Vince Welnick

Vince Welnick famously joined the Grateful Dead after Brent Mydland’s passing in the summer of 1990. At the time, the band only auditioned four or five people, including Vince, Ian McLagan, and Pete Sears. As Bobby said about the process, “We had no stomach for the amount of work it would have taken to find the right guy.” So, they chose Vince, “the guy who could sing high and had pretty decent chops. That was good enough.”

Of course, Vince came in with a wealth of experience on the keys, having been with the glam rock MTV darlings, The Tubes, throughout their existence. And once The Tubes disbanded in 1985 – after releasing eight albums and earning a top-ten hit with She’s A Beauty – Vince played in Todd Rundgren’s band, the San Francisco jam band Zero, and a number of other acts.

Vince first took the stage with the Dead on September 7, 1990 at Richfield Coliseum. Nervous about his debut, he could hardly play. But the Deadheads put him at ease with banners reading “Yo Vinnie.” So grateful for the reception, Vince would later take Yo Vinnie Music as the name of his publishing company.

Of course, Dead fans were not always so sanguine or welcoming when it came to Vince, who came to be a whipping boy of sorts for the Dead’s troubled playing in the 90s. It did not help that Vince was responsible for Samba In The Rain, became a significant medium for Bob Bralove’s MIDI, or that he replaced the beloved Brent. But Vince could light up the keys (e.g. Victim> Scarlet> Fire from August 1, 1994) and also helped bring back Here Comes Sunshine (on December 6, 1992) among a host of other great moments.

Vince had his share of health issues, both physical and mental. Shortly before the Dead’s last tour, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and emphysema. But he went on tour anyway and had successful surgery in the summer of 1995. The emphysema, though, continued to bedevil him, and his mental health struggles exploded after Jerry’s passing, famously attempting suicide on the RatDog tour bus in December of that year.

After the suicide attempt, Vince never played with RatDog or Bobby again. He did form a well regarded band, Missing Man Formation, with Steve Kimock, Bobby Vega, and others, debuting at the Fillmore in July 1996 and including lots of Dead tunes in the repertoire. And Vince did occasionally appear with other members of the Dead, including at some of the first Phil and Friends shows in 1998 and with the Mickey Hart Band on their 2000 tour. Still, it seems that the other members of the Dead distanced themselves from him and that ultimately contributed to his mental health issues.

The 2002 Other Ones shows at Alpine Valley, billed as a Grateful Dead family reunion with the “surviving members” of the band, really seemed to be a turning point. Vince never got a call to participate, was rebuffed when he made overtures, and showed up anyway, playing a Thai restaurant the night before the shows and in a campground late night after one of the concerts.

Vince continued to play gigs and record music in the years following. But it was also no secret that all he wanted to do was be back in the Grateful Dead fold. But of course, he also had his demons. And three years after the “reunion” at Alpine, on the morning of June 2, 2006, Vince took his own life, slitting his throat in his backyard.