Phil Lesh, founding member of Grateful Dead and influential bassist, dies at 84

LOS ANGELES – Phil Lesh, a classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling by reinventing the role of the rock bass as an instrument. founding member of the Grateful Dead, He died on Friday at the age of 84.

Lesh’s death was announced on his Instagram account. Lesh was the oldest and one of the longest-serving members of the band that came to define the acid rock sound emanating from San Francisco in the 1960s.

“Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed away peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and full of love. “Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves a legacy of music and love.” the instagram statement read in part.

The statement did not cite a specific cause of death and attempts to reach representatives for additional details were not immediately successful. Lesh had previously survived attacks of prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a liver transplant in 1998, necessitated by the debilitating effects of a hepatitis C infection and years of heavy drinking.

Lesh’s death comes two days after MusiCares named the Grateful Dead its Person of the Year. MusiCares, which helps music professionals in need of financial or other assistance, cited Lesh’s Unbroken Chain Foundation among other philanthropic initiatives. The Dead will be honored in January at a benefit gala before the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Although he maintained a relatively low public profile, rarely granting interviews or speaking to the public, fans and bandmates recognized Lesh as a key member of the Grateful Dead, whose thunderous lines on the six-string electric bass provided a brilliant counterpoint. to lead guitarist Jerry Garcia soaring solos and anchored the band’s famous jam marathons.

“When Phil is happening, the band is happening,” Garcia once said.

Drummer Mickey Hart called him the intellectual of the group who brought the mentality and skills of a classical composer to a five-chord rock ‘n’ roll band.

Lesh credited Garcia with teaching him to play bass in the unorthodox style of lead guitar he would become famous for, mixing thunderous arpeggios with fragments of spontaneously composed orchestral passages.

Fellow bassist Rob Wasserman once said that Lesh’s style set him apart from all the other bassists he knew. While most others were content to keep the beat and do the occasional solo, Wasserman said Lesh was good and confident enough to guide his fellow musicians through the melody of a song.

“He plays bass, but he’s more like a trumpeter, he does all those arpeggios, and he has that counterpoint all the time,” he said.

Lesh began his long musical odyssey as a classically trained violinist, beginning with lessons in third grade. He began playing trumpet at age 14 and eventually earned a second chair at California’s Oakland Symphony Orchestra while still a teenager.

But he had put both instruments aside and was driving a mail truck and working as a sound engineer for a small radio station in 1965 when Garcia recruited him to play bass in a fledgling rock band called The Warlocks.

When Lesh told Garcia that he didn’t play bass, the musician asked him, “Didn’t you play violin?” When he said yes, Garcia told him, “There you go, man.”

Armed with a cheap four-string instrument his girlfriend bought him, Lesh sat down for a seven-hour lesson with Garcia, following the latter’s advice that he tune the strings of his instrument an octave lower than the four lower strings of García’s guitar. Garcia then released him, allowing Lesh to develop the spontaneous style of play he would adopt for the rest of his life.

Lesh and Garcia frequently swapped leads, often spontaneously, while the band as a whole frequently performed long, jazz-influenced experimental improvisations during concerts. The result was that even well-known Grateful Dead songs like “Truckin’” or “Sugar Magnolia” rarely sounded the same two shows in a row, something that would inspire loyal fans to attend show after show.

“It’s always fluid, we just figure it out as we go,” Lesh said, chuckling, during a rare 2009 interview with The Associated Press. “You can’t set those things in stone in the rehearsal room.”

Phillip Chapman Lesh was born on March 15, 1940 in Berkeley, California, the only child of Frank Lesh, an office equipment repairman, and his wife, Barbara.

Years later he would say that his love of music arose from listening to New York Philharmonic broadcasts on his grandmother’s radio. One of his earliest memories was hearing the great German composer Bruno Walter conduct that orchestra during Brahms’ First Symphony.

The musical influences he often cited were not rock musicians but composers such as Bach and Edgard Varèse, as well as jazz greats such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Lesh had moved from classical music to cool jazz by the time he arrived at the College of San Mateo, eventually becoming the first trumpeter in the school’s big band and composer of several orchestral pieces performed by the group.

But he put the trumpet aside after college and concluded that he didn’t have the lung power to become an elite musician.

Shortly after taking up bass, The Warlocks renamed themselves the Grateful Dead and Lesh began to wow audiences with his prowess. Crowds gathered in what became known as “The Phil Zone” directly in front of his position on stage.

Although never a prolific songwriter, Lesh also composed music and occasionally sang some of the band’s most beloved songs. Among them were the upbeat country rocker “Pride of Cucamonga,” the jazz-influenced “Unbroken Chain,” and the ethereal and beautiful “Box of Rain.”

Lesh composed the latter on guitar as a gift for his dying father, and recalled that Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, upon hearing the instrumental recording, approached him the next day with a sheet of music containing the lyrics. On that sheet, he said, were “some of the most moving and heartfelt lyrics I have ever had the good fortune to sing.”

The band used to close their concerts with the song.

After the group’s dissolution following Garcia’s death in 1995, Lesh often did not join the other surviving members when they reunited to perform.

He participated in a Grateful Dead tour in 2009 and again in 2015 for some “Fare Thee Well” concerts that marked the band’s 50th anniversary and what Lesh said would be the last time he would play with the others.

However, he continued to perform frequently, with a rotating cast of musicians he called Phil Lesh and Friends.

In later years, he often performed those performances at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and nightclub he opened near his Northern California home in 2012, named after the Grateful Dead song and album, “Terrapin Station.”

Lesh is survived by his wife, Jill, and sons Brian and Grahame.

___

John Rogers, the lead author of this obituary, retired from The Associated Press in 2021.