy of Anne Lampru.

Most of the sound people out here have been on the job since this event started in 1997, and they have all welcomed me back warmly. I think it’s great when you exchange hugs with the stage manager!

Friday afternoon, wandering in the audience at the Amphitheater Stage, I saw a guy who is in a book I published last year. Aging Gratefully is a collection of then-and-now photos of Deadheads taken by Bill Lemke in the late ’80s and early ’20s. I signed on to interview the subjects and produce the text. It was a delightful experience! I was standing in front of this gent trying to remember his name when he recognized me and introduced himself. His name is Barney, and he and his then-partner posed for Bill with a couple of the Jerry Garcia dolls they made and sold on tour back in the day. He has white hair and an incandescent smile (see photo below), which I saw over and over again as the weekend went on. I took photos of him dancing with various people.

I had a solo set on the Amphitheater Stage Saturday 12:30-1:45. It was the inverse of Friday! lots more original material, loop improvisations, no blazing fiddle duets. My pal Bobby Miller joined me for a couple of tunes despite the fact that he’d been down with a fever on Friday.

Later I sat in with The Grass Is Dead; I sang “Scarlet Begonias” and my own song “Surely You Jest,” and the band sounded great on it. I stayed up there for a few more songs in their set. I got tons of compliments from those guys after the set, too.

I did a book signing at 2:30 and spent more than an hour at the table, enjoying lots of conversations – another huge helping of affirmation. Several young people bought the oral history, and lots of people had stories to tell me. I love hearing them.

(”I’m a Deadhead because of your radio show,” I hear often, and I usually reply, “I hope your parents have forgiven me!”)

Ralph Roddenbery, a singer-songwriter whose songs I really like, asked me to play a few with him on the small indoor stage that evening. He is a very intense performer, with soulful and often funny songs. We did a tour together in 2006, with Mark van Allen on pedal steel. We called it Goody Three Shoes. When he invited me to join him for this set, Ralph told me that that tour had been a turning point of sorts for him, helping him to focus on his work and keep his partying down a bit. (Since that tour he married his sweetheart and now he’s got two sons, 10 and 13. He’s as intense about that as he is about everything else!)

“Effusive” is a good word for Ralph on and off stage, and I tend to think that whatever he’s saying is his up-to-eleven version of reality - but by the end of the evening it was clear that he meant it. He said very kind things about me onstage, and after the show two members of his team told me he “adores” me. I’m pretty fond of him, too.

The room we played in was smallish, but it was packed. Maybe 150 people, VERY enthusiastic. Ralph had his bassist, Tommy Jones, and when he called me up we were also joined by percussionist Mark Chester and Stuart McNair, who played accordion and a horn.

Our first song was “Sitting in Limbo” (which I also sang Friday night in the Dance Tent). I sang lead; we had a nice groove going; Ralph stood back, beaming. At the end, my version of the “limbo-limbo-limbo” vocal thing at the end acquired accompaniment! Barney was dancing near the front of the stage, and he started singing along. I was holding notes, and he’d sing a nice harmony in a clear tenor that everyone could hear. We got a bit of a round going. It was just delightful, and at the end of the song I pointed to him and said, “That’s Barney!” He got a great round of applause.

(Barney is a musician! Later that night I looked at the transcript of our interview for the book. He’s in a band called the Urban Gypsies of Florida - 25 years and counting!)

Sunday morning I was invited to have breakfast with my friends Gary and Kathy in their campsite. We spent a delightful (if slightly chilly) hour catching up on life, music, and whatnot.

I had to turn down an invitation to sing “Ripple” with the Mosier Brothers, because their set happened while I was in the Park office doing my SiriusXM show.

After I got off the air I grabbed a quick dinner at Catering and walked over to the Amphitheater for the closing set: Donna the Buffalo and Friends. I got to be one of the friends; I played Tara’s guitar (she played violin) and sang “Fire on the Mountain.” It’s rare to hear a Dead song in a Donna the Buffalo show, and a couple of their fans took note of it!

Sunday evening ended at a portable, propane-fueled fire pit in front of the cabin next door to mine. The principal residents of that cabin were the parents-in-law of a great singer-songwriter named Galen Kipar from Asheville; I was happy to hear that he and their daughter are doing well up there, and disappointed to hear the he isn’t doing much music.

Jeff Mosier was in that circle, and we had another in a long series of conversations about music. He and I toured with The Grass Is Dead a few years ago, and he “got it” about Grateful Dead music one evening while we were performing “Bird Song.” We’ve been talking about it ever since. He said he’ll be at the Red Light tonight, and I invited him to bring his banjo and join us for “Bird Song.”

