Phil Lesh | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Philip Chapman Lesh |
Born | Berkeley, California, U.S. | March 15, 1940
Died | October 25, 2024 84) | (aged
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Years active | 1960–2024 |
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Formerly of | |
Website | www |
Philip Chapman Lesh (March 15, 1940 – October 25, 2024) was an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he developed a unique style of playing improvised six-string bass guitar. He was their bassist throughout their 30-year career. [1]
After the group disbanded in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of Grateful Dead family music with a side project, Phil Lesh and Friends, which paid homage to the Dead's music by playing their repertoire, as well as songs by members of his own group. Lesh operated a music venue called Terrapin Crossroads. From 2009 to 2014, he performed in Furthur alongside former Grateful Dead bandmate Bob Weir. He scaled back touring in 2014 but continued to perform concerts.
Lesh was born in Berkeley, California, on March 15, 1940, [2] the only child of Frank Lesh, an amateur piano player, and Barbra Chapman. [3] His father encouraged him to take up the violin at the age of eight. At El Cerrito High School in East Bay he became a member of the school's marching band. [4]
While enrolled at Berkeley High School he switched to trumpet and participated in the school's music-related extracurricular activities. [5] He studied the instrument under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band and became interested in avant-garde classical music and free jazz. [6] By his mid-teens, inspired by Beethoven and Charles Ives, he had decided that he wanted to be a composer. [7]
Lesh enrolled at the College of San Mateo, where he wrote arrangements for the community college's big band and played trumpet. [8] After transfering with sophomore standing to the University of California, Berkeley in 1961, he befriended future Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten. [9] At Constanten's suggestion, he studied under the Italian modernist Luciano Berio in a graduate-level course at Mills College in the spring of 1962, where their classmates included Steve Reich and Stanford University cross-registrant John Chowning. [10]
While volunteering for radio station KPFA as a recording engineer, Lesh met bluegrass banjo player Jerry Garcia and invited him to perform on the station's Midnight Special show, [11] and despite their different musical interests they became friends. Lesh briefly worked in the Post Office Department, where he drove a service truck. In spring 1965 he saw Garcia's new band, the Warlocks, in concert, and was impressed. A few weeks later Garcia invited him to become the group's bassist. [12] This was unexpected, as Lesh had never played bass guitar. [13] According to Lesh, the first song he rehearsed with the band was "I Know You Rider". [10] He joined them for their third or fourth gig (memories vary) and stayed until the end.[ citation needed ]
The group changed its name to the Grateful Dead and began playing at Ken Kesey's Acid Tests parties (LSD then being legal in California). [14] In late 1966 Lesh moved with the group to San Francisco, where they were signed to a recording deal with Warner Brothers, and found himself playing at venues such as the Filmore and the Avalon. [15] As Lesh had never before played bass he learned "on the job", which meant he had no preconceived ideas about the instrument's traditional role in the rhythm section and was free to develop his own style. [16] In his autobiography, he credited Jack Casady (the bassist in San Francisco band Jefferson Airplane) as an influence on the direction in which his instincts were taking him. [10] He said that his playing style was influenced more by Bach's counterpoint than by contemporaneous rock and soul bass players. [17] He also cited Jack Bruce of Cream as an influence. [18]
Lesh became an innovator in the new role that the electric bass was developing during the mid-1960s. [19] Contemporary bass players such as Casady, Bruce, James Jamerson, and Paul McCartney had adopted a more melodic, contrapuntal approach to the instrument. Before this, bass players in rock had generally played a conventional timekeeping role within the beat of the song, within (or underpinning) the song's harmonic or chord structure. While not abandoning these elements, Lesh went on his own improvised excursions during a song or instrumental, and in the group's long improvised jams in their live performances Lesh's six-string bass complemented Garcia's guitar solos [19] with cascades of notes and unusual time signatures. [20] This became a characteristic part of the so-called San Francisco Sound in the new rock music. [21]
