Tag: 2026

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Dolly Parton 8/2026

Dolly Rebecca Parton (80) was born on January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains without electricity or running water. She was the fourth of twelve children born to illiterate sharecropper Robert Lee Parton Sr. (Coat of Many Colors) and Avie Lee Caroline Owens.

A musical prodigy encouraged by her mother, Dolly was singing on local radio and television shows in Nashville by the time she was 10 and debuted at the Grand Ole Opry when she was 13. In 1964 she moved to Nashville, where other musicians quickly recognized her talent as a songwriter. Over her career, she would write songs made famous by Kenny Rogers, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, and others.

In 1965, Parton made her first record, and the following year she married asphalt paver Carl Dean, who stayed out of the limelight during their 59-year marriage. Following the success of Parton’s first record, country music star Porter Wagoner invited her to become part of his show in 1967.
There she blossomed, joining Wagoner to record a dozen studio albums that produced a number of top 10 hit singles. Playing off Wagoner’s famous rhinestone-studded suits made by Ukrainian-American designer Nudie Cohn, the petite Parton adopted huge hairstyles and emphasized her figure, and soon began wearing rhinestones herself.

She once told a journalist that she modeled her public image after a woman others called the “town tramp” but whom she saw as a glamorous contrast to the women in Parton’s own life. “She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails. She had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say, ‘She ain’t nothing but trash,’ I would always say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’” But, in an industry dominated by men, Parton also noted her style was a way for a small woman to “fill my space.”

By the 1970s, Parton was coming into her own, taking on the music industry on her own terms.
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose. And do it with purpose,” Parton was famous for saying. “Don’t ever sacrifice who you are, your principles and your morals and your values to just try to get ahead in business. It ain’t worth it.”
Rather than running from her upbringing in rural poverty, Parton embraced the values that upbringing had inspired in her. In 1971 she hit #1 on the country charts with her song “Joshua,” inspired by the Appalachian men around whom she had grown up whose rough looks covered their quality. In the same year, her “Coat of Many Colors” reached #4, telling the story of how her mother had made her a coat of rags, rich with love. Those who valued possessions over love, she sang, were the ones truly impoverished.

In 1972 she wrote “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” about the peace and humanity of rural life, “walking home from church on Sunday with the one you love, just laughing, talking, making future plans.”

She parted ways with Wagoner in 1974, and her farewell song to him, “I Will Always Love You,” became a global sensation that reached #1 on the country charts in 1974, 1982, and then again in 1992, when it spent 14 weeks at #1 after Whitney Houston covered it in her star movie blockbuster “The Bodyguard”. In 1974, Parton also delivered “Jolene,” the desperate plea of a woman to a beautiful rival not to “take my man.” “Jolene,” too, hit #1 on the country charts but also ended up on repertoires of many a rockband..

In 1975 and 1976 the Country Music Association named Parton Female Vocalist of the Year, and in 1978 it honored her as Entertainer of the Year, just three of the many awards she would win as her musical career took off not just at home but also internationally.

In 1976, Parton began working with manager Sandy Gallin, and in 1980 she launched her film career, starring with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5, a comedy with a subversive subtext about discrimination against women. In the film, for which Parton wrote the theme song, three working women replace their sexist, domineering boss and implement programs their colleagues like, including equal pay, flexible hours, and an on-site daycare center, all of which result in dramatically improved office productivity.
“9 to 5” was the real breakthrough into the mainstream. Back when Jane Fonda could open a movie and a flick like this could garner an audience. “9 to 5” was a staple. Everybody saw it. And what they saw in Dolly Parton was someone who didn’t deny her roots, but was in on the joke. That was the thing about Dolly Parton, she had a tremendous sense of humor, she could make fun of herself. Not to mention writing the title song, which went all the way to number one and earned her an Oscar nomination.
Dolly Parton was now part of the firmament.

Dolly Parton was now mainstream, when most other country acts were not.
And she maintained this status for the next half century. To this day! Most people have ups and downs, their careers wax and wane. People change their opinions on them. But not Dolly Parton. Somehow by being aw shucks and exhibiting all that talent, she was embraced.

And, once again, she was in on the joke. She’d go on late night TV and play the role. You’d think she was ditzy, almost a bimbo, and then she’d let out a zinger showing that she was as sharp as you and me and to underestimate her was a mistake.

