Vintage Album Review – Bob Weir’s “Ace” (50th Anniversary Edition)

Some refer to him as “The Other One.” That’s not exactly a term of endearment or a ringing endorsement. In the Grateful Dead, nobody would ever rate Bob Weir above Jerry Garcia. Garcia always considered every member of the band equal, and the outfit a truly democratic collaboration. But that was just Jerry showing off his humility.
The Grateful Dead was indeed like a super group all unto itself with the talent it amassed, certified by how bassist Phil Lesh, percussionist Mickey Hart, and rhythm guitarist, songwriter, and secondary frontman Bob Weir were all able to launch solo careers both during Jerry Garcia’s time on Earth, and after. But Bob Weir was regarded more like a reliable relief pitcher when the Grateful Dead took the stage as opposed to the feature act.
It was Bob Weir’s ability to be selfless and subordinate to Jerry that made the chemistry of the Grateful Dead so legendary. Once a student of Garcia, Bob Weir specifically tooled his rhythm guitar style to Jerry’s natural form of playing. And even though he wasn’t as prolific, and his songs were probably more hit and miss, Bob Weir also contributed some of the most critically important songs to the Grateful Dead canon.
Enter Bob Weir’s 1972 solo release called Ace, which was facilitated by the band’s record deal that allowed multiple Grateful Dead members to release solo albums under the band’s umbrella. Just like Jerry’s solo album Garcia from the same time period, Ace not only seeded the Grateful Dead’s legendary live shows with some important cuts, it deserves to be in the conversation for one of the band’s best studio efforts. With some exceptions, the album was the Grateful Dead band backing Bob Weir.
The Grateful Dead played a very important role in the transition of California music from psychedelia to country rock, facilitated by Jerry Garcia’s studious knowledge of old-time string music and his steel guitar capabilities. The band’s early ’70s albums like Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, and the aforementioned Garcia easily hold up against many of the Nashville country releases of the era.
But Ace is not really that type of animal. There’s a lot of variety within the eight tracks, but it’s best described as maybe folk and blues-inspired rock. The album is unique in the Grateful Dead catalog for utilizing horns in the recording session, but unlike most Grateful Dead records, Ace doesn’t lend to some bold sonic expression or shift. Yet the album is also slyly and understatedly excellent, evidenced by how we’re still talking about it 50 years later, and it’s been awarded a 50th Anniversary Edition.

“Playing in the Band” with its extended jam on the end, the border town-inspired “Mexicali Blues” with its superb chorus, and the most up-tempo song in the entire Grateful Dead repertoire, “One More Saturday Night,” all come from this album, even if they were featured live before it. “Greatest Story Ever Told” didn’t get as much set list recognition in its day, but it has since been exposed as a defining Bob Weir track, helped in part by its championing by Tyler Childers.
Even the deeper cuts from the album are worth your attention though. Few regard Bob Weir as some amazing singer. Since he didn’t have an especially unique or eloquent voice, he’d sometimes resort to shouting to get emotion across. Similar to his guitar playing, Bob Weir was at his best supplying harmonies to Jerry Garcia. But Bob’s performance of the heartbroken “Looks Like Rain” on this album is pretty spectacular, and finds Weir’s vocal sweet spot.
“Cassidy” is also a song not to overlook. Bob Weir was good friends with beatnik icon Neal Cassady. Cassady was like a big brother to Bob, and when he died in 1968, it affected Bob Weir greatly. You also can’t mention the songs of this album without mentioning Bob’s collaborative songwriters. John Perry Barlow was to Bob Weir what Robert Hunter was to Jerry Garcia. Barlow’s work is all over Ace. Robert Hunter and Mickey Hart also contribute on multiple songs.
Beyond Ace, Bob Weir was responsible for some other important Grateful Dead songs like “Sugar Magnolia” and the “Weather Report Suite,” but Ace has really revealed itself as his master work. The 50th Anniversary Edition comes with remastered tracks, and live recordings from a concert taped at Radio City Music Hall in 2022 with The Wolfpack that includes Don Was on bass, and Tyler Childers and Brittney Spencer guesting on tracks.
