Book Bobby Weir and Wolf Brothers

They started as the Warlocks, played a lot of bars, and then in the fall of 1965 underwent a trial by fire, serving as the ‘house band’ for a series of psychedelic explorations thrown by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the ‘acid tests.’ By early 1966, the tests had grown into events involving many thousand people, and history was never quite the same. And the Warlocks had become not only unimaginably fused brothers, but also the Grateful Dead.

After adding legendary songs like ‘Truckin” and ‘Sugar Magnolia’ to the 1970 Grateful Dead masterpiece ‘American Beauty,’ in 1971 Weir proposed to do his first solo album, which would be called ‘Ace.’ The album was a classic, and it’s no surprise that five songs from it made it on to the ‘Weir Here’ list, including ‘Playing in the Band,’ ‘Cassidy,’ and ‘Mexicali Blues.’

In 1974, Weir took up with a band called Kingfish, really his first side effort from the Dead.

As a result, the year after the ‘Kingfish’ album was released (1976), he began a solo project with producer Keith Olsen that would come to be called ‘Heaven Help the Fool.’

This was the genesis for Bobby and the Midnites, who would tour in the early 1980s and produce two albums, including the eponymous debut album, here represented by ‘(I Want to) Fly Away.’

Later in the ’80s, Weir hooked up with the talented multi-genre bassist Rob Wasserman at a benefit, forging a partnership that would last 15 years. They began as a duo. Working on Rob’s album ‘Trios,’ they joined forces with Neil Young to produce ‘Easy Answers,’ and then in the period after Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, added drummer Jay Lane and ex-Kingfish harmonica/guitar player Matthew Kelly to become a blues band called the Ratdog Review.

Eventually, Rob moved on, and a settled lineup featuring Lane, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, lead guitarist Mark Karan, reeds man Kenny Brooks, and bassist Robin Sylvester was RatDog.