Heavy Strings

A remembrance of Bob Weir by Bill Putnam Jr.

Bob Weir changed my life long before I met him. And the lessons I learned from him continue to evolve and will be with me until I pass. I was lucky to get to know Bobby.

Bob had vision. He had the rare gift of creative foresight — of sensing an idea before anyone else knew it was there. He knew how to let things play out, even fail, if it served the song and the moment. He was always exploring, always creating five steps ahead.

I first met Bob back in 2016, but got to start working with him a few years later. By that point, he had long sworn off email but remained a prolific texter. It could be said it was one of his art forms. I'd often wake up to long, late-night threads — introductions, ideas, connections. In this way, Bob was a matchmaker in the deepest sense, orchestrating a bit of human alchemy.

Other mornings I would wake up to messages like this:

"Modern guitars are really well-made; a good modern guitar is easy to play and produces a splendid variety of sounds. That's not really what I'm looking for."

Text from Bob, July 2022

It's true. Bob wasn’t looking for ease. He was looking for character, and for guitars that pushed back a bit because, as he told me, "that all pays off; music is all about spirit, and sometimes spirit and effort are one-in-the-same."

I didn’t understand that at first. But I do now.

 "A good, old vintage guitar has prolly been through the ringer; it's quirky, likely doesn't play as smoothly as a new one, and has quirks in the sound it produces that are difficult to adjust to; That's exactly what I am looking for."

Text from Bob, July 2022

Bob Weir and Bill Putnam Jr. at Universal Audio. Two lifelong explorers of tone stand among the tools and history that shaped their shared devotion to sound.

I grew up around music. My father Bill Putnam Sr. recorded and produced records for Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and countless other musical giants. I was close with my dad, but after my mother passed, we drifted. I was searching for something, although I wasn't sure what.

It was the Grateful Dead that found me.

A friend brought me American Beauty, Europe ’72, Mars Hotel. The music I heard felt exotic and familiar, all at once. But it wasn’t until I went to a show that I understood. The Dead embraced imperfection. They reached without knowing if they’d get there, and they trusted the spirit would meet them.

That spirit was something that Bobby embodied fully. He would let a song breathe, awkwardly at first if needed. When he first started singing Jerry’s parts, some people didn’t dig it. But he stuck with it. He figured out how to sing them, and to make them his own. He found the fit. He trusted that the art would reveal itself.

"I want a guitar that fights me a little bit; that will make me have to work a little harder to get the music I'm looking to make out of it. I'm going to string it up with heavy strings and that's going to make it even harder to play."

Text from Bob, July 2022

Heavy strings.

At a pivotal time in my life, I was wrestling with my own resistance. I had spent years trying to be who I thought others expected me to be, and was a bit lost at sea, anchored only by my love for the Dead. My father had worried I was drifting too far from home, too far from responsibility.

It was after a few shows at the Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland when things boiled over with my dad. He invited me to his house and brought me into his office. From behind his small desk, he told me that he called looking for me at the hotel in Oakland, but was unable to find me. (Our room had been listed under my friend’s name).

I looked up and saw my dad was crying, “Don’t you know that I am worried that when I end up in the hospital they’ll try to get a hold of you and you won’t be where...” His words stopped, hanging. “And you won’t be here… with me.”

At that point, my dad looked over to the turntable and asked if there was anything I wanted to play. Live Dead was at the top of the stack of records in my car, a two-album set with a twenty-minute version of Dark Star.

I put it on. We sat. He listened. Time slowed.

“What took you so long?” he asked. “I always knew these guys were good.”

Not long after, my father passed. I was there.

"The quirks in the sound the guitar puts out become colors that I can't live without — once I've accepted them and reached through for what they are trying to tell me. The heavy strings produce tone that lighter strings simply won't make."

Text from Bob, July 2022

At a show shortly after that, during a slow and aching “He’s Gone,” something in me clarified. I knew it was time to build something of my own. The path forward wouldn’t be easy. It would have heavy strings. And that was the point.

Bob’s perspective on challenge is something I carry with me. He didn’t avoid friction, he reached through it. He accepted the quirks. He listened to what they were trying to tell him. He believed that the struggle held direction.

Walking with Bob on a beach in Mexico in 2023, I told him what a rare gift it was to have something to offer someone who had shaped my life from afar. He smiled and said, “Likewise.”

Thank you, Bob. For the heavy strings.

- Bill Putnam Jr., UA Founder & CEO