Bobby & the Midnites

Bobby and the Midnites
Bobby and the Midnites in 1981. (Back L-R: Billy Cobham, Bobby Cochran, Matthew Kelly. Front L-R: Brent Mydland, Bob Weir, Alphonso Johnson)
Background information
Origin	San Francisco, California
Genres	Rock
Years active	1980–1984
Labels	Arista, Columbia
Associated acts	Grateful Dead
Past members	Bob Weir Bobby Cochran Billy Cobham Matthew Kelly Brent Mydland Tim Bogert Alphonso Johnson Dave Garland Kenny Gradney

Bobby and the Midnites was a rock group led by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. The band was Weir's main side project during the first half of the 1980s. They released two albums, but were better known for their live concerts than for their work in the recording studio. With a rhythm section that included jazz veterans Billy Cobham and, for a time, Alphonso Johnson, Bobby and the Midnites played rock music that was influenced by jazz-rock fusion.

In 1978, Bob Weir had led a side project called the Bob Weir Band that played a number of concerts. Besides Weir himself, two members of the Bob Weir Band were in Bobby and the Midnites. One was guitarist and singer Bobby Cochran (Eddie Cochran's nephew), formerly of Steppenwolf. The other was keyboardist and singer Brent Mydland, who in the interim had joined the Grateful Dead. Matthew Kelly was another "Midnite" who had already played in a band with Weir — Kingfish, which Kelly and Dave Torbert had founded in 1973, and which Weir had played in full-time from 1974 to 1976. Kelly played guitar, harmonica, and congas. Tim Bogert, who had previously been in Vanilla Fudge and Beck, Bogert & Appice, was recruited to play bass guitar. The Midnites' drummer was Billy Cobham, a highly regarded jazz and fusion musician who had played with Miles Davis and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, among others.