Since my last Garcia and guitar-centric post, I have felt bad about not mentioning Mr. Weir.

As a huge fan of great rhythm guitar, Bob’s playing has been a revelation to me.  I would not have put him in my personal top 100 guitarists until starting my study of the Dead’s music.

If only for his boogie playing, on those Chuck Berry numbers and on Going Down the Road Feeling Bad, I would put him in company of other more famous strummers.  As befits the Grateful Dead, Weir’s style is more laid-back than most, but his “walking” style Berry riffs (based as they are on direct translations of Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson’s boogie woogie piano figures) have a lot of rhythmic punch to them without requiring heavy syncopation in the strumming.

In the tunes where Garcia is not playing single-note leads, I am still learning who is playing what.  But I have come to appreciate the interplay of Garcia and Weir and to appreciate already Weir as a glue that holds much of the sound together.

This of course raises the issue of someone I have not mentioned yet in my posts, Phil Lesh.  I know from just existing that Phil has a huge following among Deadheads and that I am likely to develop enough of an ear to see how Phil influences the band through his bass playing.

I am simply not developed enough as a fan of bass playing to be able to say much yet.  I am hip enough to love James Jamerson’s bass playing on those Motown records and I have endured a few bass solos in my time while listening to jazz or jazz fusion.  But I’m just not there yet to appreciate exactly what Mr. Lesh is contributing to the overall sound.  I’m sure it’s there.  Just being honest at this early stage of my project.

I did read somewhere that the Dead is about the three guitars, Lesh down low, Weir in the middle and Garcia up high.  I am looking forward to moving beyond my two-guitar paradigm to thinking in that third dimension.  I hope my brain is elastic enough at this stage.