Bob Weir, a revered member of the Grateful Dead, recently passed away. As an enthusiastic music aficionado based in the San Francisco Bay Area, his loss has impacted many of us. Bob Weir was an amazing human being, and I’ve heard some remarkable stories about him the past few weeks.
I have my own special connection to Bob Weir and the Grateful Dead*. In my early days of concert attendance, I went to many Grateful Dead shows. The 3rd and 4th concerts that I ever attended featured the unusual double bill of the Who and the Grateful Dead, which took place for two days in October 1976 at the Oakland Coliseum. Following that, I saw a handful of Dead concerts at Winterland (including the final show that included the Blues Brothers and New Riders of the Purple Sage), the Warfield, Oakland Arena, as well as some of the spin-off bands by solo members of the Dead.
I have been fortunate to see a lot of excellent music covering shows as a camera operator, which included productions associated with members of the Grateful Dead. I was excited to be hired to capture segments of a Grateful Dead concert for German television. I also worked with my pal (and LOUIE co-producer) Jesse Block on various SEVA shows and many of the legendary John Goddard Sweetwater parties, one of which provided the musical backbone for the “Grateful Dawg” – a documentary which explored the friendship and musical reunion of Jerry Garcia and David Grissman.
One month before COVID shut down the world as we knew it in March 2020, I worked with Jesse who produced the video webstream of the Ram Dass memorial in San Francisco. The final presentation of that event was a performance of “Amazing Grace” by Joan Baez and Bob Weir.
Initially, I wasn’t planning on writing a post about Bob Weir for the LouieLouie.net page but my good friend Stretch Riedle (creator of the legendary KFJC Maximum LOUIE LOUIE 800+ marathon) suggested this would be a great time to pay tribute to Bob and remind folks of the Grateful Dead LOUIE LOUIE legacy.
As I looked at the LOUIE archives, I found over 10 live versions of LOUIE LOUIE by the Grateful Dead. They’re all very entertaining, but as far as I know none of those recordings have been officially released, and Bob Weir wasn’t the primary singer on any of ‘em. I did conduct an interview with Jerry Garcia about LOUIE (as well as EC Comics and MAD magazine), but there was nothing like that with Bob. As I pondered the idea of a LOUIE LOUIE connection specific to Bob Weir, I remembered one special moment that I thought folks might find amusing.
It was December 20, 1987 when Richard Berry (creator of the song LOUIE LOUIE) was scheduled to play at one of John Goddard’s Christmas birthday parties at the original Sweetwater nightclub in Mill Valley, California. This was the second time I attended one of John’s parties (the first one I attended featured Elvis Costello and Jerry Garcia) – this took place the year before Jesse and I were hired to produce videos of these parties.
Richard invited me, Stretch and Phil Dirt (aka Frank Luft, one of the other main organizers of the KFJC Maximum LOUIE LOUIE Marathon) to this show. It turned out to be the first and last time that all four of us got together after the now-famous marathon at KFJC.
It was a great performance by Richard. He was joined by his friend Steve Douglas (saxophone player that worked with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Phil Spector, Beach Boys, and a lot of great musicians), Ry Cooder and Scott Matthews. Richard opened up his show with an excellent cover of Eugene Church’s “Pretty Girls Everywhere”.
I brought my old Nikon FM film camera to the show, and grabbed a handful of still shots. When I ran into an old friend Nancy, she asked me to take a photo of her with her friend Bob, who was sitting at the bar. I was more than happy to take the photo, but didn’t realize until ten minutes later who this “Bob” was.
Somehow or another, I guess I didn’t connect with the idea that this casual-lookin’ “Bob” was the same “Bob” that played guitar with all the Grateful Dead shows I had attended!
Crazy, right?
Meanwhile, who would have guessed that the Grateful Dead would wind up to become the Reverse-Spinal Tap . . . with the drummers being the survivors?
Just as who would have thought that Rob Reiner would start and end his directorial career with Spinal Tap? Damn.. Rest in peace, Rob Reiner.
Rest in peace is also extended for…. Johnny Legend, Art Fein, Michael Dresbach, John Oiiver of Brutarian, Don Surath, Ace Frehley, Steve Cropper, Connie Francis, John Grant Hill… and other dearly departed that also have a LOUIE connection that i haven’t written up yet…
________________________________
* I certainly have never thought of myself as a “deadhead.” I embrace all sorts of music, including punk, funk, blues, metal, politically conscious rap, hillbilly country, tribal, world beat, chants, yodel, industrial noise, opera, Broadway musicals, as well as other music that hasn’t been properly categorized yet. To paraphrase the great Groucho Marx, I’m hesitant to join any club that will have me as a member.}