Early on, Lesh grasped the sonic possibilities presented by recording in the studio, and his style of playing often led to complaints by the band's record label. Joe Smith of Warner Bros. wrote a letter about cost overruns that had accumulated during studio sessions for the band's second album, Anthem of the Sun (1968). According to music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Smith singled him out as "the catalyst for chaos within the band", writing: "It's apparent that nobody in your organization has enough influence over Phil Lesh to evoke anything resembling normal behavior." [22] Lesh was not a prolific composer or singer with the Grateful Dead, though he did occasionally make contributions such as the opening track on American Beauty , "Box of Rain". He co-wrote several of the band's best-known compositions, including "St Stephen", "The Eleven" and "Dark Star". [23] His high tenor voice contributed to the Grateful Dead's three-part harmony sections in their group vocals in the early days of the band, until he largely relinquished singing high parts to Donna Godchaux (and subsequently Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick) in 1974 because of vocal cord damage from improper singing technique. [24] In the early 80s, he resumed singing lead vocals on songs closer to his natural vocal range. [24]
Lesh introduced his bandmates to the aural explorations of the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. All of the band's shows were recorded by Deadhead tapers, and it became possible to listen to any given performance from 1972 or 1974 and hear the Grateful Dead interpreting the musical innovations that Lesh stimulated through Coltrane's influence. [22] Throughout the Dead's career, his interest in jazz avant-garde music remained a crucial influence on the group. He later introduced the band to composer Charles Ives, which created their ability to go spontaneously from a discordant jam into a blues or country song. [19] In the 30 years between 1965 and 1995 Lesh played almost 2,500 concerts with the Grateful Dead, many of them lasting for up to six hours. [25]
Lesh collaborated with Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the Dead's onetime sound engineer (and former source of LSD) in designing the Wall of Sound, an enormous sound reinforcement system they used for forty-odd shows in the 1974 tour. [22] After two years of problem-solving and planning, the forty-foot high Wall of Sound was first used publicly at the Cow Palace in San Francisco on March 23, 1974. With nine independent channels, the powerful system contained 604 speakers driven by 26,400 watts of power. Lesh compared playing through the system to "piloting a flying saucer. Or riding your own sound wave". [26] According to Lesh, Owsley persuaded the Dead to record every one of their shows, emphasizing the necessity of listening to the tapes. [27]
In 1994, Lesh was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead. [28]
After the Grateful Dead disbanded, Lesh continued to play the band's music in concert with its offshoots The Other Ones and The Dead and to promote San Francisco hippy philosophy, [29] as well as performing with his own band, Phil Lesh and Friends. [30] In 1999 and 2000, he co-headlined two tours with Bob Dylan. [31]
Lesh published his autobiography, Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead in 2005. [32] In 2009, he went on tour with the remaining members of the Grateful Dead. After the 2009 summer tour, Lesh formed a new band with Bob Weir named Furthur which debuted in September 2009. [33]
In 2012, Lesh founded a music venue called Terrapin Crossroads, in San Rafael, California. The venue officially opened on March 8, 2012, with a first of a run of twelve concerts by Phil Lesh and Friends. [34] [35] When not on tour, Lesh's sons, Grahame and Brian, served as the house band at Terrapin Crossroads. [36] In addition to songs from the Dead catalog, Lesh played material by Mumford & Sons, Zac Brown Band and other contemporary acts with his sons. [37] Terrapin Crossroads closed in November 2021 when their lease on the property expired. [38]
Lesh began performing again with Phil Lesh and Friends in 2012. Furthur disbanded in early 2014 and, at age 74, Lesh ceased touring full time. Thereafter he performed regularly at Terrapin Crossroads with various Phil Lesh and Friends lineups as well as with the Terrapin Family Band. In the early 2010s he performed select shows at venues throughout the United States, notably the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, as well as at festivals. [39] He took part in the 2015 Fare Thee Well concerts, and a short North American tour with Bob Weir in the spring of 2018. [40] In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 11th greatest bass player. [41] In March 2023, he celebrated his 83rd birthday and hundredth show at the Capitol Theatre. [42]
Lesh married Jill Johnstone, a waitress from the cafe next door to the Grateful Dead's office in San Francisco. [43] They had two sons, Grahame and Brian, both of whom became musicians and played with their father in the Terrapin Family Band. [44] They frequently played together, both publicly and in private. They performed in an annual benefit concert group known as Philharmonia, dating from 1997, including on December 18, 2011 at a Christmas gig which included Bob Weir and Jackie Greene at the Tenderloin Middle School cafeteria attended by 250 people. [45]