A massive success at the box office, 9 to 5 opened doors for Parton in the movie industry, leading to parts in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, and other films. She and Gallin created a production company, Sandollar, which produced her television specials and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
But Parton’s crossover appeal, the cementing of her credibility amongst those who were not country fans, was the 1987 “Trio” album, which she made with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. It was a natural extension of the country rock that began with around 1968 with the Byrds “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” which always had a place in the firmament, it never died.

Now the funny thing is the true star at the time, the person who could make “Trio” happen, was Linda Ronstadt, who was a superstar in the seventies even launching the Eagles and then broadened her purview to the stage with “Pirates of Penzance” and then cut three albums of standards with Nelson Riddle. If Ronstadt’s name was on it, it sold. And in truth, Linda had much more broad-based musical success than Dolly, more hit albums, but now, nearly forty years later… Linda’s star in the public firmament has faded, yet Dolly’s shines as bright as ever.
Because Dolly wrote. She wrote the songs!
That’s what makes it so you’re remembered as a Superstar. The songs. And Dolly’s songs were personal. And her story from there to here was one of lifting herself up by her own bootstraps. Gloria Steinem may have gotten all the ink, but Dolly was just as much of a role model for women’s liberation, if not more.

Dolly wrote for herself. And the personal makes it universal, at least when you do it right.

And she was so damn likable. Without being syrupy sweet, without shaving off all of her rough edges. She played the game with a wink. And those who play and can beat the odds doing it their way…we cotton to them.

For almost sixty years, Parton was a member of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, a labor union that represents about 70,000 singers and players and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO. She joined the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) in 1969.
AFM International president Tino Gagliardi told John Nichols of The Nation: “Before she was an icon, Dolly was a working musician. Dolly never forgot the musicians who helped bring her music to life. By standing firm for solidarity and treating every player with dignity, she elevated our entire profession.”

In 1989, Sandollar helped to bring awareness and empathy to the AIDS crisis with the documentary Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt. The film explored the lives of five of the individuals memorialized in panels on the AIDS Memorial Quilt and called attention to the Reagan administration’s lack of response to the epidemic.

In 1990, Common Threads won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and in the 1991 song “Family” that she wrote with Carl Perkins, Parton sang: “Some are preachers, some are gay, some are addicts, drunks, and strays, but not a one is turned away when it’s family. Some are lucky, others ain’t, some are fighters, others faint. Winners, losers, sinners, saints, it’s all family.”

In a conversation with host Larry King in 2016, Parton noted that she had taken heat for her support for the LGBTQ community, but that she did “not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God’s children. We are who we are, and we should be allowed to be who we are…. I just think that we should be more loving, more caring. We are who we are. If you’re gay, you’re gay. If you’re straight, you’re straight, and you should be allowed to be, you know, how you are, and who you are.”

In 1986, Parton bought an interest in a theme park owned by Jack and Pete Herschend in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Renamed “Dollywood,” the park became the biggest ticketed attraction in the state, now visited by about 4 million people a year and employing about 4,000. “I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area,” she told a reporter.

Two years later, she established the Dollywood Foundation to support education in Sevier County. In 1990, her “buddy” program decreased the high school dropout rate in classes that participated from 35% to 6%. In 2016, the Dollywood Foundation created the My People Fund—as in, these are my people—providing immediate financial assistance to families who lost their homes in wildfires in Sevier County that November. It donated more than $12 million.

In February 2018, Parton donated the 100 millionth book from her Imagination Library to the Library of Congress. It was a copy of her book Coat of Many Colors, dedicated to her father.

In 2020, Parton donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund the research that allowed researchers to prove that mRNA vaccine technology worked. That research led to grants that enabled development of the Moderna mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 that saved millions of lives. She also helped encourage others to get vaccinated, taking her own shot on camera in a dress she had cut the shoulders out of so the doctor would have easier access.

Beginning in February 2022, under the Grow U program, Parton provided 100% free tuition, fees, and books to any of the 11,000 employees at any of the 25 amusement parks and attractions under Herschend Enterprises. The president of Dollywood told reporters that one of the key tenets of the Dollywood Foundation is to “learn more.” He said that Parton is “very supportive of the employees learning and continuing to grow themselves.”

