28/10/2024
Friday, October 25th, the world mourned for the loss of Phil Lesh, who passed away this morning, Oct. 25. Lesh was an endlessly innovative performer, a crucial component of the Grateful Dead and a warm soul, whose care and passion helped to not only forge a new musical language, but unite a community around a philosophically-grounded sound. Through his work with the Grateful Dead and subsequent projects, as well as the guidance he offered to the next generation, he was instrumental in forging a new counterculture and guaranteeing its future. Lesh was 84.
“Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed peacefully this morning,” an announcement posted to the artist’s Instagram account details. “He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love.”
Phillip Chapman Lesh was born on March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, Calif. His father played piano and guided him to music early in his childhood, ultimately encouraging his practice with the violin at 8. While enrolled at El Cerrito High School in the East Bay, he transitioned to the trumpet and eagerly involved himself in all of his school’s music programs. Upon transferring to Berkeley High School, this creative zeal led Lesh to the formative experience of studying under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band, which he joined at 15.
Lesh sought higher education at the College of San Matteo, where he honed his abilities as an arranger by writing charts for the school’s big band. Upon transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, he crossed paths with future Dead bandmate Tom Constanten, who further fueled his fascination with the avant-garde by encouraging him to study under the Italian modernist composer Luciano Berio when he left Berkeley after a single semester.
While absorbing this graduate-level course at Mills College, he made his first foray into the music scene rising from the Bay Area’s subcultural crosswinds, taking a volunteer recording engineer post with KPFA. Through this commitment, he had his first chance encounters with Jerry Garcia, who was then still pursuing his first love of bluegrass banjo. Though their musical passions clashed, Garcia’s style was a revelation to Lesh, and the two quickly struck up a friendship.
In 1964, just as Garcia had switched to the electric guitar, he invited Lesh to learn bass and play in a new band he was forming, then called The Warlocks. Lesh, always more committed to his love of music and its endless horizons than any particular instrument, gladly accepted. As he learned the new medium, he did so on his own terms, with an outsider approach that bucked the conventions of regimented rock bass to fold in such disparate influences as Bach’s contrapuntal arrangements and jazz instigators like Charles Mingus.
This fusion would become the foundation for the Grateful Dead’s unrestricted improvisation. Though he was still familiarizing himself with his instrument at the band’s outset, Lesh’s performances were never anything short of innovative; before long, he claimed total mastery of tension and tenderness, meticulously adding abstractions to underscore his often blissfully melodic style. The bassist’s free jazz foundation supported the shapeshifting interplay within the ensemble, allowing him to seamlessly flow as a counterpoint to the distinctive sounds of each bandmate. He arguably shined brightest alongside Garcia, when the friends would split the melody between them, driving each other down bold new paths.
“Our mental preparation is always for that,” Lesh shared in a 2009 interview with Dave Schools for Relix. “In other words, you walk out on the stage and everything is possible. Everything is brand new and everything is possible. Nothing that’s gone before has any relevance at all. It’s what can happen now. When we hit that first note, that narrows down the possibilities somewhat, but it’s still virtually infinite, and that’s what I love about the way we make music.
“What you can do is prepare yourself to be open; open for the pipeline to open and the magic to flow down through us,” he continued. When the stars aligned, Phil gave himself over to dynamic and unpredictable runs, often ornamented with such striking leftfield chords as his patented “Phil Bombs.” Though he always commanded his post as a timekeeper, Lesh exuded a love for subtle diversions and controlled chaos that led fans to flock to the bassist’s corner of the stage, affectionately termed the “Phil Zone.”
On the attraction of the unpredictable, Lesh mused, “It’s kind of the last great American adventure, you know what I mean? Human beings need a little danger, a little uncertainty, a little adventure in their lives and our society frowns upon that. And so this music, no matter who makes it, this kind of music really speaks to some deep need in human beings.”
Outside of his instrument, Lesh contributed harmony vocals for the band and occasionally sang the lead. Though he was not the most prolific songwriter of the ensemble, the compositions he provided have become some of the most cherished in the band’s canon; he is credited as a co-writer on “Truckin,” “Unbroken Chain,” “Cumberland Blues” and “St. Stephen.” The enduring melody most closely associated with Lesh is “Box of Rain,” which he poured his heart into as he grieved for the imminent passing of his father in 1970.
