Dennis McNally

And still to come in this podcast... If the Grateful Dead had an ethic, it would be serve the music, and Bobby certainly did.

That was what he was put on earth for, and he did it to the last.

We spent a lot of time together.

I wrote on a bus with his band Rat Dog for four years, as well as all the Grateful Dead time.

And he was a unique personality.

He had a very off-kilter or unusual sense of humor that was dry and funny.

There's a Grateful Dead song called Liberty, and there's a line in it, find your own way home.

And though that's true of all the band members, they were all anarchists and all...

went their own way.

In some ways, you know, Bobby was the epitome of that.

And music was his life.

And if the Grateful Dead had an ethic, it would be serve the music.

And Bobby certainly did.

And, you know, that was what he was put on earth for.

He did it to the last.

Bobby played, you know, covered the bass notes sometimes.

Sometimes he played lead.

None of them played conventionally.

And that required all of them to listen to each other, which is the essence of improvisational music.

And that's what made them special.