Late Grateful Dead founding member had ties to Colorado Springs
A founding member of a legendary rock band credited his experiences at a Colorado Springs school, in part, for setting him on the path to music stardom.
Bob Weir, a guitarist for The Grateful Dead who died Saturday at age 78, briefly attended Fountain Valley School before being asked to leave in 1963. Weir met group lyricist John Perry Barlow while at Fountain Valley, and the two students made an impression – in more ways than one – during Weir’s brief stint at the school.
“The two of them were … a little hard to handle for the faculty,” said classmate Hal Clifford, who kept in touch with Weir over the years. “They were both bright people, but they liked to act out, going places where they shouldn’t have been, pulling pranks … and some other stuff.”
The exact nature of the “other stuff” varies depending on who is telling the story, though it was generally agreed that Weir and Barlow were less than exemplary students despite being bright kids.
“They were eventually told by the faculty that one of them had to go,” Clifford said. “So Bob said he would go.”
After Weir was expelled, he spent the summer at Barlow’s family home, Bar Cross Ranch in Cora, Wyo. Then he returned to the Bay Area near San Francisco, where the rhythm guitarist and singer eventually teamed up with musicians including Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and guitarist Jerry Garcia.
Barlow graduated from FVS before attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut and became an early internet expert, reportedly introducing the musicians to Timothy Leary (read that, LSD). He and Weir continued to make music, amassing a long list of music credits.
Five decades after his expulsion from Fountain Valley School, Weir made a triumphant return in 2015, accepting his diploma in front of an adoring crowd, including many of his 1965 classmates, who were on hand for the school’s 85th reunion.
Weir, who was a co-captain of the school’s undefeated 1962 varsity football team, cited “unrestrained exuberance” as the reason he was asked to leave.
When he accepted his diploma, Weir credited his music teacher, Ernest Kitson, and his English teacher, Chuck Emery, with planting the seeds that would eventually lead to Grateful Dead hits such as “Truckin’” and “Sugar Magnolia.”
Weir was also inducted into Fountain Valley’s Arts Guild, which recognizes “exemplary artistic careers” by alumni. Other inductees include movie director and producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr., jewelry maker Irene Neuwirth and actor Marshall Bell.
Barlow was also honored at the reunion, receiving the Fountain Valley School Distinguished Alumni award. Weir accepted the award on Barlow’s behalf. Barlow died in 2018.
After receiving the diploma and the award, Weir treated alumni to an impromptu performance of “Shakedown Street” and “One More Saturday Night.”
Weir and Clifford, who used to play guitar together as Fountain Valley teens, reunited on that evening with a little jam session, playing “Me and My Uncle.”
“That was fun, and unexpected,” Clifford said. “He was a talented guitar player, even way back then.”
The Grateful Dead officially broke up in 1995 following the death of Jerry Garcia. Weir founded or played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, and RatDog. His last official shows in Colorado, with Bob Weir and Wolf Bros, were in June 2021 at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail.
Appropriately, Weir’s final live appearance, with Dead and Co., was Aug. 3, 2025, in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
At the 2015 reunion, Weir told the audience that his time at Fountain Valley, while brief, was “the best thing that ever happened to me . . . I was pretty much on my path when I left here. I found that path [at Fountain Valley.] That’s what this place is all about.”