Lesh remained a core member of the Grateful Dead for the entirety of its 30-year run. After the band dissolved with Garcia’s passing in 1995, the artist initially opted to turn the page, shifting his focus to his new family and a rekindled interest in symphonic performance. In 1998, he reunited with Bob Weir and Mickey Hart to form The Other Ones, which revived their pioneering jam sound on the 1999 album The Strange Remain with members of the new guard, like Steve Kimock and John Molo. In 2003, this shifting lineup restarted as The Dead, featuring Bill Keutzmann and welcoming newcomers like Jimmy Herring, Jeff Chimenti, Warren Haynes and more in periodic tours through 2009.
Also in 1998, Lesh formed the rotating ensemble of Phil Lesh & Friends, which became his primary solo venture and a revolving door for collaboration with younger artists. In scattered tours and residencies–including a stint as the Phil Lesh Quintet from 2000-2003–up through Lesh’s 2024 birthday residency at Port Chester, N.Y.’s Capitol Theatre, the outfit hosted more than 100 younger artists, the wide majority of whom have since ascended to the forefront of the genre. Lesh’s careful curation of accompaniment is one of the clearest ways by which he helped to nurture an emerging jamband community.
Lesh’s return to the scene just before the millennium was in part spurred by the liver transplant that he received at the age of 58. This procedure also led him to become an outspoken advocate for organ donation; in performances throughout the next two decades, he regularly paid tribute to his donor and voiced his support for transplantation.
One such instance arrived during the Fare Thee Well concerts, organized with support from promoter and Relix publisher Peter Shapiro to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s formation in 2015. Onstage alongside original bandmates Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart for one of their final performances together, Lesh stated: “I’m only alive today because a man named Cody decided he wanted to be an organ donor. And he did it in the simplest way possible: He turned to someone who loved him and he loved and said, ‘Hey, if anything happens to me, I’d like to be an organ donor.’”
In a 2002 interview for Relix, Lesh recalled the experience of returning to the stage after his procedure. “When I got back to California, it was another period of recuperation,” he said. “Then I just wanted to start doing something so I got a hold of Trey [Anastasio] and Page [McConnell] and we put a gig together which was really cool, really fun. We pulled out some of the old classic Grateful Dead songs that hadn’t been done in a long time. That’s when I realized that this is one of the reasons I’m still here–to continue to reinterpret this music. There is no closure. There’s not gonna be any closure. The music demands to be reinterpreted and played continually, frequently, because that’s how we made it in the first place – to be played and to be developed continually.”
And the music never stopped. Even after stepping away from full-time touring in 2014, Lesh gave back to his community by continuing to build out Terrapin Crossroads, the San Rafael, Calif. venue he founded in 2012. Between yearly returns to The Capitol Theatre, where he assumed the spotlight more than 100 times, the bassist performed semi-regular Phil Lesh & Friends shows at that intimate space and often joined his sons, Brian and Grahame, in the house band. After the brick-and-mortar business shuttered in 2021, Lesh embraced a new format with Terrapin Clubhouse, a YouTube series that joined the legendary artist with old and new friends alike for stripped-back studio sessions.
Lesh’s storied career and contributions to the Grateful Dead have earned tremendous acclaim. In 1994, the Grateful Dead were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 2007, the group joined the elite class of acts to earn the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, the Dead were selected as recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors and, on Wednesday, Oct. 23, MusiCares’ 2025 Persons of the Year award. In a testament to the group’s immortal influence, the Grateful Dead broke the record for the most Top 40 albums on the Billboard 200 chart in February, with 41 of the 59 placements occurring after 2012.
Lesh is survived by his wife Jill and his sons Brian and Grahame. Since his passing, an outpouring of love for the artist has erupted from his global, intergenerational fanbase. Relix will compile these tributes and messages of support as they continue in the coming days. Stay tuned for further remembrances as we pore over our archives to honor an artist for whom this outlet was formed. With heavy hearts, and with fans everywhere, we are eternally grateful.
Source: Relix
