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Just The Aunt
Supporter
Username: Auntof13
Post Number: 5252
Registered: 1-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2006 - 1:29 am: | 
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Grateful Dead Keyboardist Dies
SAN FRANCISCO (June 3) - Vince Welnick, who took over as the Grateful Dead's keyboard player in 1990 after a succession of predecessors met untimely deaths, has died at the age of 55, according to an announcement on his Web site.
"Vince passed from this earth on June 2, 2006 ... after a decade of battling tragedy while creating beauty and light around him," the announcement said. It did not give a cause of death.
The San Jose Mercury News said he died in a hospital on Friday after being taken from his home in Forestville, California, and it quoted a person at his home as saying "it looks like he took his own life."
Welnick had previously spoken of a deep depression after Jerry Garcia, founding guitarist of the iconic psychedelic rock band, died in 1995 and the group disbanded.
Welnick is the fourth keyboard player for the band to have died, and his Web site referred to the position as a "particularly doomed spot."
He once told an interviewer, "A lot of people ask about that and my stock answer is that I am aware of the fact that you could die doing this job, but I was somewhat dying of boredom before the job came up so I thought I'd take my chances."
Originally a member of the 1970s rock band "The Tubes," Welnick joined the Grateful Dead after longest-serving keyboard player Brent Mydland died in 1990 of a drug overdose.
Previously, pianist Keith Godchaux died in a car accident in 1980, a year after he left the band, and founding vocalist and keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan died in 1973 of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.
After the Grateful Dead broke up and ended its 30-year run as one of America's biggest touring acts, Welnick formed his own group, Missing Man Formation. He also toured with other groups including Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's band.
He did not take part in various reunions of the Dead's other surviving members.
"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 band said in a statement.
In an extension of the band's "curse of the keyboard player," Scott Larned, cofounder and keyboard player for the nationally-touring Grateful Dead tribute band Dark Star Orchestra, died last year of a heart attack.
06/03/06 11:43 ET
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Pizzaz
Supporter
Username: Pizzaz
Post Number: 3700
Registered: 11-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2006 - 1:49 am: |
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Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 3995
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2006 - 8:31 am: |
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Liberaci's dead, too.
-s. |
Tom N
Citizen
Username: Tjn
Post Number: 123
Registered: 3-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, June 4, 2006 - 1:07 pm: |
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Looks like Tom Constanten, GD keyboardist from '68 to '70, is somehow avoiding the curse. |
Ukealalio
Citizen
Username: Ukealalio
Post Number: 2567
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Monday, June 5, 2006 - 11:25 am: |
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The Keyboard chair in the Grateful Dead is starting to look like the drummers chair in Spinal Tap. A good friend of mine sang and toured with Vince Welnick's band. She told me there was a lot of hostility from Deadheads towards Vince, since they thought he was a bad influence on Garcia and helped hasten his demise. Jerry was a big boy tho, he could make up his own mind. |
dano
Citizen
Username: Dano
Post Number: 206
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, June 5, 2006 - 11:46 am: |
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Don't forget Bruce Hornsby!! He's still alive!!! |
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