On Sunday, May 12, 2013 2:36:42 PM UTC-7, auxarmeslescitoyens wrote:
> In recent years and especially since Weir's recent Capitol Theater catatonia, it's become trendy for many to pick on, slam, denounce, decry, and denigrate Bobby, and not just in the post-Jerry era. (These inexplicable-and-unsupportable-to-me positions often go hand in hand with a deification of Phil Lesh. I won't get into that whole mess. As it is, I happen to dig every member of the band, some more than others.)
I've been on record before, and go on record again, with the idea that any of the trio of Jerry, Bob and Phil, sans any of the rest of that trio, are a lesser entity. Each of those players was made better by the contributions of the rest, and to a lesser degree, whoever else happened to be in the band at the same time...
But, as the upper ends and the lower ends of the trifecta, Garcia and Lesh received more adulation than did the force that tied those two ends together. Weir's task was, arguably, more elaborate than either of his more celebrated brethren. While Garcia and Lesh may well have staked out the paths that the majority of the GD jams took, it was Weir who tied those disparate voices together. In fact, for me, in the peaks of GD exploration - talking '72 Dark Stars or '74 Playin's or '77 Estimateds, etc - it was Weir who expertly tied together the Garcia lines and the Lesh lines. Weir is certainly easy to overlook, but without him to tie the jams all together, these things were apt to go off the rails.
Don't get me wrong, Garcia and Lesh are geniuses in my mind for their contributions to the GD, but Weir's ability to seamlessly tie the bottom of Garcia's lines to the top of Lesh's may well be the most amazing part of the best of the Dead. Garcia and Lesh are widely recognized as unique voices in musical history, but for my money, Weir's contributions may well be the most impressive. As great as Garcia and Lesh were/are, they were disparate voices. Yet, Weir tied them both together seamlessly.