Elementary School Choir Sings the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple,” “Box of Rain,” “Brokedown Palace” & More: RIP Bob Weir

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Down in Austin, Texas, music teacher Gavin Tabone leads the Bar­ton Hills Choir, made up of 3rd- through 6th-grade stu­dents. Backed by pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians, the choir per­forms a wide-rang­ing mix of music, from clas­sic pop and rock to indie songs by artists like Wilco, Muse, The Flam­ing Lips, and espe­cial­ly the Grate­ful Dead. Above and below, you can find per­for­mances of such Dead clas­sics as “Rip­ple,” “Box of Rain” and “Going Down the Road Feel­ing Bad” → “I Know You Rid­er.” And if you head to their YouTube chan­nel, you can find ver­sions of “Cas­sidy,” “Touch of Grey,” “Scar­let Bego­nias,” “Broke­down Palace,” and more.

With the pass­ing of Bob Weir this week­end, it seems like a fit­ting time to high­light these per­for­mances. Weir first joined the Dead when only a teenag­er, still basi­cal­ly a kid him­self, and then con­tin­ued the jour­ney for the next 60 years, intro­duc­ing the Dead­’s song­book to suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of fans. In recent years, he talked about the Dead song­book endur­ing for the next 200 to 300 years, much as Beethoven remains with us today. As we watch ele­men­tary stu­dents per­form Grate­ful Dead clas­sics, it’s hard not to think that Weir was on to some­thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ele­men­tary School Kids Sing David Bowie’s “Space Odd­i­ty” & Oth­er Rock Hits: A Cult Clas­sic Record­ed in 1976

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Rip­ple” Played By Musi­cians Around the World (with Cameos by David Cros­by, Jim­my Buf­fett & Bill Kreutz­mann)

When the Grate­ful Dead Played at the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids, in the Shad­ow of the Sphinx (1978)

The Iso­lat­ed Bass Grooves of The Grate­ful Dead’s Phil Lesh (RIP)

Stream a Mas­sive Archive of Grate­ful Dead Con­certs from 1965–1995

How the Grate­ful Dead’s “Wall of Sound”–a Mon­ster, 600-Speak­er Sound System–Changed Rock Con­certs & Live Music For­ev­er