Though the live tracks are cool to capture for posterity and to hear Tyler and Brittany with Bob Weir, Bob’s fastball has probably passed him by at this point. But the greatness of Ace is locked in for all time, and like all of the greatest music, has only grown better with age.
Ace is an album that may not hold much weight with you unless the Grateful Dead looms large in your musical ethos, though with Tyler Childers, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle and others covering Grateful Dead songs these days, those differences are beginning to diminish. Either way, Ace is nothing short of essential in the Grateful Dead world, and exemplifies why Bob Weir wasn’t just “The Other One.”
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Purchase Ace: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
January 22, 2023 @ 10:55 am
I was just talking to a friend about Billy Strings’ covers of Cassidy. The first cover I heard was from Nov 12 ’21, which you can listen to all his shows on Nugs. I knew it came from the Dead, but Ive never been a deadhead so didn’t know it was from a Bob Weir solo project. I’ve listened to Garcia and Grisman since I was a teenager but still never got into the Grateful Dead much. Gonna give this a listen though.
January 22, 2023 @ 3:02 pm
Similar to the above comment. I only know a few Dead songs and I only care about the period when Bruce Hornsby guested. I did enjoy listening to the above. More people should be talking about Brittney Spencer.
January 22, 2023 @ 5:05 pm
Don’t be too quick dismissing The Wolf Brothers. The two volumes from Red Rocks have some excellent moments. Volume 2 includes a killer Terrapin Station. The Dead was my gateway drug to lots of music including country and bluegrass. It’s been a great long strange trip over the past 40 or so years.
January 22, 2023 @ 7:00 pm
It is Neal Cassady, not Neil Cassidy.
January 22, 2023 @ 7:12 pm
Sorry, apparently the spell checker disagreed.
January 23, 2023 @ 6:01 pm
Holy cow. Delete this article and learn about journalism. Spell check? Are you kidding? Go to school. Learn your subject before you publish about it.
January 23, 2023 @ 6:14 pm
Dude. This is a music website. I post content for FREE. If you don’t like it, move on, or lend to the discussion by giving YOUR insights here. Delete an entire article because a name was inadvertently misspelled and fixed over 24 hours ago? Go kiss a duck.
Thanks for helping to make the world a more angry place.
January 24, 2023 @ 2:18 pm
speaking for myself, i do not care if someone makes a mistake or something gets buy and article riter
i care about the quality of writing and passion of the author on the topic. i get what i come here for. one speel check error does not a website define. ,
thanks to trigger and the lively commentators for making this a place worth visiting
January 23, 2023 @ 10:11 pm
Hey Tony, have you ever heard the parable of those who live in glass houses? The vitriol you spit doesn’t make anything better….but seems to make you feel good. You need help. There is a better way to live. People make mistakes. Even you. That’s what we’re bantering about right now. None of us is perfect. That is impossible to argue. You can come at me, but I couldn’t care any less. I’ll continue to pray for you. Peace. ✌????
January 26, 2023 @ 11:58 am
What in the world would you expect to accomplish with a comment like that? Here we have a dude that spends a large portion of his life bringing us a website full of content that is truly in short supply can you say some thing that cannot be seen any other way but simply mean. I truly pray that your heart will soft and and you look in word and think about the way others feel when you say things like this.
January 23, 2023 @ 4:01 am
American beauty is top five albums ever for me. I have never even heard of this album. Thank you for the introduction!
If anyone reading this is unfamiliar with his work, I don’t expect all of the songs to really work out for you on the first listen. Give it a few runs through and you’ll then find out why his writing stands the test of time and why trigger is doing an article on it 50 years later.
