Hey, everybody. We got a best of today. As you know, that means it's a great one.

Singer, songwriter, guitarist John Mayer is my guest. Now, we recorded this back in January of 2020,

in Mexico with Dead and Company. John had started playing with them in 2015,

and John and I discussed his approach to being the lead guitarist for the Grateful Dead when

you are, of course, stepping into the shoes of an icon Jerry Garcia who passed in 1995. Jerry and I

were friends. Tom Davis and I were friends.

Tom Davis and I were huge deadheads.

I still am.

And when they came to play on SNL in 1978,

we made sure that they got to know us and we got to know them.

And actually, Tom and I opened for them a couple of times in 1980. And if you want to go to

YouTube, you can find Franken and Davis opening for the Grateful Dead at Radio City Music Hall.

It's about eight minutes. And I can tell you, I think it's, it's, it's pretty, pretty funny.

Now, in this podcast, John and I talk about his approach to playing with Dead and Company.

And one of the things you may know is that Jerry wrote a lot of the Dead catalog.

He and Robert Hunter, who wrote the lyrics when, when they wrote together, he also did some lyrics for Bob Weir's songs, but Jerry's songs, you mean, if you're a deadhead, you know Althea and Bertha,

broke down Palace, Casey Jones, Ripple, Scarlett Begonias. And of course, Weir wrote playing in

the band and looks like Rain and mexicali blues so but jerry

wrote the hooks or played the hooks and or invented the hooks for these songs and all of these

songs the hooks are really really important and john and i John Mayer and I discuss these hooks, and he sings all the hooks,

or not every hook, he sings a lot of these hooks. And what was interesting about it is when

we did the interview, he said, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I want to make sure I'm in the

...