1. Vincent Leo Welnick was an American keyboardist and singer-songwriter, best known for playing with the band The Tubes during the 1970s and 1980s and with the Grateful Dead in the 1990s.
18 Facts About Vince Welnick
1. 2.
Vince Welnick was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead.
3.
Vince Welnick joined a band, the Beans, which eventually morphed into the Tubes, a San Francisco-based theater rock band popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s and noted for early live performances that combined lewd quasi-pornography with wild satires of media, consumerism and politics.
4.
Vince Welnick was selected, not least for his high vocal range for backup harmonies.
5.
Vince Welnick's first show with the Grateful Dead was on September 7,1990, at the Richfield Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio.
6.
Vince Welnick's Associated Press obituary mentioned he was so nervous at his first gig with the band that he could barely play, until the fans put him at ease.
7.
Vince Welnick remained as a member of the Grateful Dead and the band's keyboard player until Jerry Garcia's death in August 1995, when the group disbanded.
8.
Vince Welnick became depressed following a diagnosis of cancer and emphysema shortly before the final Grateful Dead tour.
9.
Vince Welnick decided to do the summer 1995 Grateful Dead tour and wait to have surgery until after the tour ended.
10.
Vince Welnick joined Bob Weir's new group, Ratdog, as the keyboard player, touring with them around the US.
11.
About six months after Garcia's death, Vince Welnick attempted suicide on the tour bus to Monterey, California.
12.
Vince Welnick received therapy, successful cancer treatment, and management of the early stages of lung disease.
13.
Vince Welnick worked with the band Second Sight, with Bob Bralove, and with Missing Man Formation, which released an album that included the song "Golden Days", a tribute to Garcia.
14.
Vince Welnick participated in the second Phil Lesh and Friends show in March 1998, and he toured the US with the Mickey Hart Band later that year.
15.
Vince Welnick left behind hundreds of hours of unreleased material, both personal and professional recordings.
16.
Vince Welnick played a small part in the 1981 film Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.
17.
Vince Welnick played Jerry Jervey, the guitar player with the Corpses, who dies of an overdose in a backstage bathroom.
18.
Vince Welnick appeared in Xanadu, along with the rest of the Tubes.