Bob Weir did many special appearances throughout his very long career in music. He was generous with his time and had no issue jumping on stage with all sorts of musicians over the decades.
One of the musicians the talented guitarist and singer jammed with was Sammy Hagar, which we will examine further down the page.
But first, props to The Red Rocker for asking the Grateful Dead guitarist a question Bobby was rarely asked: who was his favorite musician was to play with? Weir seemed to surprise Sammy with his answer. It wasn’t his long time partner Jerry Garcia, or guitar legend Carlos Santana. And it wasn’t Neil Young, one of his long-time peers.
It was Johnnie Johnson, best known as Chuck Berry’s piano player. And the reason Bob loved Johnnie, and invited him to play in Ratdog for several years was because he literally taught Weir how to play rock and roll… 30+ years after he quit high school as a teen to co-found the Dead.
Way back in the 1950s it was Chuck Berry who joined Johnnie Johnson’s band. When Keith Richards threw Chuck’s 50th birthday party and allowed it to be documented for the film Hail Hail Rock N’ Roll (1987), the Stones guitarist revealed an incredible nugget: that when you play Chuck Berry songs on guitar you need to use semi-difficult chord… but they’re simple to play on the piano.
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