On the heels of revealing that the Grateful Dead's music would continue to grace the ears of Deadheads around the world through the freshly assembled Dead & Company, Bob Weir sat down with Dan Rather for an extensive discussion to air on AXS TV series' The Big Interview. Tuesday night at 8 p.m., listeners can tune into an hour long Q&A that spans topics from Weir's musical influences, what song he wants played at his own funeral and the late Jerry Garcia.
Rather kicked off the discussion by asking Weir how he hopes to be remembered once he "crosses the river." Weir responded: "Individually, for people who want to remember me, to remember on the moment for a song that relates to that moment for them, because that's all I'm here for," Rolling Stone reports.
He continued to explain that he requests the Dead's "Cassidy" to be played at his funeral along with a reciting of the John Perry Barlow-crafted opening lyrics, "I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream. I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream. Ah, child of countless trees. Ah, child of boundless seas. What you are, what you're meant to be. Speaks his name, though you were born to me. Cassidy."
The "Core Four" member detailed how his musical influences began to evolve and mature in the sixties, just prior to the formation of the Dead, honorably mentioning the Limeliters and the Kingston Trio as well as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Lightnin' Hopkins. Rather questioned how demanding Garcia was as an older band-mate to which Weir answered, "He knew about what I was good for and just was happy with that. He knew how to get stuff out of me. He very, very rarely had me play anything specific. He kept me to my own devices and I tried to delight him as best I could."
Weir added, "[Jerry Garcia was] More or less, a big brother figure. We were brothers, for sure... They say that blood is thicker than water; and, really, what we had was way thicker than blood," Jambase notes.
Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart may have said their Fare Thee Well's to a 50-year reign of enchanting music and a wildly ever-growing cult following but now, Dead & Company will channel fan-favorite tunes. John Mayer will join Weir, Hart and Kruetzmann in their newest endeavor titled Dead & Company, set to perform their first gig on Halloween at Madison Square Garden.