January 23, 2023 @ 5:06 am
He’s ‘The Other One’ on the Netflix documentary because of the song he sings. A dramatic but misguided opening salvo
January 23, 2023 @ 8:37 am
I understand this is a country music website, but I have been a massive Grateful Dead guy for basically my entire life. Bob Weir has always been discounted, and by many Grateful Dead fans specifically. Whenever I was talking with other fans of the Dead, I always found myself being a Bob Weir apologist, and “Ace” was my A1 piece of evidence. Maybe the opening salvo was a little dramatic, and I definitely got the song reference. But it was my attempt to put the contributions of Bob Weir in the proper context.
January 23, 2023 @ 8:07 am
Saw “Weir” in the headline and immediately thougth of Rusty Weir. Austin City Limits at one time was great, introducing Texas singer-song writers to the rest of the country.
January 23, 2023 @ 4:57 pm
Pat and Cory on ACL. Caught it in high school in rural Mississippi in 2003. Some of ACL doesn’t interest me but it’s still great. It led me to rootsy music.
January 23, 2023 @ 8:12 am
Phil Lesh didn’t have a solo career until the band broke up. He did release the ‘Seastones’ album but that wasn’t a solo career…
January 23, 2023 @ 8:35 am
I tend to prefer the Weir/Barlow songs to those by Garcia/Hunter in the GD catalogue. “Jack Straw” is one I’d add to those listed in the article.
Like a lot of folks, I went through a Dead phase & saw them live 8-10 times from 89-93. Working Man’s Dead, American Beauty & Mars Hotel are still in moderate rotation for me.
Something dawned on me not long after Jerry’s death: You’d be hard pressed to name another band with a record of success & longevity with such mediocre vocalists. None of them was an above-average singer.
January 23, 2023 @ 10:39 am
They learned it from Billy Joe!
January 23, 2023 @ 2:47 pm
Sorry you didn’t mention the most important song on the album, Black Throated Wind. You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know.
January 24, 2023 @ 12:43 pm
Very cool. I didn’t know about this album at all and really haven’t given any thought to Bob Weir as a solo artist.
I’m definitely a Workingman’s Dead/American Beauty type of Grateful Dead fan and am more completely into other jam oriented bands from the time like Little Feat and the Allman Brothers. But those two albums are in my pantheon of great roots rock albums.
I know Playing in the Band from the radio and from the eponymous live Dead album that kicks off with Bertha (and also has Weir singing Mama Tried – first time I ever heard the song). And Cassidy made it on to the great acoustic live album Reckoning that was released in 1980. I will have to give this album a listen.
January 24, 2023 @ 2:28 pm
Bob Weir’s Blue Mountain, from 2016, is most excellent.
January 25, 2023 @ 11:11 am
‘Ace’ is one of my all-time favorite albums. I still listen to it every couple of months after buying my first copy when it was originally released. That said, I decided to listen to the 50th Anniversary edition on Apple Music before buying it. I saved myself some money. I hate the remix, and am not too crazy about any of the live versions, either. I do like Tyler Childers contribution, but most of the rest of the album leaves me cold.
January 25, 2023 @ 3:55 pm
I saw Bob Weir at the Kennedy Center with the NSO in the Fall. It was amazing, not only to hear the scores that he and a Stanford professor created for part of the Dead’s catalog but to see the Kennedy filled with hundreds of freaky, stoned people with a pure love of music and him (the shout “we love you Bobby!” punctuated every song). His voice is still strong and he’s just such a musician – you can instantly tell that he cares way more about the music than any of the BS that he could be rolling around in every day as a literal living legend. He was just a humble dude who looked and acted like he was having the time of his life. He was serious about the music. It was the last show of 4 in a row and he’s not a young guy and he was just all concentration and try. It was impressive. And then of course Jay Lane and Don Was. ‘Ace’ is a great record. Glad that you highlighted it because it prompted me to go put it on and remember how good it is. Thanks.
November 18, 2023 @ 6:38 am
Exceĺlent album.