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Bob WeirRobert Hall Weir (born October 16, 1947) is an American guitar player, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Weir was born in San Francisco, California and grew up in the suburb of Atherton, California. He began playing guitar at age thirteen after less successful experimenting with the piano and the trumpet. He had trouble in school because of undiagnosed dyslexia and was expelled from nearly every school he attended. He was sent away to boarding school, where he was predictably asked to leave, but not before he befriended John Perry Barlow, who would become one of the two main lyricists for the Grateful Dead. On New Year's Eve, 1963, 16-year-old Weir and another underage friend were wandering the back alleys of Palo Alto, looking for a club that would admit them, when they heard banjo music. They followed the music to its source, a music store, where a young Jerry Garcia, oblivious to the date, was waiting on his students to arrive. Weir and Garcia spent the night playing music together and then decided to form a band. The band they formed was Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, which became the Warlocks, and then the Grateful Dead. In the Grateful Dead, he played rhythm and slide guitar and also split vocals with Jerry Garcia. Weir has a unique guitar style--his greatest influence is the hard bop pianist McCoy Tyner. Shortly before Garcia's death in 1995, Weir had formed another band, the Ratdog Revue, later shortened to Ratdog. Weir also joined with other former members of the Grateful Dead to tour as "The Other Ones", later renamed "The Dead." Known for his raspy, deeper tone, Weir sings covers by Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash while also performing many of his own songs. On July 15, 1999 he married Natascha Muenter. They have two daughters, Shala Monet Weir and Chloe Kaelia Weir. Weir, Bob
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