Grateful Dead Music Forum

Or should I say, If I Had My Way?

A digression for this section of the forum but with some of the testiness here of late I thought this might bring a smile to your faces as it has to mine.

Rev Gary was the man! Thanks for posting the students walking by my office are giving me funny looks

Thanks, Jon S. Gotta love it!

It's great how Bobby sings it with very similar inflections in his voice!

Didn't Weir study with him at one time?

Thx for posting, Jon. The old Masters.

I don't know whether Weir actually met the Reverend but Kaukonen certainly does his share to keep his music alive.

It seems that this is the version that most influenced the grateful dead.

A friend of my mother's, who had been a roadie with Lynryd Skynrd in his youth, and showed me a few things when I 1st started playing, told me stories of him going down to Newark as a kid and banging on his door. On a good day he would poke his head out the window (in true ghetto fashion); and ask if they had wine for him LOL if I recall accurately! Davis would often spend some time showing him stuff on the guitar anyhow. Other times he wouldn't answer the door lol. It reminds me of the days when famous ball players didn't make too much money and lived right in the neighborhood (Brooklyn Dodgers e.g.).

I don't recall Weir playing anything like Rev. Davis style guitar. I would think he would have been more likely to have been mentored by Kaukonen back in the day in that style anyway. Davis was on the East Coast (NJ), so any time spent with Davis would have been would have been very limited if it ever took place at all. Folks talk about how Jorma was highly regarded as a guitar player, I imagine for his fingerstyle. Indeed Jorma's acoustic playing was one of my favorite things when I first started, just blew me away when I went to see him as a kid. The success of J.A. wouldn't have hurt either though.

From the "Net"...(Guitar World)

GW You took lessons from the great blues fingerpicker Rev. Gary Davis. How did you come to meet him?

BOB WEIR Jorma [Kaukonen, Jefferson Airplane guitarist] was a big fan of his and he helped me look him up in Queens. I made my way out there whenever I was in New York. I only got three or four sessions with him before he passed from this mortal coil [in 1972]. He was my main guitar influence, really, and if you listen to his stuff you’ll see that he took it all from piano, too—all of his parts are stride piano playing adapted to guitar. It’s amazing stuff. He had a Bachian sense of music, which transcended any common notion of a bluesman.

http://www.alanpaulinchina.com/2011/01/ ... -weir.html