Grateful Dead’s poetic lyricist dead at 78

LOS ANGELES — Robert Hunter, the man behind the poetic and mystical words for many of the Grateful Dead’s finest songs, has died at age 78.

Hunter died Monday at his Northern California home with his wife, Maureen, at his side, former Grateful Dead publicist Dennis Mcnally said Tuesday. The family did not release a cause of death.

“We loved Bob Hunter and will miss him unimaginably,” Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart said, adding the lyricist was “a visionary wordsmith extraordinaire.”

Although proficient on a number of instruments including guitar, violin, cello and trumpet, Hunter never appeared on stage with the Grateful Dead during the group’s 30-year run that ended with the 1995 death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, his principal songwriting partner.

When he did attend the group’s concerts, he was content to either stand to the side of the stage or, Hunter better yet, sit anonymously in the audience. It was in the latter location, he said in 2006, that he received his greatest songwriting compliment, from a man who had no idea who he was.

“He turned to me during ‘Cumberland Blues’ and said, ‘I wonder what the guy who wrote that song a hundred years ago would think if he knew the Grateful Dead was doing it,’” he recalled.

Hunter’s other memorable Grateful Dead songs include “It Must Have Been the Roses,” “Terrapin Station,” “The Days Between,” “Brown Eyed Women,” “Jack Straw, “Friend of the Devil,” “Box of Rain,” “Uncle John’s Band” and “Black Muddy River.”

“Truckin’,” arguably Hunter and the group’s best-known song, was designated a national treasure in 1997 by the Library of Congress.

When the Grateful Dead was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, Hunter was included as the lyricist. He and Garcia were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015.

Hunter released nearly a dozen albums of his own, published several volumes of poetry and co-wrote songs with Bob Dylan.