Bob Weir, Guitarist and Founding Member of The Grateful Dead, Dies at 78

His songwriting and rhythm guitar playing helped shape the San Francisco band’s sound as it emerged to become an American institution.

Bob Weir, a guitarist and songwriter who was a founding member of the Grateful Dead, which rose from jug band origins to become the kings of psychedelic rock, selling millions of records and inspiring a small nation of loyal fans, has died. He was 78.

His family announced the death in a statement on Saturday, in which it said Mr. Weir had “succumbed to underlying lung issues” after receiving a cancer diagnosis in July. The statement did not say when or where he died.

The band, which was founded in San Francisco in 1965, blended rock, folk, blues and country, with a gift for improvisation that became its signature. In a rock milieu still based on short songs and catchy hooks, the Grateful Dead created a niche for meandering, exploratory concerts and for performances that each took on their own style.

The band’s fan base — called Deadheads, a term worn with pride and later adapted for numerous other fandoms — followed the band wherever it played, traded tape recordings and set up mini-encampments around shows, complete with craft bazaars, oceans of tie-dye and no small amount of drugs.

It was one of rock’s original subcultures. “Our audience is like people who like licorice,” the band’s lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, once said. “Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.”

The band’s classic albums, like “American Beauty,” “Workingman’s Dead” and “Aoxomoxoa,” set the tone for the sound of psychedelic rock as well as its look, with trippy, kaleidoscopic artwork.

A full obituary will follow.

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