RIP Vince Welnick

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Grateful Dead's Last Keyboardist Dies
Jun 3, 3:54 PM EST


Vince Welnick, the Grateful Dead's last keyboard player and a veteran of other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, has died, the Grateful Dead's longtime publicist confirmed Saturday. He was 51.

Welnick died Friday, said Dennis McNally, who would not release the cause.

He lived in the northern California town of Forestville, but McNally said he didn't know whether he died at home or in a hospital.

"His service to and love for the Grateful Dead were heartfelt and essential. He had a loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky to share," the group said in a statement on its Web site. "Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home."

Welnick was the last in a long line of Grateful Dead keyboardists, several of whom died prematurely, leading some of the group's fans to conclude that the position came with a curse.

Welnick had replaced Brent Mydland, who died of a drug overdose in 1990. Mydland succeeded Keith Godchaux, who died in a car crash shortly after leaving the band. And Godchaux had replaced the band's original keyboard player, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, who died at 27 in 1973.

Welnick was the last musician to join the group before the 1995 death of lead guitarist and unofficial leader Jerry Garcia, which McNally said hit Welnick particularly hard.

After struggling for several years after leaving the Tubes, Welnick had embraced the opportunity Garcia and the others gave him when they asked him to play keyboards in 1990.

"To lose it within five years hurt him, I think, maybe worse than anybody else in the band," McNally said.

[Mr. Whale dick]

i met that guy b4.....

backstage at a jazz is not dead show...

think i might have given him a piece too...

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I forgot in the midwest you guys called blow jobs "pieces".

[homer]

yeah, vince was a cool dude... I had the opportunity to play with him at black river falls, and he was an AMAZING musician.

This was 5 years ago, and I remember him talking about his depression and how he wanted to do something for everyone who suffered from depression...

Kinda crazy, cuz I just spent all last weekend camping with Vince Herman from Leftover Salmon, and now Vince Welnick is gone. I think he commited suicide at home.

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Yeah I just heard that He killed himself....

Dude was always down to party back in the 90's when he was playing in the dead.

[travis_bickle]

here is what has been posted at vince's official site by his webmaster.

Vince Welnick is gone. He was the sweetest human I have ever known. Kind, generous, funny and warm hearted. He was my friend. He was talented, so fucking talented. I was lucky to know him. So, damned lucky to know him and Lori. God bless you, Lori. I'm so, so sorry.

Vince never got over the cruel way that the Grateful Dead band members treated him after Jerry died. He never got over the sorrow of losing Jerry, facing his own demons without his friend and could not understand how the remaining fellow band-members treated him like shit the past several years.

I cannot possibly describe to you the hurt and anguish he felt when "The Dead" decided to have a "Family Reunion of the SURVIVING MEMBERS" of Grateful Dead, a band that he was no mere sideman for its last five years, but a full member of by order of Jerry Garcia. How damned insulting was it to have a "surviving members family reunion" and not invite your new brother? He was the proverbial red-headed step-child to them. Did it occur to you how that hurt him, Bill, Bob, Phil, Mickey? The truth is that you selfish bastards did not care if it hurt him. He's a big boy, he just had to get over it, right?

I remember seeing Todd Rundgen at the "Walk Down Abbey Road" show in Concord, CA around the same time when that "Family Reunion" was booked. He asked how Vince was, and I told him about this "family reunion" concert of SURVIVING MEMBERS and how Vince was specifically not invited, but in fact was playing a gig at a campground not far from the show. Todd said, "Uh, Vince isn't dead, isn't he a surviving member?" He got the irony. I got the irony, but I also saw the hurt like none of you can believe. Vince kept a brave face about it, trying to remain cheerful, hoping that somehow, someday the tide would turn, the phone would ring and it would be Bob Weir calling him. Calling just to say, "How are you, Vinny?" Something. Anything.

I am certain that Jerry would have been completely disgusted with the terrible, cruel and despicable way that Vince was treated by the band, the management, etc. following his death. The lack of compassion displayed toward him, the ostracizing he felt burned and hurt Vince very deeply. He was a sensitive, sweet soul. He just couldn't handle the rejection. He and I spent hours and hours talking about these things, trying to get the demons out, which led to him pouring out his heart when that show happened, right on this website.

I told Vince to get his story out, tell everybody what happened on that Ratdog bus, tell them everything. Tell them how Bob and Ratdog sent him, having overdosed on the tour bus, to a hospital alone in the back of a taxi cab, without a friend in site, and had him checked in as John Doe, while they played the show anyway. Tell them, Vince how you were despondent over facing life-threatening cancer, a simultaneous diagnosis of Emphysema, and instead of staying home to try to heal and get immediate surgery, how you chose to give the fans the ill-fated summer 95 Dead tour. Tell them how nobody in the band even acknowledged, though they damned well knew, that Vince was very sick.

Tell them Vince, I said, how you didn't want to let the fans and the band down, and how eery it was on the tour knowing all these people who were your "friends" never asked how you were while on the road or even stepped aside with you to acknowledge that struggle you were facing. Tell everyone, Vince, how when you returned from the road, and Jerry was dead, how you were flung into the hell of depression facing lung disease, cancer and now your friend dying, and how you saw your world crash around you ever more when months later the band unceremoniously announced it was over. Tell them Vince, tell everyone and get the demons out.

Even more amazing than the band being cold to him, I could never understand why so-called "dead heads" and "fans" spent hours coming into this site and fucking with Vince, taunting him, posting evil, nasty lies about him. I finally had to turn this into a registration-only website to help shield my friend from the cruelness that some people took sport in on the message boards. Vince could take a joke, he could take a lot, but he finally couldn't take any more.

I had long, heart to heart talks with him for months before he told some of that story to you here, though not even close to all that detail. Vince didn't want to hurt the other guys, he just fucking wanted to play with them.

Do you hear me, Phil? Do you hear me, Mickey? Do you hear me, Bobby? Do you hear me, Bill? That's all he fucking wanted, was to play music with you guys. He loved you and you fucking treated him like shit. To see your "heartfelt" message on Dead.net today sickens me to no end, you fucking bunch of lying hypocrites. There is nothing left to hold back on now. Is it so hard to return the man's phone calls? Is it so hard to understand what he went through back then and how far he had come since that dreadful night on that Ratdog bus? Where is the love? Where is the compassion? Hippy love? Bull-fucking-shit. You guys could have been nice to him, invited him along, not made him feel like an ass and like he was bugging you if he called. Are you happy, Cameron? Are you? Go fuck yourself.

[Kool]

I'm glad his webmaster posted that. I've felt sorry for Vince for a long time and had to guess that he was troubled by all the b.s. those guys have shoveled. Too bad to hear how bad it really hurt him.

K

[lost sailor]

wow, my heart is sad

[gotglass?]

not one single keyboardist got any respect since pigpen....maybe they even gave his drunk ass shit too. Even after like ten years they still considered Brent just an employee of the band. When Jerry died and the ensuing mess in the courts..... all this shit disgusts me .....some fuckin nerve bob weir has since they almost threw his ass outta the band because he sucked so bad back in the day.... fuck weir the republican bitch...