Rockstar Album by Dolly Parton

The strongest reason for including Dolly Parton in the rock star tributes on Rock and Roll Paradise is her own hesitant reaction to be enrolled in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. She initially declined the nomination saying: “It feels a bit like AC/DC getting nominated for the Country Music Hall of Fame.” At the awards however she performed some rock songs she had written for the occasion and recorded a rock album title Rockstar (at age 76)saying: “I am a rockstar now.”

Her drive for growth and opportunity was also behind Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which Parton founded in 1995 to put books into the hands of every young child in Sevier County. Her inspiration, she said, was her father, who was “the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all his dreams.” The program has grown until it now serves children across the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

By the time Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, August 25, at the age of 80, her Imagination Library had delivered more than 332 million books to more than 3 million children.

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true,” the Imagination Library website reads. “I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer. The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

When children age out of Dolly’s Imagination Library, they receive a final letter from her hoping they would “have a great time” in school and urging them to keep reading.
The letter ends: “You and all of your friends are very special. There is no limit to what you can do or how far you can go. Just remember the lessons my family taught me—dream big dreams; learn everything you can learn; and care for all those who care for you. You do all of these things and you can be anyone you want to be.
“You are terrific, and remember…
“I Will Always Love You,
“Dolly.”

Dolly Parton was arguably the greatest combination of talent, humility and humanity ever and some social media posts accusingly stated at the time: “You took the wrong 80 year old Jesus”, pointing at her total opposite  the then president of the United States.

Something far beyond hundreds of Tributes to remember:

  • On the day of her passing, at exactly 9:25—9 to 5—the top of the Empire State Building in New York City lit up pink. The antennas of Chicago’s Willis Tower—formerly the Sears Tower—lit up pink, too. So did the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier, which also sported a giant pink heart. The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee; Reunion Tower and other buildings in the Dallas skyline; and the Longfellow, Burns, Fore River, Braga, and Zakim bridges of Boston; Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans; and, of course, Nashville’s KVB Bridge and historic Metro Courthouse were all lit up in pink.
  • The Arthur Ashe Stadium played “Jolene” during the U.S. Open. Jack White played Jolene in London. Elsewhere in London, the Buckingham Palace band played “9 to 5.”
Posted on by — Leave a comment

Frank Beard 8/2026

Frank Beard of ZZ Top

Born June 11, 1949 in Frankston, Texas, Frank Beard (77) attended Irving High School before beginning his career playing in a string of regional Texas bands, including the Cellar Dwellers, the Hustlers, the Warlocks, and American Blues, the group in which he first began playing alongside future ZZ Top bandmate Dusty Hill. Early in his career, Beard was also part of an unauthorized touring version of the British band the Zombies, which performed in the United States without the involvement of the group’s original members.

In May 1969, Beard joined the Moving Sidewalks, the Houston band led by guitarist Billy Gibbons, and it was Beard who introduced Gibbons to Dusty Hill. When the Moving Sidewalks evolved into ZZ Top that July, the classic lineup of Gibbons, Hill, and Beard was complete, and the trio would remain together, without a single lineup change, for the next 52 years, a run that earned them a Guinness World Record as the longest-running active group with no changes in membership.

ZZ Top released its debut album on London Records in January 1971, with Beard initially credited under the nickname “Rube Beard” on that record and on the band’s 1973 breakthrough, ‘Tres Hombres.’ He was credited under his own name starting with 1972’s ‘Rio Grande Mud’ and has appeared under his real name on every ZZ Top album since 1975’s ‘Fandango!’ Alongside Hill, Beard’s rhythm section work became one half of the band’s signature sound, paired with Gibbons’s growling blues guitar, on albums including ‘Tres Hombres,’ which produced the enduring hit “La Grange,” and ‘Fandango!,’ which featured “Tush.”

Beard’s rhythmic drive remained central to ZZ Top’s biggest commercial triumphs of the 1980s, as the band embraced synthesizers, drum machines, and a more modern sound on ‘Eliminator’ and ‘Afterburner,’ albums that turned ZZ Top into MTV fixtures and sold a combined fifteen million copies. The band’s fusion of Texas blues-rock with new wave and dance-rock elements, along with Gibbons and Hill’s matching sunglasses, hats, and long beards, made them one of the most recognizable acts in American rock during the decade, even as Beard himself, ironically, remained the only member of ZZ Top without a beard for most of the band’s history, growing a short one only in 2013.