Lesh and his wife administered their charitable organization, the Unbroken Chain Foundation
Lesh had a lifelong interest in the occult and was a member of the Research Into Lost Knowledge organisation. [46]
In 1998, Lesh underwent a liver transplant as a result of a chronic hepatitis C infection. [47] He became an outspoken advocate for organ donation on live recordings of his performances. [48]
On October 26, 2006, Lesh stated on his official website that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the disease that killed his father, and would be undergoing an operation in December 2006. [49] On December 7, 2006, he reported that he had undergone prostate surgery and the cancer had been removed. [50] In October 2015, Lesh announced that he had had bladder cancer surgery. He stated that his prognosis was good and that he expected to make a full recovery. [51]
In August 2019, Lesh announced that he was to undergo back surgery and he and his band canceled engagements at the Outlaw Music Festival, Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, and Dirt Farmers Festival. He was expected to make a full recovery. [52]
Lesh died on October 25, 2024, at the age of 84. [53] [54] [55]
This past weekend we learned that Phil needs to have a minor back surgery. Per his Doctor's orders, he will need some time to rest and rehabilitate. Accordingly, and with deep regret, we must announce that Phil's upcoming performances Outlaw Festival September 7th and 8th, Dirt Farmers Festival and Telluride Blues and Brews Festival must be cancelled. A full and complete recovery is expected. Phil looks forward to performing and doing what he loves most for everyone very soon.
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in Palo Alto, California in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, folk, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, and world music with psychedelia, the band is famous for improvisation during their live performances, and for their devoted fan base, known as "Deadheads". According to the musician and writer Lenny Kaye, the music of the Grateful Dead "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." For the range of their influences and the structure of their live performances, the Grateful Dead are considered "the pioneering godfathers of the jam band world".
Phil Lesh and Friends was an American rock band formed and led by Phil Lesh, former bassist of the Grateful Dead.
Robert Hall Weir is an American musician and songwriter best known as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the group disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead. Weir also founded and played in several other bands during and after his career with the Grateful Dead, including Kingfish, the Bob Weir Band, Bobby and the Midnites, Scaring the Children, RatDog, and Furthur, which he co-led with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. In 2015, Weir, along with former Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, joined with Grammy-winning singer/guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti to form the band Dead & Company.
Jay Lane is an American musician. He is a founding member of Bob Weir's RatDog, with Weir and Rob Wasserman, Wolf Bros, Furthur, Golden Gate Wingmen, Dead & Company and Alphabet Soup. He was the 7th drummer to play in Primus, playing with the band for around eight months in 1988 and later rejoining the band from 2010-2013. Lane was a member of San Francisco Bay Area bands The Uptones from '83-'85, and The Freaky Executives '84-'89.
Dark Star Orchestra is a Grateful Dead cover band formed in Chicago, Illinois. They serve now as an international touring tribute band to the rock group the Grateful Dead. Since 1997, the band has been "celebrating the Grateful Dead concert experience."
Joe Russo is an American drummer and half of the Benevento/Russo Duo. He has toured, performed and recorded with a number of other bands, including Cass McCombs, A Big Yes and a Small No, Fat Mama, Robert Walter's 20th Congress, Bustle In Your Hedgerow, Younger Brother, Shpongle, Tom Hamilton's American Babies, the Trey Anastasio/ Mike Gordon duo, the Gene Ween Band, and Furthur. He also plays with the Shpongle Live Band. In 2013 he formed a Grateful Dead tribute band called Joe Russo's Almost Dead.
Ace is an album by Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Bob Weir. His first solo album, it was released in 1972. Weir's bandmates in the Grateful Dead back him on the album, and all but one of the songs became staples of the band's live shows.
Jeff Chimenti is an American keyboardist, best known for his ongoing work with former members of the Grateful Dead. Since May 1997 he has played with Bob Weir & RatDog, and has also played on every tour of The Dead and Furthur. He currently plays with Dead & Company.
