Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies.
Truckin', got my chips cashed in. Keep truckin', like the do-do man. Together, more or less in line. Just keep truckin'.
Bob Weir, the guitarist, singer, songwriter, and founding member of the Grateful Dead, died recently at the age of 78. The Dead were a unique phenomenon of rock and roll.
Spawned by a chance meeting between Weir and Jerry Garcia on New Year's Eve in 1963, the band did plenty of recording, but was probably best known for its long, improvisational concerts, attended by dedicated followers who traveled on the band's tour route and camped out at multiple shows.
While Jerry Garcia was the band's lead guitarist and singer, Weir became known for his inventive rhythm guitar. Bob Pirellas of the New York Times wrote that Weir strummed his rhythm chords lightly, nimbly, and malleably, charting and shaping the ever-shifting undercurrents of the Dead's songs and jams.
While the band officially ended with Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, surviving members continued playing their songs in new groups, including Dead and Company. Weir and the other members of the Grateful Dead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 2007, and named Kennedy Center honorees in 2024.
Bob Weir continued to play his own music and was on our show in 2016 when he'd released his first album of original songs in 30 years, titled Blue Mountain. Many of the songs were co-written with Josh Ritter. Weir said the album was inspired by the time when, as a teen, he ran away to work on a cattle ranch in Wyoming.
The ranch was owned by the parents of John Perry Barlow, who later became Weir's songwriting partner. Weir spoke with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger, and they started with the opening track from the album called Only a River.
I was born up in the mountains
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Chapter 2: What was Bob Weir's impact on the Grateful Dead?
Raised up in a desert town. And I never saw the ocean. Till I was close to your age now. Oh, Shenandoah, long to see you. You're rolling river. Oh, Shannon, I long to see you. Hey, only you're ever going to make things right. Only you're ever going to make things right. Only you're ever going to make things right.
You said that this album was inspired by a summer when you ran away to become a cowboy in Wyoming. How old were you?
I was 15.
So did you already know how to ride? Were you herding cattle?
Yeah, when I was a little kid, my folks were sort of in the horsey community, and also we used to vacation up in Squaw Valley, which in the wintertime was, in California here, in the wintertime it was a ski resort, in the summertime it was a cattle ranch. And during the summers when we were up there, there was a riding stable that we spent a lot of time at.
And the old cowboys who ran the riding stable, a couple of them took a shine to me and sort of taught me how to ride and some of the basic skills of cowboying, you know, how to cut cattle and stuff like that. I never did really learn how to row very well. But by the time I was 9 or 10, I had a pretty good grasp of the basics.
Through your career, you've seemed to be drawn to cowboy and country songs. Some of them you've written, like Mexicali Blues. And then you've also covered a lot of songs like Me and My Uncle, Marty Robbins' song El Paso. You've also done songs like Johnny Cash's Big River. Why do you think you're drawn to those tunes?
I've actually wondered that myself. It occurs to me that I lived that lifestyle for a little bit, not just that summer, but I'd go back out there and work with Barlow. Part of working with Barlow when I was... doing that was we'd live on the ranch and we had the ranch to run. And if I helped out, we'd have more time to write. So I spent a lot of time doing that kind of stuff.
And I kind of got steeped in that tradition a little bit. And also, for what it's worth, when I was a kid living there in the bunkhouse, there were, you know, in the evening, the old boys would, they'd pop a cork and they'd tell stories and sing songs. And I was the kid with the guitar, so I was their accompaniment.
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Chapter 3: How did Bob Weir's early experiences influence his music?
You know, at 17, were you prepared for that? It seems like such a young age to have all that thrust upon you.
I was ready for anything. Come on. Um, I was 17, 18, uh, and the hay to Ashboro was popping. Now this was the, uh, this was the summer of 66 spring and summer of 66. That was the real summer of love. The 67, uh, the media made it into something that we didn't recognize, you know, called attention to it. And every, everything that had rattled loose in, uh, in the rest of the country, uh,
Ended up in the Haight-Ashbury, and things went kind of sideways there by then. But in 66, the Haight-Ashbury was a youth ghetto, but it was a joyful place.
You were adopted when you were born and you met your birth parents pretty late in life when you were around 50 years old. And I guess you had a close relationship with your father until he died last year.
Chapter 4: What inspired Bob Weir's album 'Blue Mountain'?
What did you learn about yourself from finally getting to meet him?
Well, for instance, little things like I always go outdoors to clip my fingernails and toenails, and he did too. There are little mannerisms that you would think that you'd pick up by watching, but they were there. We walked, we carried ourselves the same way. We had the same sort of sense of humor. that kind of thing. He was a gentleman. He was an innate gentleman.
And I think of myself as such as well. And he had a quality of leadership. He was basically born to it. And people always relied on him for it. And I've found that that's more or less come my way as well. You know, It's a gig. Everybody has to have one. And, um, people look to me for leadership a lot. It's just something that I can provide. It's not something that I want.
You know, I'd rather people left me alone, but, uh, in that regard, but, uh, but someone's got to do it.
So over the years, you must've imagined, um, what your birth parents were like. How did that compare to actually meeting them?
As it turns out, my, um, my dad, uh, He had no idea I existed to begin with. He'd had an affair with a girl in Tucson where they were going to school. And she got pregnant and very quietly slipped away and had me in San Francisco, the famous liberal city back then, and then came back and never let on that anything had happened. And so when we met, you know, it was a big surprise to both of them.
