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Big Daddy Weave’s Bassist Jay Weaver… A Reader Remembers
Reader Robert Burd shares a personal memory of Jay Weaver, the bass player for Big Daddy Weave.
Featured video… in my opinion, this is Jay’s best bassline, My Story, which is on the Beautiful Offerings album.
Jay Weaver was such an awesome bass player and is still an inspiration to me and I am sure many other bass players. He passed away on January 4th, 2022 at the age of 42.
His brother and fellow band member Mike Weaver announced the news on social media.
A few years ago when I was living in Rapid City, South Dakota, Big Daddy Weave came through with Plumb and We Are Messengers. I was in the 4th row, facing Jay’s side of the stage. At this time, he was in his motorized wheelchair due to having amputations as a result of some medical conditions.
During the show, as usual, the band breaks into moments of worship and prayer with the crowd. There was a gentleman in the seat and row in front of me that was really moved by what was going on and had an obvious emotional reaction. In the middle of the song and moment, I saw Jay looking at this man. He then motioned to his roadie who came over to Jay and took his bass, which was a 5-string Fender.
Jay then noticed he could get down to the crowd via a ramp on that side of the stage.
He used his wheelchair and came down the ramp and right to the row of this gentleman in front of me. The man looked up as by this time he had been crouched over. Jay opened his arms and the man collapsed into Jay and it seemed like an eternity, but Jay and this man were in serious prayer and communication. I was absolutely overwhelmed with emotion watching all this, as I had been going through some serious struggles myself. They hugged and Jay went right back up the ramp, got his bass from the roadie, got back into his position on stage, and picked up into the song and worship that had been going on.
After the show, I said hello to the man in front of me and just smiled as did he.
Jay was a wonderful person and I have seen many tributes from other musicians who knew him. I was privileged to have seen him play quite a few times as BDW came to Rapid City a lot. My last encounter was when they came to play the Hills Alive festival and I watched Jay come off the bus in his wheelchair via the special access. He had his wife and kids and the little one was in his lap; you could tell he was such a proud father and husband. I could have gone over and talked about bass gear and so on, but I did not want to interrupt his family time.
Here’s a link to a beautiful tribute done a few months ago at an awards show.
And now, Michael Bloodgood recently passed away.
He too was an incredible bass player and singer for decades in the band Bloodgood. (Note: The editor of Bass Musician was scheduled to speak with Michael one week prior to him having a massive stroke, from which he never recovered.)
I just hope there can be some sort of recognition for these amazing bass players and people.
In fact, there are some great bass players in the Christian music scene. One example is JR Collins of Crowder. I am a huge fan, plus he also raps and is the musical director of the band. My hope is that this genre of music and awesome talent is not excluded from the public eye. I am a Christian and I play bass at my church but I also play in a metal band and also a 3-piece rock band writing originals.