By the late 1970s, Beard was struggling with serious drug addiction, later saying he spent nearly every dollar he earned from ZZ Top’s touring income on pills, cocaine, and heroin. The band went on hiatus for roughly three years while Beard entered rehabilitation and worked toward sobriety, a period he later described candidly in interviews, saying he simply wanted to reach a point where ordinary life, like watching television and going to bed, felt acceptable rather than empty. He remained sober from the 1980s onward.

ZZ Top continued recording and touring for decades after Beard’s recovery, moving through Warner Bros., RCA, and later independent releases, and the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, with Keith Richards delivering the induction speech. Beard remained ZZ Top’s drummer through the band’s final studio album, 2012’s ‘La Futura,’ and continued touring with the group well into his seventies, stepping away briefly in 2025 due to illness before returning to the road.

Following bassist Dusty Hill’s death in 2021, Beard and Gibbons continued performing together with longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis stepping in on bass, honoring Hill’s wish that the band carry on. Beard’s own health prevented him from touring in 2025 and 2026, with drummers Michael Monahan and John Douglas filling in during his absences, before his death left Gibbons as the sole surviving original member of ZZ Top’s classic lineup.

Frank Beard died on August 17, 2026 at his ranch in Richmond, Texas at the age of 77.
In his personal life, Beard married Catherine Alexander in 1978, but the couple divorced in 1981. He then married Debbie Meredith in November 1982, and the two remained married for the rest of Beard’s life, raising three children together. Beard settled in Richmond, Texas, where he owned and operated the Top 40 Ranch and was known locally for his participation in golf tournaments and community events.

Across more than five decades behind the drum kit, Beard helped build one of the most enduring and commercially successful rock acts in American music history, his steady rhythm section work alongside Hill forming the backbone of a sound that carried ZZ Top for a total of 56 years from Texas blues bars to arenas around the world.
Frank Beard was widely regarded as a great and deeply influential drummer, giving example to later rock greats such as Lars Ulrich of Metallica and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters .

As the rhythmic backbone of ZZ Top for over 56 years, he was praised by musicians, critics, and fans for his playing style.
He was a master of the classic Texas blues-rock shuffle, giving tracks like “La Grange” and “Just Got Paid” an infectious, swinging feel. His deep pocket rhythm and timing gave him a reputation as “ghost note king” and a human metronome who played strictly to serve the song rather than showing off with flashy solos. There was a deceptive simplicity that made his grooves remarkably difficult. He also seamlessly integrated electronic drums and crisp, machine-like precision during the band’s massive 1980s MTV era (such as on the diamond-certified album Eliminator) while maintaining a heavy, funky backbeat. 

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside his bandmates in 2004.
Last surviving bandmate Billy Gibbons described him as “one of the most naturally innovative drummers.”

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Bonnie Tyler 8/2026

Bonniebonnie Tyler, born in wales Tyler was born Gaynor Hopkins in the Welsh town of Neath on June 8, 1951 where she grew up with five siblings and little imagined the success she would have after leaving school at 16. She came from a humble working class background. Her father worked in the coal mines, while her mother was a housewife.

Initially, Tyler worked in a grocery store and began singing in her spare time, changing her name to Sherene Davis to avoid any confusion with another Welsh singer Mary Hopkin (Those were the days my friend).

In April 1969, Hopkins was entered into a local talent competition by her aunt and came second to an accordionist. Inspired to pursue a singing career, she worked as a backing singer for Bobby Wayne & the Dixies before forming her own band, Imagination.

In 1975, Davis was spotted singing with her band in the Townsman Club in Swansea, Wales, by talent scout Roger Bell, who invited her to London to record a demo track. After several months, she received a phone call from RCA Records offering her a recording contract. They recommended that she change her name again. After compiling a list of surnames and first names from a newspaper, Davis chose the name “Bonnie Tyler”.
Shortly afterwards she had to have surgery to remove nodules on her vocal cords, and after not resting her voice enough following the operation developed her signature sultry sound.

Continue reading Bonnie Tyler 8/2026

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Bob Weir 1/2026

Bob Weir (78), co-frontman with the Grateful Dead, was born as Robert Hall Parber on October 16, 1947 in San Francisco, California. He was immediately adopted by the Weir family.

