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Any serious fan will tell you that the best Grateful Dead shows were the ones where Phil Lesh was up front and prominent in the mix, playing at an inspired level.
Phil Lesh, Bassist for the Grateful Dead, Dies at 84
Bassist Phil Lesh, whose dense, inventive playing powered the Grateful Dead and, following the 1995 death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, many of the San Francisco band’s touring reincarnations, died Friday.
This approach allowed Lesh to experiment with his music while giving a bit of new life to the songs that had defined his career
In 2011 Lesh established Terrapin Crossroads, a music venue and community space in San Rafael, California. By that time, Lesh was demonstrating complete mastery of his adopted instrument, and he also contributed high harmonies to the band’s vocal mix.
After the lease ran out on the property in 2021, Lesh announced that Terrapin Crossroads would close permanently. For some unknown reason, he wanted to share it with me and thought I would like it. From the late 1960s into the 1970s, the band became one of the most iconic bands of the counterculture movement. Over the years, there were several lineup changes, with members such as Mickey Hart, Robert Hunter, and Tom Constanten among the first to join.
Despite not playing the instrument before, Phil became the bassist after he learned, taking inspiration from such artists as Jack Bruce, Cream, and Charles Mingus.
There, he encountered avant-garde composers, who influenced his understanding of harmony and composition. At what age did Phil Lesh died?
Ans: Phil died at the age of 84.
Q. He was making a living driving a postal service truck when he dropped into Magoo’s Pizza Parlor to catch the second gig by the group that had grown out of the guitarist’s previous endeavor, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions.
A couple of years later, my Uncle gave me a copy of Mars Hotel and with a knowing smile, told me to give it a listen. During that time, the band released several hit albums, such as “Anthem of the Sun,” From the Mars Hotel,” “American Beauty,” “Workingman’s Dead,” “Europe ’72,” “Wake of the Flood,” and “Blues for Allah.”
In 1987, the band landed its biggest commercial success with its album “In the Dark,” which placed at No.
6 on the Billboard 200 and launched the hit single “Touch of Grey.” After dropping their final studio album, “Without a Net,” in 1990, they began releasing retrospective live albums. The band was composed of musicians who had played in various Bay Area ensembles. The band was active until 2014.
Other Ventures
Beyond the walls of music, in 2005, Phil Lesh wrote the memoir “Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead.” Seven years later, he formed the music venue Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael, California.
From the first, the Dead actively encouraged their fans to record their live shows, and tapes were traded from hand to hand; Lesh swiftly became one of the most-documented bass players in musical history, with an estimated 2,000 Dead shows captured for posterity.
On Aug. 9, 1995, Garcia, who had grappled with health and drug addiction issues for years, suffered a fatal heart attack at the Serenity Knolls treatment center in Forest Knolls, Calif.
After a split with producer Dave Hassinger, he helped mix the band’s 1968 sophomore album “Anthem of the Sun,” which employed a cut-up editing technique common to avant garde music of the period.
As a writer, he co-authored a number of compositions – “St.
For Deadheads and music lovers alike, Phil Lesh’s legacy remains a source of inspiration and joy.
His annual birthday run of shows and Philoween at the Capitol Theater were much anticipated events of the year. Lesh’s training gave him a unique musical perspective, blending classical techniques with jazz improvisation, and allowed him to approach bass guitar with a harmonic and melodic sensibility that was uncommon in rock music at the time.
The transition to bass guitar came fortuitously and completely by accident.
And although I quickly fell in love with all things Jerry Garcia, I never would have discovered my love for the Grateful Dead without Phil Lesh. We request that you respect the Lesh family’s privacy at this time.”
Lesh was a classically trained trumpeter who had studied with avant garde composer Luciano Berio and played with minimalist pioneer Steve Reich when he was recruited to play bass – an instrument he had never studied – at a 1965 show in a Menlo Park, CA, pizza parlor by the Warlocks, a group fronted by his friend Jerry Garcia.
“I was so excited that I didn’t have to think about it…but I knew something great was happening, something bigger than everybody, bigger than me for sure,” Lesh told the Dead’s publicist and official historian Dennis McNally in the 2002 book “A Long Strange Trip.”
It is difficult to envision the oft-sprawling, improvisational work of the Dead without the sophisticated contributions of Lesh, who — like his Bay Area colleague Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane and his English contemporary Jack Bruce of Cream — essentially reinvented the role of the bassist in a rock band format, in a unit that began life playing covers of bluegrass, blues and country tunes.
“What makes the Dead’s sound so distinct from any other kind of rock and roll may be Lesh’s bass,” Nick Paumgarten noted in a 2012 New Yorker piece about the band’s devoted “Deadhead” fans.
The writer added, “He did not like to repeat things, which is rare for an instrument usually charged with keeping time.
The group became known for interpreting Grateful Dead classics and Lesh’s own compositions, but with a unique twist: each lineup brought different styles. He embarked on solo projects and formed "Phil Lesh and Friends," an ever-evolving lineup of musicians that allowed him to continue exploring the Dead's music while also venturing into new territory.