Monday, January 12
We’ll remember Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir, who died on January 10 at age 78. Joining the legendary band while still a teenager, Weir became a focal point for the most youthful members of the Dead’s audience. Across the decades, he recorded as a solo artist, with the group RatDog, and as an occasional guest on albums from other artists. In later years he led Dead & Company with Grateful Dead drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kruetzman and singer-songwriter John Mayer also part of the lineup, as well as Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros., featuring bassist Don Was and others as well as a string and horn section known as The Wolfpack. Weir’s contributions to the Grateful Dead were varied and often found him co-writing with lyricist John Perry Barlow. We’ll hear music from Weir’s time in the Grateful Dead on this episode, including selections from a May 1977 performance in Ithaca, New York that many fans of the band consider the group’s best-ever show. We’ll also hear a selection from Weir’s debut solo album, Ace, and a version of a Grateful Dead classic performed by Bruce Hornsby and The Range.
Tuesday, January 13
Listen for brand-new music from Peter Gabriel, plus selections from Robert Plant, Tim Buckley, The Gunshy, and Nick Lowe.
Wednesday, January 14
Listen for music from our list of Best Local/Regional releases for 2025 with music from The Velvet Fever, Josh Hughes, Stay The Course, Daydream, and Madi Laughlin. We’ll also hear from John Prine, The Damned, and a take on a Neil Young classic from the Dave Matthews Band.
Thursday, January 15
We’re back with a second tribute to Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir, who died on January 10 at age 78. On this episode we’ll hear selections from the 1981 Grateful Dead album, Reckoning, which captured live acoustic sets from the group in late 1980 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City as well as at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre. We’ll also hear music from Dead & Company and a selection from the 2015 Fare Thee Well show in Chicago, Illinois, which marked the twentieth anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s final performance with the late Jerry Garcia on July 9, 1995, just weeks before his death. The 2015 performances saw the core of the original Dead joined by longtime Dead keyboardist/vocalist Bruce Hornsby, Phish guitarist/vocalist Trey Anastasio, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, who performed in various post-Dead offshoots.
Friday, January 16
Sad and Beautiful World is the latest release from music legend Mavis Staples, featuring the 86-year-old singer tackling material penned and/or originally recorded by Tom Waits, Sparklehorse, Gillian Welch, Kevin Morby, and Curtis Mayfield. We’ll hear music from that recording as well as selections from Lucky One by singer-songwriter Lalanea Chastain, which features contributions from Dustin Arbuckle (Haymakers, Dustin Arbuckle & The Damnations) and Wayne Gottstine (Split Lip Rayfield).
Saturday, January 17
Between early 1967 and 1968 Brian Wilson set to work on what promised to be the most ambitious project he’d undertaken for The Beach Boys yet. Conceived as a concept record and ultimately titled Smile, the record was to explore themes of youth and American life. It also happened to coincide with some of the most difficult times in the composer’s personal life and was ultimately shelved with speculation about what the record might have sounded like growing in subsequent decades. In 2004, Wilson released an album titled Brian Wilson Presents Smile, a series of all-new recordings of material Wilson had written with collaborator Van Dyke Parks. In 2011, a box set titled The Smile Sessions emerged under The Beach Boys name and featured a reconstruction/approximation of the original Smile album plus a variety of outtakes from the initial recording process. We’ll hear selections from both releases on this episode of the show as well as music from An Invitation, the 2008 collaboration between Van Dyke Parks and vocalist Inara George (The Bird and The Bee).