Terrapin Station (Limited Edition) is a triple CD live album by the Grateful Dead released in 1997. It was recorded on March 15, 1990—bassist Phil Lesh's 50th birthday—at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, and contained a rare Beatles cover, "Revolution". "Revolution" was a favorite song of Lesh's and had previously been played at his request. It also features the first performance of "Easy to Love You" in almost 10 years. The concert performance from the previous night, recorded at the same venue, can be found on Spring 1990 (The Other One). Likewise, the concert from the following night, at the same venue, is contained on Spring 1990. Additionally, the performances of "Walkin' Blues" and "Althea" from this show can be found on the live compilation album Without a Net. Proceeds from this release were originally planned to support the construction of a multi-media Grateful Dead museum and concert venue; however, the plans fell through and were eventually replaced with Lesh's Terrapin Crossroads restaurant and concert venue.
The Dead was an American rock band composed of some of the former members of the Grateful Dead along with other musicians that were involved in some capacity with the "Dead Ethos". Throughout "The Dead's" career they had a revolving list of members leaving and joining the band including the former members of the Grateful Dead.
The Grateful Dead were an American rock band known for their lengthy, partially improvised performances, as well as for a loyal fan base who often followed the band for several shows or entire tours. They disbanded in 1995, following the death of de facto bandleader Jerry Garcia. Since then remaining members have reunited for a number of concert tours and one-off performances, often in very different configurations. The following is a list of instances where former Grateful Dead members have reunited.
To Terrapin: Hartford '77 is a live album by the American rock band the Grateful Dead. It was recorded at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut, on May 28, 1977, the last show of the band's 26-date East Coast tour in the spring of 1977. It was released by Rhino Records on April 7, 2009.
Furthur was an American rock band founded in 2009 by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh. The original lineup also included John Kadlecik of Dark Star Orchestra on lead guitar, RatDog's Jeff Chimenti on keyboards and Jay Lane on percussion, and Joe Russo of the Benevento/Russo Duo on drums. Named after the famous touring bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters in the 1960s, Furthur was an improvisational jam band that performed music primarily from the extensive Grateful Dead songbook, as well as their own original music and that of several other well-known artists. In addition to the original members, the band's lineup included backup vocalists Sunshine Becker of the a cappella ensemble SoVoSó and Jeff Pehrson of the folk rock bands Box Set and the Fall Risk.
John Kadlecik is an American guitarist. He was a founding member as the lead guitarist for the Grateful Dead tribute band, Dark Star Orchestra, in 1997. From 2009 to 2014 he performed with original Dead members Bob Weir and Phil Lesh in Furthur.
Tom Hamilton Jr. is an American songwriter, musician, and producer best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist for the bands Brothers Past, American Babies, Ghost Light, Joe Russo's Almost Dead, Bill Kreutzmann's Billy & the Kids, and Electron.
Sunshine Becker is an American singer who performed backing vocals for the band Furthur. Despite her maiden name, Garcia, she is not related to Jerry Garcia, an incorrect assumption made by some because of her involvement with Furthur, a post-Garcia incarnation of the Grateful Dead. Similarly, despite her first name, Sunshine, she is not to be confused with Sunshine Kesey, daughter of Ken Kesey and Carolyn Adams, Jerry Garcia's second wife.
Terrapin Crossroads was a music venue, bar, and restaurant active from 2011 until 2021 in San Rafael, California, founded by former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh.
Lockn' Festival, first known as Interlocken Music Festival, was an annual four-day music festival held at Oak Ridge Farm near Arrington in Nelson County, Virginia. The festival focused primarily on jam bands and other music improvisation acts. Its inaugural event took place September 5–8, 2013, drew nearly 25,000 fans and featured notable groups such as Furthur, Trey Anastasio Band, Gov't Mule, Widespread Panic featuring John Fogerty, The String Cheese Incident featuring Zac Brown, and The Black Crowes.
Move Me Brightly is a music documentary film. It contains live performances of Grateful Dead songs from a 2012 concert by Bob Weir and a number of other musicians, called "Move Me Brightly: Celebrating Jerry Garcia's 70th Birthday". The film also includes interviews with some of the performers, other musicians, and members of the Grateful Dead extended family. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2013.
Scott Guberman is an American keyboardist best known for his work with founding Grateful Dead bassist, Phil Lesh. After relocating to the Bay Area from the East Coast In 2015, Guberman was asked to join Phil Lesh's band "Communion". He now plays regularly as a member of Phil Lesh & Friends and with Lesh in other formations at Terrapin Crossroads.