Phil Lesh, founder of the Grateful Dead and influential bassist, dies at the age of 84

Entertainment

Lesh was the oldest and one of the longest-living members of the band that defined the sound of acid rock emerging from San Francisco in the 1960s.

JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press

October 25, 2024 | 17:54

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Phil Lesh, a classically trained jazz violinist and trumpeter who found his true calling in reinventing the role of the rock bass guitar as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday at age 84.

Lesh’s death was announced on his Instagram account. Lesh was the oldest and one of the longest-living members of the band that defined the sound of acid rock emerging 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 family and full of love. “Phil brought immense joy to those around him and left behind a legacy of music and love,” a statement on Instagram read in part.

The statement did not provide a specific cause of death, and attempts to contact officials for additional details were not immediately successful. Lesh had previously survived bouts with prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a liver transplant in 1998, brought on 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 Person of the Year. MusiCares, which helps music professionals in need of financial and other assistance, cited the Lesh Unbroken Chain Foundation among its other philanthropic initiatives. The Dead will be honored in January at a pre-Grammy benefit gala in Los Angeles.

Although he kept a relatively low profile in the public eye, rarely giving interviews or speaking to audiences, fans and other band members recognized Lesh as a key member of the Grateful Dead, whose thunderous parts on six-string electric bass provided a great counterpoint to the lead guitarist. Thrilling solos from Jerry Garcia and anchoring the band’s famous marathon performances.

“When Phil happens, the band happens,” Garcia once said.

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

Lesh credits Garcia with teaching him to play bass in the unconventional lead guitar style for which he became famous, mixing thunderous arpeggios with snippets 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 carve out time and perform the occasional solo, Wasserman found Lesh good enough and confident enough to lead the other musicians through the melody of a song.

“He happens to play bass, but he’s more like a horn player, doing all these arpeggios, and he’s playing 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 the trumpet at the age of 14, and as a teenager he became second principal of the California Symphony Orchestra in Oakland.

However, he largely put both instruments aside and drove a mail truck and worked as an audio engineer at a small radio station in 1965, when Garcia recruited him to play bass in the fledgling rock band The Warlocks.

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

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

Lesh and Garcia frequently swapped leads, often spontaneously, while the band as a whole often engaged in long experimental jazz-influenced jams during live shows. As a result, even well-known Grateful Dead songs like “Truckin'” and “Sugar Magnolia” rarely sounded the same for two shows in a row, inspiring loyal fans to go to show after show.

“Things are always fluid, we just figure it out as we go,” Lesh said with a laugh during a rare interview with The Associated Press in 2009. “You can’t carve these things in stone in a rehearsal room.”

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

In later years, he said that his love for music arose from listening to the New York Philharmonic on his grandmother’s radio. One of his earliest memories is listening to the great German composer Bruno Walter conduct this 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.

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

However, after graduating from college, he put the trumpet aside and concluded that he did not have enough lungs to become an elite player.

Shortly after he started playing bass, the Warlocks changed their name to the Grateful Dead, and Lesh began to captivate audiences with his agility. Crowds gathered in what was called “Phil’s Zone,” directly in front of his seat on stage.

Although never a prolific songwriter, Lesh also composed the music for and sometimes sang some of the band’s most beloved songs. These included the upbeat country rocker “Pride of Cucamonga,” the jazz-influenced “Unbroken Chain” and the ethereally beautiful “Box of Rain.”

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

The band often ended their concerts with a song.

After the group disbanded following Garcia’s death in 1995, Lesh often skipped joining the surviving members when they got together for performances.

He toured the Grateful Dead in 2009 and again in 2015 for several “Fare Thee Well” shows to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary and, Lesh said, the last time he would play with others.

But he still played frequently with a rotating cast of musicians he called Phil Lesh and friends.

In later years, he usually performed these shows at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and nightclub he opened in 2012 near his Northern California home and which took its name from 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.