Rob Barraco

Rob Barraco is an American keyboardist and singer, born April 27, 1955 and raised on Long Island, New York, whose career has run largely through the Grateful Dead's extended family. Before that association he worked as a session and touring player, including a decade as a keyboardist on the television series The Cosby Show and A Different World and a stint touring with the R&B singer Freddie Jackson. He spent eleven years with the Long Island Grateful Dead-influenced band the Zen Tricksters, recording two studio albums with them; it was their record A Love Surreal that brought him to Phil Lesh's attention. He began playing in Lesh's projects in 1999 and was the permanent keyboardist for Phil Lesh and Friends from 2000 to 2003, a period that included the 2002 Alpine Valley shows alongside surviving members of the Grateful Dead and touring as The Other Ones with fellow keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. He carried on into The Dead when the surviving members regrouped under that name, and in 2004 joined Chris Robinson's New Earth Mud. He began touring with Dark Star Orchestra in 2005 after the death of that band's keyboardist Scott Larned, and became a permanent member in 2007; he remains in the lineup with Jeff Mattson, Rob Eaton, Lisa Mackey, Dino English, Rob Koritz and Skip Vangelas. Dark Star Orchestra's premise is to recreate specific Grateful Dead concerts night by night, which requires Barraco to cover the parts of every keyboardist that band ever had — Ron McKernan, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick — and to match the instrument and tone appropriate to the era being played. He has described the aim as offering a historical perspective on what a show in 1978 or 1985 might have felt like. He also contributed to Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter's 2007 release When We All Come Home, plays guitar and bass in addition to keyboards, and sings a share of the lead vocals in the bands he works with.

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