Grateful Dead founding member Phil Lesh dies at 84

By JOHN ROGERS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter Phil Lesh found his true calling by rediscovering the role of the rock bass guitar. 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 one of the oldest and longest-surviving members of the band that defined the acid rock sound that emanated from San Francisco in the 1960s.

“Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed away peacefully this morning. His family was with him and full of love. “Phil brought great joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love.” Instagram’s description partially reads.

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

Although he maintained a relatively low public profile, rarely giving interviews or speaking to audiences, fans and band members recognized Lesh as a critical member of the Grateful Dead, whose booming lines on the six-string electric bass provided the perfect counterpoint to the lead guitarist. It foreshadowed Jerry Garcia’s soaring solos and the band’s famous marathon songs.

“When there’s Phil, there’s the band,” Garcia once said.

Drummer Mickey Hart described him as the intellectual of the band, bringing 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 an unorthodox lead guitar style, mixing booming arpeggios with spontaneously composed orchestral passages.

My bassist friend Rob Wasserman once said that Lesh made his style different from any bassist he had ever known. While most of the others were content to take their time and play the occasional solo, Wasserman said Lesh was both good enough and confident enough to lead his fellow musicians through the melody of a song.

“He plays bass, but he’s more like a horn player, doing all these arpeggios — and there’s this counterpoint going on all the time,” he said.

Lesh began his long musical journey as a classically trained violinist with third grade lessons. He started playing the trumpet at the age of 14 and eventually won the second chair in the Oakland Symphony Orchestra of California while still in his teens.

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

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

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

While Lesh and Garcia would often spontaneously exchange leads, the band as a whole would often break into long experimental, jazz-influenced songs during concerts. The result was that even well-known Grateful Dead songs like “Truckin'” or “Sugar Magnolia” were rarely performed the same two performances in a row; this was something that would inspire loyal fans to tune in after show.

“It’s always fluid, we figure it out pretty much on the fly,” Lesh said with a chuckle during a rare 2009 interview with The Associated Press. “You can’t fix these in the rehearsal room.”

First Publication Date: 25 October 2024, 14:23