One more sweet story from Live Oak:

Anna Elva wasn’t able to livestream our set Friday night because she had lost her phone. Her partner spent much of our stage time looking for it, with no success. After the show I told them I was sure it would turn up, because this is not the sort of place where people walk off with stuff.

When I saw them Saturday morning, sure enough! It arrived in the Lost and Found box at 2am.

The Suwannee Spring Reunion! They have another festival in October: The Suwannee Roots Revival. Highly recommended!

P.S. When I got back to Atlanta Monday afternoon, I switched my flight home from 11 am to 6 pm. ATL is a shitshow, and otherwise I might have had to go right to the airport after tonight’s gig!

Great thanks to Jake Pelham for this clip and a zillion other things (that’s Jay Sanders with me):

It’s a custom case, with a very plush lining; they swab the guitar and hand it to me, and then they feel every centimeter of the interior. I can’t imagine what they think might be in there. It’s annoying as hell.

No other airport gives a shit. JFK and ATL on those return trips? Run it through the machine and that’s that.

I’ve been a fan since the 1980s. I took this photo in 1983 when I was interviewing him for a music magazine. Was (Not Was) was a great band, and he went on from there to an insanely creative career!

Tales from the Golden Road is a weekly call-in show on SiriusXM’s Grateful Dead Channel. We’re on the air 4-6pm Eastern every Sunday. Call us at 888-897-4748 and tell us a tale!

I have played more than 500 different songs since I started these (almost) daily live performances in April 2020. Tons of Grateful Dead, Beatles, Jackson Browne, etc. – and several dozen of my own! I’ve been writing songs since I was 15.

(I play almost every day 4-5pm Pacific, on YouTube and Facebook. Tip jar and store (signed books, and CDs) are at perfectible.net, and there is a nearly-complete archive of my daily sets here.)

The following is a list of my original compositions, followed by a list of songs I have acquired from friends and colleagues.

DG’s orginals (and collaborations)
Afterbird
An American Family
Autumn Day
Be Like Earl
Blue Roses
Blues Again
The Bounty of the County (with Rita Hurault)
Caroline
Cassidy’s Cat
Crazy Crazy Crazy
Dawn’s Early Light
Desert of Love
Distance to the Door
Falling Star
The Folk Process
Haddon Hill
Headin’ Home Already
High Guy
Honeydew
Hooker River
It’s Gonna Get Better
Jacqueline
Jessie
Leave Me (with Stephen Donnelly)
Life Is a Jam
Like a Dog (with Robert Hunter)
Listen
Live One
The Minstrel (with Stephen Donnelly)
The Nightmare (with Stephen Donnelly)
On Frozen Pond
Popstar
Prophet and Loss
Quarter to Five (for Tina Loney)
Ran into God
The Red-Faced Goose
River and Drown
Sailors
San Rafael Swell
Save Us from the Saved
Shove in the Right Direction (with Lorin Rowan)
Shut Up and Listen (with Robert Hunter)
Sovereign Soul
Summer By the Bay
Surely You Jest
Teslas All the Way Down (with Joe Rut)
That’s Real Love
The Town That Still Believes in Magic (with Scott Guberman)
Therapy Blues (with Joe Rut)
These Apartments
Travelin’ Man
Trying
Waltzing Across Texas
Wherever I Am
Who Killed Uncle John?
Your Movie

Songs by friends:
A Goddamn Thing (Mr Smolin)
All I Know (Christian Crumlish)
Don’t Call It Love (Bob Bralove)
Down to Eugene (Jim Page)
Forever (Ira Marlowe)
Miss That Car (Joe Burke)
Night Crawl (Al Feldstein)
Scene of the Crime (Al Feldstein)
The Ghost Door (Christian Crumlish)

I decided to start playing a live set online every day. First one was April 3, 2020. I have played more than 1500 sets, each roughly an hour long. I have several dozen original songs (I’ve been writing music since 1969), lots of Beatles, Grateful Dead, Jackson Browne, etc - drawing on more than 50 years of favorites - and I do lots of improvising, too.

I start at 4pm Pacific most days, and I take a day off from time to time if I have a gig or some other obligation. I play live on Facebook and YouTube.

I’ve got a tip jar and online store - perfectible.net - with lots of books and music available. I sign all of the books I send out (unless told not to!).

PLAYLIST: https://spinitron.com/KPFA/pl/20297689/Dead-to-the-World

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