 One of Bob Weir's best-loved songs is "The Music Never Stopped." It holds true, even in the 21st century. As a matter of fact, it's even truer. Even when his first band, The Grateful Dead, was playing close to 100 shows yearly, he needed other outlets, and developed a solo career that began with albums like Ace and Heaven Help the Fool and continued through his first sideband, Bobby and the Midnites, and then settled into a special duo partnership with the distinguished bassist Rob Wasserman. Wasserman began his career by studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and then proved himself by working with artists like Van Morrison, David Grisman, and eventually Lou Reed, on whose albums New York and Magic and Loss he is a major participant. His extremely respected solo recording career has progressed from Solo to Duets, for which he and Bobby McFerrin share a Grammy, to Trios, which brought him into the studio with friends like Jerry Garcia, Neil Young, Bruce Hornsby and Branford Marsalis. As the music of the Weir-Wasserman pairing evolved, they reached out into musical realms that required more players. RatDog was born and began to grow. First came the drummer - Jay Lane, one of the Bay Area's best and a member of the Freaky Executives and the Uptones. He introduced to RatDog the incredibly gifted jazz/blues/rock pianist, Jeff Chimenti. Guitarist Mark Karan came to Weir's notice in the summer of 1998 when they played together in The Other Ones and proved far too good to let go. The latest addition to RatDog is the fine Bay Area saxophonist Kenny Brooks, a New England Conservatory of Music graduate and a long-time member of the Charlie Hunter Quartet. RatDog's music represents Weir's complete repertoire from blues like "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and "Little Red Rooster" to the psychedelic stylings of his Grateful Dead classics like "Playing in the Band", "The Other One", and "Throwing Stones" to some of his solo material like "Josephine" and "Bombs Away."
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