One of the founding members of the Grateful Dead, brilliant guitarist and writer of many of the group’s key songs

Though perhaps not as instantly recognisable as the band’s guru-like lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, who has died from cancer aged 78, was an indispensable pillar of the Grateful Dead as guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Weir, Garcia and their bandmates first came together in San Francisco in 1965, and would become integral players in the psychedelia boom and the city’s summer of love in 1967, fuelled by the mind-expanding drug LSD.