R.I.P. Robert Hunter, Grateful Useless lyricist and poet, useless at 78

Poet and lyricist Robert Hunter, finest identified for his collaborations with the Grateful Useless, has died. He was 78 years previous when he handed away on Monday night.

Hunter co-wrote quite a few the Useless’s most memorable songs, together with “Darkish Star”, “Contact of Gray”, “Field of Rain”, and plenty of extra.

As first reported by Rolling Stone, Hunter’s household launched an announcement confirming his passing:

“It’s with nice unhappiness we affirm our beloved Robert handed away yesterday evening. He died peacefully at dwelling in his mattress, surrounded by love. His spouse Maureen was by his facet holding his hand. For his followers which have cherished and supported him all these years, take consolation in figuring out that his phrases are throughout us, and in that means his is rarely really gone.  On this time of grief please rejoice him the best way you all understand how, by being collectively and listening to the music. Let there be songs to fill the air.”

As of now, no explanation for demise has been offered.

The nice-grandson of the Romantic poet Robert Burns, Robert Hunter was born in 1941 in Oceania, California. He met Jerry Garcia in 1961, and the pair carried out collectively in a handful of bluegrass tasks. Later within the decade, he attended Stanford, the place he grew to become one of many earliest volunteer check topics to take psychedelic medication within the controversial MK-Extremely program funded by the CIA. It was on acid that he wrote his first lyrics for the Grateful Useless, the “China Cat Sunflower”/”The Eleven” suite.

Whereas battling drug points, he continued writing lyrics and sending them to Garcia. Within the fall of 1967, he relocated to the Bay Space and was witness to one of many Grateful Useless’s earliest reveals. Hunter started writing phrases to accompany the band’s music, the primary of which grew to become “Darkish Star” and led to him formally becoming a member of the group as a lyricist. He stayed with the Useless till Garcia’s demise in 1995.

Hunter grew to become the one non-performer ever inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame with a band when the Grateful Useless had been admitted in 1994. In 2015, Hunter and Jerry Garcia had been collectively inducted into the Songwriter’s Corridor of Fame.

Hunter additionally had a prolific solo profession, releasing 12 reside and studio albums. Moreover, he labored alongside quite a few different artists, together with Elvis Costello and Bruce Hornsby. In 1988, Hunter penned two songs for Bob Dylan’s Down within the Groove, and he co-wrote virtually everything of Dylan’s 2009 album, Collectively By means of Life. Of Dylan, Hunter as soon as stated, “He’s the one man I work with who I give the freedom to vary issues. In any case, he’s who he’s.”

He’s survived by his spouse Maureen, whom he married in 1982.