TIME Grateful Dead

“THE CHANCES ARE,” BOB WEIR ONCE said, “I spent more time standing on stage playing guitar and singing than any human that ever lived.” It is impossible to confirm—and enduring, hard-touring icons like Willie Nelson and B.B. King might have a case to make—but given that the singer, songwriter, guitarist, and founding member of the Grateful Dead was on the road almost nonstop from 1965 until his final appearance in Golden Gate Park in August 2025 to mark the band’s 60th anniversary, Weir may have been right. With his death at age 78 on January 10, 2026, after a battle with cancer and lung issues, his long and uniquely American road finally came to an end. The news of Weir’s passing prompted an outpouring of reaction from a wide range…

IN 2024, NEARLY THREE DECADES AFTER the death of Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead unlocked a new achievement: The band broke the record for most Top 40 albums on the Billboard 200, with 59. It was surprising for several reasons. One is that the Grateful Dead were never really known for record sales—the performances were the thing, along with the community of Deadheads that gathered at those concerts. The other is that the previous mark had been shared by Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, two mainstream titans of 20th-century music. Who would have ever thought the Dead could knock off both Ol’ Blue Eyes and the King in one swoop? But they did in February 2024 with the release of an archival concert whose title does not roll off…

“OUR AUDIENCE IS LIKE PEOPLE WHO like licorice,” Jerry Garcia famously said. “Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.” A nice encapsulation of Deadheads, the metaphor also describes people’s feelings about Jerry’s guitar playing. People either hate his style or they really, really like it. Among those in the latter camp: Bob Dylan. “There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or as a player,” Dylan said in tribute to his friend after Garcia’s death in 1995. “There are a lot of spaces and advances between the Carter family, Buddy Holly, and, say, Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic, and subtle….…

“THE OTHER ONE,” BOB WEIR HAD the unenviable job of standing beside Jerry Garcia in one of the world’s most iconic bands. He met the challenge with nuanced rhythm guitar, bold vocals, excellent jean shorts, and an absurd amount of amazing songs. Born in San Francisco on October 16, 1947, Weir met Garcia on New Year’s Eve 1963, when Weir was still a teenager. He invented his own guitar style, finding space between Garcia’s exploratory leads and Phil Lesh’s unconventional basslines. Over hundreds of shows, Weir learned how to counter Jerry’s lilting vocals with strong shouts, cries, and growls. But his greatest accomplishment was keeping pace with Garcia’s songwriting. Occasionally working with Robert Hunter but more often with lyricist John Perry Barlow, Weir conjured songs built to last. Any Deadhead plotting…

A BERKELEY KID WITH BIG EARS, Phil Lesh had a whole musical life before the Grateful Dead. Born March 15, 1940, making him a few years older than the rest of the guys, Lesh studied classical violin, then jazz trumpet, then avant-garde composition before joining the band. He brought all of his studies and more to his role as the Dead’s bassist, even though he’d never played bass before Jerry asked him to come aboard. “Musically, the quest never ends,” Lesh said. “Music is an infinite process, and that’s what holds the attraction. You’ll never get to the end of it, so you can never be bored with it.” There were certainly no boring Lesh basslines. Actually, there were very few basslines at all, at least in a traditional sense. Lesh…

BILL KREUTZMANN HAD A COUPLE things going for him in 1965: He could play drums and had a station wagon big enough for the band’s equipment. But when the Palo Alto native joined what was then called the Warlocks, he had no interest in folk or jug band mellowness. Born April 7, 1946, Kreutzmann started drumming in junior high (in seventh grade, author and psychedelic pioneer Aldous Huxley overheard him practicing at school and encouraged him to keep up the good work). By his late teens, he was gigging with an R&B band in the Bay Area that did James Brown and Ray Charles covers. As the 1960s became the Sixties, he felt the pull of freer music and sat behind the kit for every one of the more than 2,300…