His birthmother told him in the late 1980s, that she and a fellow college student in Tucson, Arizona had a fling in early 1947. When she  discovered she was pregnant, she moved to San Francisco, arranged for the baby’s adoption, gave birth and went back to Tucson a year later. She never told the father of the child, but gave Wier his name. In the 1990s he connected with biological father.

The following tribute was written by Bob Lefsetz from the Lefsetz Letters, who did such a magnificent job, that I would never be able to get so close to the real Bob Weir and his importance for the Grateful Dead during his life.

Bob Weir: He was the cute one.

The history of the Grateful Dead is presently well-known, but at the turn of the decade, from ’69 to ’70, that was not the case. The Dead were a fringe band from San Francisco which had a deal with a major label but had no radio hits, never mind a Top 40 hit, unlike Jefferson Airplane, another act that was seen as a collective, living together in a house. Eventually news squeaked out about the Warlocks, but unless you were living in San Francisco, the Dead were an enigma.

They finally got press with their 1969 double album “Live/Dead,” but that didn’t move the needle significantly. Whatever audience the Dead had was built on the road. And since the band had to survive, they worked.

And then came “Workingman’s Dead” and “Uncle John’s Band,” which was perfect for the summer of 1970, it sat right alongside the CSNY hits. And it was a double whammy, in the fall came “American Beauty,” the true breakthrough, much more accessible than anything the band had released previously, and this is when their touring footprint increased and they garnered new fans. It was really three tracks: “Friend of the Devil” and “Ripple” and “Sugar Magnolia.” Easily digestible, as opposed to the space rock that preceded them, this is when new fans came aboard, casual listeners. And when they went to see the band they expected something conventional, short songs as opposed to extended jams, which turned out to be a bonus.

Not that the audience was completely ignorant. Let’s be clear, the Dead were not an AM thing, they existed on FM and turntables. But that’s where the passion was, that’s where the action was, that’s where the exploration was, that’s where the envelope was being pushed. The listeners of FM were always eager to have their horizons expanded. They might have known about the long Dead shows, but it was the short songs that were the entry point.

And live, it might have been Jerry Garcia’s band, but Bob Weir was the frontman.
The rest of the band did not look like people you knew, the suburbanites who cottoned to the Dead were used to more freshly-scrubbed acts. Sure, some might be rough around the edges, but the Dead looked like they rolled right off the bus, maybe without a shower. They were not physically appealing.

Except for Bob Weir. He was younger than the rest, and he had that shoulder-length hair. How did he end up in this band? It was as if the act recruited from summer camp…how did he get a chance, how did he get included, how did he stay in the group?

But he was definitely a member, as delineated in “Truckin’.” They were all drinkin’ and druggin’ and although the one-two punch of the 1970 albums brought them closer to the mainstream, right thereafter they steered away. The Dead were sui generis. Maybe influenced by what had come before, blues, jug band music, but no one sounded like the Grateful Dead, no one even went down the jam band path until that scene flowered in the nineties.

But to have a band this big, women must be interested. And women were, and Weir has to get credit for that. Otherwise, the Dead would have been Rush, a cadre of male acolytes, but very few females.

Bob was a member of the band, overshadowed on wax until his solo album “Ace” came out in 1972.

By this point people were hungry for everything Dead affiliated, there’d been an album released from the era before Warner Bros. And earlier in the year, Jerry had released “Garcia,” his first solo album. It started with the infectious “Deal” and contained “Sugaree,” which became a standard, but it was definitely a side project, a ramble down the road of Garcia’s personal interests.

That was January. “Ace” was released in May. And it delivered what “Garcia” did not, in your face upbeat playability, with one bonafide standard, “Playing in the Band,” and “One More Saturday Night,” which became a staple of the Dead’s live shows, and “Cassidy.”

This was a surprise. From a distance it almost seemed like a rivalry. But “Ace” lifted Bob Weir’s cred dramatically, he and Jerry were now clearly the leaders of the band…if not quite equals, Bob was now right there alongside him.

2

I could recite the rest of the Dead’s history. From their own label to the hit with Clive Davis to the eighties when Gen-X glommed on and cities didn’t want the Dead in their buildings because of the penumbra they brought with them, the hangers-on.