Now, I found out about his existence recently. My birth mother, after my adopted parents, a number of years after my adopted parents had checked out, she contacted me because I'd tried to find her and it was not possible. So she ended up contacting me and she had 12 other kids. So I didn't feel like I needed to complicate her life all that much.
Yeah.
But we kept in touch, and I'd call her on Mother's Day, and every now and again we'd see each other and stuff like that. I'd send her flowers, that kind of thing. But she gave me my... birth father's information, last she knew of it. And he was a guy named Jack Parber, and he had been a student at University of Arizona.
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Chapter 5: How did Bob Weir learn to ride and interact with cowboys?
Well, thank you.
Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead speaking with Fresh Air's Sam Brigger, recorded in 2016. Weir died recently at the age of 78. Coming up, we remember singer Rebecca Kilgore, a talented interpreter of American popular song. I'm Dave Davies, and this is Fresh Air.
Crazy rooster crowing midnight Balls of lightning roll along. Old men sing about their dreams. Women laugh and children scream. And the band keeps playing on.
Keep on dancing. Keep on dancing through the day like we love. We're the one and only song. No one's noticed but the band's all packed and gone.
Wasn't ever here at all, but they kept on dancing. Come on, children, come on, children, come on, clap your hands. Well, the cool breeze came on Tuesday, and the corns of bumper crawled. And the fields are full of dancing, full of singing and romancing. The music never stops.
Next, we're going to remember singer Rebecca Kilgore, a devoted interpreter of American popular song who died last week at the age of 76. You may have heard her in concert on the show, often with pianist Dave Frishberg. Terry's joined us to share some thoughts of her own about what makes Rebecca Kilgore special. Terry?
Thanks, Dave. I think Becky did more concerts on our show than any other performer. And that enabled her to quit her job as a secretary at Reed College and have a real music career, recording many albums and performing around the world. It was great to record her for our show because she was always right on pitch, which meant we didn't need to do a lot of takes.
It was her sense of rhythm that I loved most. She had such a natural sense of swing. I loved her for singing relatively obscure songs and reviving songs I'd never heard of. She struck me as kind of shy, but that may have contributed to another trait I loved. She called attention to the song and not herself. She didn't try to impress you with like high notes or dizzying scat singing.
She knew how to bring a song to life and fill them with her delight in singing them. Becky died of Lewy body disease, and that has symptoms similar to Alzheimer's. And Dave Frishberg died of Alzheimer's in 2021. I always describe Becky as one of my favorite living singers, and I feel so lucky to have gotten the chance to work with her and to showcase her singing on our show. Rest in peace, Becky.
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Chapter 6: What storytelling techniques does Bob Weir use in his songwriting?
You take a line like, gee, I'd like to see you look and swell. See, I can get into a lyric like that.
I love that. I'm not embarrassed to say that. Some corny lyrics I am, but it just sounds, like you say, colloquial and it's fun to say.
You know, Dorothy Fields' trademark as a lyricist is her cleverness, but she could also write really tender lyrics, and I think this song really proves that. This is The Way You Look Tonight, a ballad that she wrote with Jerome Kern. It won an Academy Award. It was written for the Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers film Swing Time.
And, you know, Dorothy Fields said that the first time Jerome Kern played her the melody, right before she wrote the lyric for it, she thought it was so beautiful that she started to cry and she had to leave the room. Would you do the song for us?
Sure.
Someday When I'm awfully low When the world is cold I will feel a glow Just thinking of And the way you look tonight Oh, but you're lovely With your smile so warm And your cheeks so soft There is nothing for me but to love you Just the way you look tonight With each word your tenderness grows tearing my fear apart and that laugh that wrinkles your nose touches my foolish heart the lovely
Never, never change. Keep that breathless charm. Won't you please arrange it? Cause I love you. Just the way you look tonight. Mmm, mmm. Just the way you look tonight That was beautiful.
I want to thank you both for performing songs by Dorothy Fields for us. It's really been a pleasure. Thanks. It's been a pleasure for us. Thanks, Terri.
Dave Frischberg and Rebecca Kilgore recorded in 1999 as part of our American Popular Song Series. We'll hear more of their performances after a break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and we're remembering singer Rebecca Kilgore today. She died last week at the age of 76.
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Chapter 7: How did drugs and addiction influence the Grateful Dead's history?
Keeping up the pace, letting each tomorrow slap us in the face. Two sleepy people by dawn's early light and too much in love to say goodnight.
I think that's one of the most successfully conversational songs I know, both in the lyric and in the music. Well, it makes it really easy to sing as a duet that way.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's real. It's two real people.
Well, the next Hoagy Carmichael song I'd like you to do for us is called The Nearness of You. And although it's one of his most recorded songs, I don't think it's nearly as well known as his other famous songs like Skylock and Stardust and Rock and Share in Georgia.
The lyric is by Ned Washington, who was given Hoagy's melody by the Paramount Studio, and the song was used for the 1938 movie Romance in the Dark. Would you do The Nearness of You?
Of course.
Sure.
It's not the pale moon that excites me That thrills and delights me Oh no, it's just the nearness of you It isn't your sweet conversation That brings this sensation, oh no It's just the nearness of you When you're in my arms And I feel you so close to me All my wildest dreams come true I need no soft lights to enchant me
If you only grant me the right to hold you ever so tight and to feel in the night the nearness of
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