St. Louis Post-Dispatch
March 20, 2008
by Daniel Durchholz
When former Grateful Dead guitarist-vocalist Bob Weir brings his band Ratdog back to St. Louis next week, he'll be thinking about a late friend: rock 'n' roll pioneer, St. Louis legend and, for a time, Ratdog pianist Johnnie Johnson.
"He was a great man and a good friend and a living saint," Weir said by phone while driving to a Ratdog rehearsal in Marin County, Calif. "He had what the Hindu call shakti, that sort of electric spirit that radiates from someone. He had a great deal of that."
Incongruous as it might have seemed to put blues and boogie specialist Johnson into the expansive, jam-centric context of Ratdog, Weir insisted on bringing him into the fold.
"I said, 'That guy is a master,'" Weir recalled. "There aren't that many of them walking the Earth at any time. And (the band is) real adaptable. I just figured that, musically, we could go wherever he goes."
Adaptability is one thing Ratdog's lineup has always maintained. The résumés of the current group include stints with everyone from the Beach Boys and Dave Mason to En Vogue, Les Claypool and Charlie Hunter.
Last month, Weir reunited with his Dead compatriots Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart to perform a benefit concert for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The show was a departure from the Dead's traditional stance that the stage is "a place for art, not a pulpit or podium," Weir said. Nevertheless, he's glad they did it.
"America is a plutocracy now," he said. "We still have the chance to make it a democracy again, but we're going to have to work for it. We have to reach for it."
Of course, the country isn't the only thing suffering from malaise. Thanks to illegal downloading and a host of other issues, the music business is a shambles, too.
How odd to think that a group of '60s San Francisco hippies could concoct a business plan — building the foundation of their music on live performance rather than record sales — that would earn the band members, both alone and together, a fanatical following lasting into the 21st century.
"Well, the good stuff did pan out," Weir said. "But we made a lot of wrong turns, too. We started a record company way back when, and that didn't turn out well. We're not here to carry around briefcases and do that kind of stuff."
Still, in an age in which CD sales have dropped sharply, the Dead's career path seems downright prescient, and it has influenced numerous bands more interested in playing music than in merely being rock stars. And not a minute too soon.
"We're seeing the curtain come down on the record industry," Weir said. "I don't know who is going to go to the trouble and expense of making a record when, as soon as the first one is sold, everyone who wants one has one. It's not economically viable.
"Music is going to start going away. And, at some point, people are going to notice. And then a more equitable arrangement is going to emerge. People are going to have to learn to honor what they love. And they don't do that right now. It's like the Marxist axiom, 'From each according to ability, to each according to need.' This is just, 'From each according to ability.' It's not a complete system."
Still, Weir, who turned 60 last year, is committed to sticking with it. He's working on a new album, though he refuses to set a timetable for it ... or anything else. Instead, he'll follow some wisdom that Johnnie Johnson shared with him.
"One time when Johnnie was on the bus, we were alone together and he was looking particularly old that day," Weir recalled. "I asked him, 'Johnnie, you've been at this quite awhile. Have you ever given any thought to retiring?' And he said, 'Oh yeah. When my feets point to high noon.'"