And then Jerry Garcia died. In 1995. Before his time, at age 53. It wasn’t surprising his body gave out, after all the abuse he’d put it through, but Jerry was seen as the heart and soul of the Dead and the rest of the members decided not to operate under that moniker. Not that they didn’t play, they just called it something else, like the Other Ones, whose double album “The Strange Remain,” with Bruce Hornsby in the group, is my favorite late “Dead” work.

Weir, Lesh and Hart were in that band, but there were also solo projects. The legend continued. And the man carrying the flag forward was Weir. Sure, Phil had his fans, and would do solo work, but it was Weir who’d written and sung those songs, Weir with the personality. Sometimes they played together, and sometimes not. And I won’t say that anybody could replace Jerry, but sans Bob, there would be no continued Dead mania, and there was.

There were highlights, like “Fare Thee Well,” and then came Dead & Company, pure heresy to many fans who’d come on board from the sixties to the eighties, but the dirty little secret was that Dead & Company were tight in ways that the original Dead were sloppy. If you went, you know.
But you can’t go no more.

Now the thing about the Dead is as important as the music was and still is, it’s a culture, far surpassing any act of its stature. You belong to a family. And just like with a family, everybody has a different take on the history, there are arguments. If I write anything about the Dead I hear from Deadheads correcting and insulting me, as if I have no right to write. When the funny thing is almost all of them came aboard in the eighties and I first saw the band in ’71. Bought my first album in ’69. But that is not enough. However I see it is wrong. But I do see it, and this is my take.

3

Joe Walsh once said he was too old to die young. That the paper wouldn’t be filled with laments about being cut down before his time. 78? Every boomer expects to live longer, but that’s a full ride. Sure, Weir wanted more, we wanted him to have more, but it’s over. Sure, there was shock hearing about Bob’s death, but there was an underlying weirdness, that the dream had died, that it was all over. Without Jerry we had the Dead. Without Phil we had the Dead. Without Bob, there is no Dead. Period.

Sure, John Mayer can lay down the licks. Hornsby can tickle the ivories. But that would be more like a tribute band.
There’s not going to be a 65th anniversary show. And no more Sphere shows either, no more pilgrimages to Las Vegas to revel in the history of the music and this band.
It’s over. That’s that.

When on some level we thought the Dead were forever.

The interesting thing is the Dead never flagged, and that’s extremely unusual. Most acts are hit dependent, the Dead never were. After “Workingman’s Dead” and “American Beauty,” with “Europe ’72” as the cherry on top, the Dead could always sell tickets. Just as many as before. There was never a dip in their business. Bob Weir has been in the public eye for nearly sixty years. He never went on hiatus, retreated to the mountains for a decade, or to a monastery like Leonard Cohen. He was always here, playing that music.

And he aged in public. From that long brown hair to short to a white mop top and moustache, looking like a Gold Rush miner. Sure, he got his teeth fixed, but otherwise it was still the same Bob underneath. And no one with this amount of fame is a regular person, but Weir never evidenced an edge, he was always open and friendly. He’d come from a family band and treated you like family.

So it’s like the death of a loved one. Kinda like your mother or father. Someone you knew your whole life, who you never lost touch with, who you checked in with on a regular basis, who remained true to themselves, who you could count on.

So the absence hurts. Not in an Elvis way, or a Garcia way, there was shock, but Weir’s death hit me as the end of an era. Sure, classic rockers have been dying with increased regularity over the last decade, but somehow the Dead always carried on. Usually with Bob out front. But that’s gone.

So it makes me think of my own mortality. When I first saw the Dead Bob was 23, I was in college. I’m never going back to any school, and the people I studied with are in their seventies, unlike Weir, many retired. They’ve left whatever mark and now they’re running on fumes. Off the radar screen. But Weir? He was still up front and center.

So…

That’s it. A complete career arc. A lot of us saw it from start to finish, and we can’t say that we were ripped-off, Weir gave it his all, he was the last frontman standing, and every band needs a frontperson.

What happens to the Dead’s music hereafter?

I don’t know, predicting the future is a fool’s errand. Sure, there will be tribute acts, but how long will that last? And the truth is the Dead were always a live experience, the records were just a jumping off point. You had to be there.
And many of us were.

But never again.

Bob Weir died due to an underlying lung issue after he beat cancer on January 10, 2026, less than a year He was 78.

Weir was involved in various other projects during his time with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, Ratdog, and Furthur. His most recent project began in 2015 when he joined other former members of the band to form a new band – Dead & Company.