Features

Move Me Brightly: An Interview With Bob Weir

TONIGHT AUGUST 3 @ 9:30 p.m. EST/6:30 p.m. PST on TRIStudios.com and Yahoo! Music: Move Me Brightly – Celebrating Jerry Garcia’s 70th Birthday

Bob Weir is throwing a birthday party for his old friend and Grateful Dead bandmate Jerry Garcia, who would have turned 70 on August 1, and everyone is invited. The event, billed as “Move Me Brightly,” a lyric from fan favorite “Terrapin Station,” will be webcast for free tonight in high definition live from Weir’s state of the art TRI Studios located in San Rafael, CA.

The evening will feature roughly 25 Garcia songs, from both the Dead and his solo work, interpreted by some of the brightest music stars spanning several generations. Led by Weir, the rotating cast will feature fellow Grateful Dead bandmate Donna Jean Godchaux, Phish’s Mike Gordon, Furthur’s Joe Russo and Jeff Chimenti, Vampire Weekend’s Chris Tomson, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals’ Neal Casal and Jon Graboff, The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn and Tab Kubler, The Black Crowes’ Adam MacDougall, the Yellowbirds’ Sam Cohen and Josh Kaufman, Jim Lauderdale, Cass McCombs, Paul Simon’s son Harper Simon, Jonathan Wilson and a few very special guests. The event will be emceed by actor Luke Wilson ( Old School, The Royal Tenenbaums ) and will also include a video interview with Carlos Santana and a reading of David Crosby’s tribute to Garcia, “Cause I’m Missing Him Tonight.”

We were invited to the “Move Me Brightly” rehearsals at TRI Studios yesterday and had the opportunity to catch up with several of the shows biggest names to discuss what made Garcia so special and what they love about his music. Our conversation with Bob Weir appears below. Head over to Jambands.com for commentary by Mike Gordon, Luke Wilson, Craig Finn, Neal Casal and more.

There are many artists we love and honor and will never forget, but we don’t do this for them, what made Garcia so special that his light continues to shine so bright 17 years after his death?

The songs he wrote, in this particular case. There were great performers throughout history that you hear legacies about, Enrico Caruso; there are very few recordings of him and what you really get were testimonials about how wonderful they were; great violinist like Paganini I think of. With Jerry, he left a legacy both of recordings and songs, and the songs are living testimony to Jerry’s musical legacy; they live and breathe when you play them. It’s no big mystery, they’re fun to play; they get people involved.

Beyond being Garcia songs, how did you choose the material for this event?

A lot of that got done while I was on the road. I threw in a couple of tunes I wanted to do, but in this case I wanted the folks who we were bringing in to bring in their own suggestions of the tunes that really rung their bells. So that’s what we did and I did the same. And if a couple of people wanted to do the same tune we sorted it out.

What’s your favorite, or current favorite, Garcia song?

That’s impossible to answer; it’s a different song every time.