GRATEFUL DEAD TO BE HONORED WITH LIFETIME ACHEIVEMENT GRAMMY AWARD

The Grateful Dead will be honored with a Lifetime Acheivement Award by the Grammy Foundation and guitarist Bob Weir talks about the beginnings of the band.

The Grateful Dead, The Doors and Joan Baez are just a few legendary musicians who will be honored with a 2007 Lifetime Acheivement Award by the Grammy Foundation. The Grateful Dead, who never had a number one hit single and didn’t have commercial success until 1987’s album ‘In the Dark’ built a loyal following by peforming hundreds of concerts per year for over thirty years.

We caught up with Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to talk about his initial meeting with rock icon Jerry Garcia and the fact that two had so much fun jamming they decided to start a folk band.

“We were walking the street of Palo Alto and we were walking behind Dana Morgans music store and we heard banjo music coming from inside and we knew it had to be Jerry because he was the banjo teacher ther. We were all well aware of that and we knocked on the door just to see what was shakin in there. And there was Jerry dutifully waiting for his students, so I walked up and said ‘Hey Jerry, it’s New Years Eve I don’t think they’re coming.’ So he says ‘Right you are!’ So he had the key to the front of the store and we just broke into the store and got some instruments out and played for I don’t know how long it was, a few hours and we had enough fun that we decided to start a band. So we got together I think it was the next Tuesday night at a hippie crash pad were a bunch of people were staying and had a rehearsal and it worked and we got gigs and started to pick up some steam and became a fairly popular folk ensemble.”

But like so many bands after seeing The Beatles in the early 1960’s, The Grateful Dead decided to trade in their acoustic Jug Band instruments for Electric instruments geared more toward playing electric Rock n Roll.

“You know seeing The Beatles on TV and walking through the music store, the electric instruments we starting to look possibly attractive. So we turned the folk ensemble jug band into a Rock n Roll band. Jerry knew Billy, he played some frat gigs with him and so we pulled Billy in and the rest I guess is history.”

Other honorees for Lifetime Acheivement Grammy Awards include Maria Callas, Ornette Coleman, Bob Wills and Booker T. & The MG’s, The Recording Academy announced Tuesday. The awards are decided by a vote of the group’s national board of trustees. The 49th annual Grammys, which will be aired live on CBS, will be handed out at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 11.