John Mayer paid tribute to his Dead & Company bandmate Bob Weir late Sunday, a day after the Grateful Dead legend died at age 78 over the weekend.
“Okay Bob. I’ll do it your way,” Mayer wrote on Instagram Sunday night. “Fkn’ A … Thanks for letting me ride alongside you. It sure was a pleasure. If you say it’s not the end, then I’ll believe you. I’ll meet you in the music. Come find me anytime.”
Weir’s family announced Saturday that the singer-guitarist died of lung complications following a battle with cancer, saying that “Bobby will forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music.”
Mayer spent a decade as Weir’s bandmate after they established Dead & Company back in 2015, breathing some new life into the Dead’s beloved catalog as the stand-in for Jerry Garcia. Mayer had begun to delve deep into the Dead’s music a few years prior to joining up with Weir, and he’s spoken about the importance of the band’s music frequently. Dead & Company last played together this past August to celebrate 60 years of the Grateful Dead’s music.
“The catalog might be the most diverse, hard-hitting, powerful and important collection in the history of any band,” Mayer told Billboard in 2015. “As a fan, and being a musicologist in my own stupid little way, if you really look at it, it’s a Library of Congress of great songs. It’s a universe of great songs.”
Mickey Hart — who’d played with Weir for decades first in the Grateful Dead before also joining in Dead & Company — penned an emotional note Sunday night as well, calling Weir his “little brother.”
“He was my first friend in the Grateful Dead,” Hart wrote. “We lived together, played together and made music together that ended up changing the world. Bob had the ability to play unique chords that few others could. Long fingers, that’s the difference. Jerry once told me that the harmonics Bob created became an inspiration for his own solos. When all of us were entrained, rhythm section, guitars and voices … it was transcendent. What was a lifetime of adventure boils down to something simple — we were family and true to the music through it all.”
Outside of the band, many across the entertainment world have been paying tribute to Weir since the news broke Saturday. Andy Cohen, who’s famously a Deadhead, called Weir “impossibly beautiful and wildly fiery, intense and passionate.”
“I feel SO BLESSED to have gotten to know Bob and the equally wondrous Weir family through my friendship with John,” Cohen wrote on Instagram. “He came on WWHL a few times, and when he talked about Jerry’s passing, he referred to it as ‘checkin’ out’. [sic] That felt so graceful a way to put it, and a testament to the fluidity of all us in this world. Bob checked out, but his music is going to live gloriously forever, and so will he. One of the absolute coolest and best to ever do it.”
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