Phil Lesh, Co-Founder of The Grateful Dead, Dies at 84

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Innovative bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh, passed away on Friday, according to a statement on his Instagram account. He was 84 years old.

For more than three decades, classically trained Lesh and Grateful Dead icon Jerry Garcia shared a close musical partnership that resulted in the eclectic California rock band’s psychedelic sound and renowned onstage improvisation.

The statement said Lesh “passed peacefully” and was “surrounded by his family and filled with love.”

“Phil brought great joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love.”

Lesh was an early pioneer of the electric bass sound that developed in the 1960s; Taking a more melodic, improvisational approach to the instrument, he was traditionally more of a timekeeper and his chords were dominant rather than background.

He was far from the band’s most prolific writer, but he co-wrote some of the Dead’s most notable, jam-worthy tracks (among them “Dark Star” and “St. Stephen”) and also sang harmonies for the band. less frequently he led vocals.

Born on March 15, 1940 in Berkeley, California, Lesh’s life as a musician began with the violin. He later began playing the trumpet and composed music for orchestras, as his studies gave him a keen interest in avant-garde classical and free jazz.

Working as a volunteer recording engineer at a local public radio station while studying under Italian modernist Luciano Berio, Lesh met bluegrass banjo player Garcia.

In the fall of 1964, he joined Garcia’s new band, The Warlocks, and started playing bass guitar.

He would later say that he was more inspired by Bach’s style of counterpoint – a theory of classical music that focuses on the relationship of harmonically interconnected musical parts – than by his contemporaries.

As the Grateful Dead, band members became major figures of the counterculture beginning in the 1960s, revolutionizing fan interaction as “Deadheads” traveled from show to show.

Many followers recorded and exchanged bootleg tapes of the concerts and enjoyed the drug-addled communal camp environment.

The rockers disbanded in 1995, a few months after Garcia’s death.

“Jerry was the center,” Lesh later told Rolling Stone. “We were the spokes in the wheel. And the music were the steps of the wheel.”

Lesh continued to carry on the Dead tradition in various iterations over the decades. He retired from regular touring in 2014.

In 1998, Lesh underwent a liver transplant after a hepatitis C infection and subsequently used his concerts as a platform to encourage fans to become organ donors.

In 2015, he said he had cancerous bladder tumors following a 2006 battle with prostate cancer.

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