Phil Lesh, Bob Weir Reunite With Dead Lyricist Robert Hunter

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This summer, Deadheads are getting to hear something they never thought they’d hear again: Phil Lesh and Bob Weir performing new songs with lyrics by longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. During the first month of its summer tour, Lesh and Weir’s new band, Furthur, debuted three fresh collaborations with Hunter: the good-time-y jaunt ”˜Muli Guli,’ the brooding ”˜Colors of the Rain’ and a panoramic country-folk ballad, ”˜Seven Hills of Gold.’

“We want Furthur to bring back the spirit of the Dead,” Lesh says of the new songs. Indeed they do: The new cuts could easily pass as outtakes from Seventies Grateful Dead LPs such as Wake of the Flood or Blues for Allah.

The renewed collaboration began in April, when Hunter ”“ known for penning the words to dozens of Dead classics, including ”˜Uncle John’s Band’ and ”˜Casey Jones’ ”“ sent a stack of about a dozen unsolicited, completed lyrics to Weir and Lesh. “It was a pleasant surprise,” Lesh recalls. “Maybe Hunter heard about what we were doing and was inspired by it.” Weir grabbed two of the lyrics for himself: first, ”˜Seven Hills of Gold’ (“It was on top of the stack,” he says), and the second with the working title ”˜Big Bad Blues,’ which Weir says reminds him of ”˜Althea’ and hasn’t been played live yet.

Neither Lesh nor Weir has asked Hunter to explain the songs. “If you ask, you get a disapproving look,” jokes Lesh. (The reclusive Hunter, who co-wrote Bob Dylan’s 2009 LP Together Through Life, declined to comment for the story.) Weir thinks the cosmic-travelogue lyrics to ”˜Seven Hills of Gold’ remind him of ”˜Terrapin Station.’ “I want to ask Hunter to write a trilogy like that,” the guitarist says.

Weir is nearing completion of a new studio near his home in San Rafael, California, outfitted with vinyl-pressing equipment, and hopes the band will record studio versions of the new material at some point. But for now, the only place fans will be able to hear the new songs is at Furthur shows or on bootlegs, which suits Lesh just fine. “I personally have no desire to make a record,” he says. “That art form is dead. I’d rather just put them out there on the web. We never made money off our albums anyway.”