Press Release
March 28, 2007
Bob Weir and RatDog and Keller Williams will cross the country this summer, sharing a stage both separately and together, making music and doing what they do best. The tour will begin in Atlanta on July 7th and end in Los Angeles on July 28th.
Bob Weir is a founding member of the legendary Grateful Dead. He founded RatDog as a duo in 1995, and over the succeeding years he has enlisted Jay Lane (drums), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), Mark Karan (lead guitar), Kenny Brooks (saxophone), and Robin Sylvester (bass). RatDog plays not only Bob's various solo material but the complete G. D. repertoire, and has evolved from an elegant duo to a snarling beast of a rock band that contains a jazz trio at its heart.
Keller Williams has been called guitar's mad-scientist and a one-man-band for the new millennium. Williams is considered by some, but not by himself, to be a master of the acoustic guitar, known for his ability to solo over layers of spontaneously created loops. He is a generous performer who plays down-to-earth acoustic music that defies any effort to find a convenient pigeonhole. If pressed for a definition, Williams, as adept with language as he is with a guitar pick, calls it solo, acoustic jazzfunk reggae technograss – or simply - solo acoustic dance music.
Sometimes musicians tour together purely because of business. These guys actually like each other, as evidenced by the tune ''Cadillac'' on Keller's recently released new album on SciFidelity, Dream, a duet between Keller and Bob. Recorded at Weir's home studio, it also features an appearance from Weir family retainer Jackson (see the tour advertising design and notice who's driving the Cadillac!).
Or, as the inimitable Weir said of him, ''Keller Williams is more fun than a frog in a glass of milk.'' Keller seems to like the idea, too: ''I love this tour because I get to get in for free.''
That positive vibe will be felt across the country this summer.
