Vince Welnick

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Welnick performing live in 2005

Vince Welnick (born February 21, 1951 in Phoenix , Arizona , † June 2, 2006 in San Francisco , California ) was an American keyboardist .

He was with The Tubes , Todd Rundgren and later the Grateful Dead . He had his first appearance with the Grateful Dead on September 7, 1990 and was part of the band until they split up in 1995. He then pursued solo projects and founded the band Missing Man Formation.

biography

Welnick enjoyed classical piano training as a child and got to know blues, jazz and rock through his mother, who was a boogie-woogie pianist. As a teenager, Welnick dropped out of high school to become a rock musician - first in local bands, then with The Tubes , of which he was a keyboardist from the beginning until the late 1980s. At the same time Welnick played in the band of the then Tubes producer Todd Rundgren , on whose albums Nearly Human and Second Wind he can be heard.

When Welnick switched to the Grateful Dead in autumn 1990, a new phase began in his artistic career. He had a decisive influence on the sound of the Dead in their last five years with his synthesizer-heavy keyboard style, although the reasons for his inclusion in the band were more his vocal skills. Welnick contributed two original compositions to the Dead repertoire ( Way To Go Home , Samba In The Rain ) and persuaded the band to include some Beatles titles in the live repertoire ( Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows, It's All Too Much, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds ). Welnick can not be heard on any studio record of the Grateful Dead. Only the live recordings Dick's Picks Vol. 9 and Dick's Picks Vol. 17 come from the era with Welnick.

In 1995 Welnick was diagnosed with emphysema and tracheal cancer. After Jerry García's death that same year and the end of the Grateful Dead, he managed to overcome these diseases.

Musically, Welnick stayed true to the Dead environment. He played in various formations of his former bandmates (1995 briefly in Bob Weir's Ratdog , 2000 in the Mickey Hart Band ) or with other jambands and founded the Missing Man Formation in 1996 , which in its popularity could not keep up with the follow-up projects of his former bandmates. Although Welnick expressed the desire to go back on stage with his colleagues from the Grateful Dead in interviews, he was not present at the big "Grateful Dead Family Reunion" under the name The Dead in 2003, which led to all kinds of speculations about the relationship between Welnick and the rest of the band.

Vince Welnick died on June 2, 2006 after being rushed to hospital with cuts on his neck. As was later confirmed, he committed suicide.

Discography (selection)

with The Tubes :

  • The Tubes (1975)
  • Young and Rich (1976)
  • Now (1977)
  • What Do You Want From Live (1978)
  • Remote Control (1978)
  • The Completion Backward Principle (1981)
  • TRASH (1981)
  • Outside / Inside (1983)
  • Love Bomb (1985)

with Todd Rundgren :

  • Nearly Human (1989)
  • Second Wind (1991)

with Grateful Dead :

with Second Sight:

  • Second Sight (1996)

with Missing Man Formation :

  • Missing Man Formation (1998)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Welnick, Vince
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American keyboardist
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Phoenix , Arizona , United States
DATE OF DEATH June 2, 2006
Place of death San Francisco , California , United States