Phil Lesh of The Grateful Lifeless, seen right here in 2005, died Friday on the age of 84.
Michael Buckner/Getty Pictures North America
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Michael Buckner/Getty Pictures North America
Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of countercultural rock band The Grateful Lifeless, has died. He was 84 years outdated. His household posted the information on Lesh’s official Instagram web page.
Born in Berkeley, Calif., in 1940, Lesh was initially drawn to classical music. He performed violin as a toddler earlier than turning his consideration to the trumpet, which he studied all through highschool and his time on the School of San Mateo. Within the early ‘60s, he met banjo participant Jerry Garcia, who later requested him to affix his rock band, The Warlocks, as their bassist — an instrument Lesh didn’t play. He accepted nonetheless, and in 1965, The Grateful Lifeless was born, with Lesh discovering his footing within the improvisation-driven group as he went.
“On a day-to-day foundation, the psychic pivot to the Lifeless is Phil Lesh, essentially the most aggressive purist, the anti-philistine Artist,” wrote Grateful Lifeless biographer Dennis McNally in his 2002 e book A Lengthy Unusual Journey: The Inside Historical past of the Grateful Lifeless. “It’s he who most frequently and most loudly calls for that they dance as intently as doable to the sting of the closest out there precipice. Mental, kinetic, intense, he was as soon as nicknamed Reddy Kilowatt in recognition of his excessive psychological and bodily velocity.”
The Grateful Lifeless bassist Phil Lesh (proper), enjoying with drummer Invoice Kreutzmann and lead singer Jerry Garcia in 1970.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Pictures/Hulton Archive
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Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Pictures/Hulton Archive
Over the Lifeless’s many years of musical longevity and reinvention, Lesh went on to sing lead vocals on a number of the band’s most memorable songs, together with “Field of Rain” off the 1970 album American Magnificence, which he composed alongside longtime Lifeless lyricist Robert Hunter, and “Unbroken Chain” off 1974’s From the Mars Resort.
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After Garcia’s loss of life in 1995, Lesh reunited with fellow band members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart and keyboardist Bruce Hornsby to tour as The Different Ones, and later, The Lifeless. He additionally launched albums along with his personal group, Phil Lesh and Pals, and for a decade operated a preferred venue known as Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael, Calif. There, Lesh typically carried out alongside his sons, Grahame and Brian. Although Terrapin closed in 2021, the Lesh household continued to champion stay music in Northern California, most lately organizing a pageant known as Sunday Daydreams, which Lesh headlined this previous summer season.
“I must say that music and performing are as important as foods and drinks to me, however much more in order I grow old,” Lesh advised The Marin Impartial Journal in June. “Whereas it will possibly generally be extra of a problem bodily than it was once I was a younger whippersnapper, I’ve discovered that age brings knowledge, and with that comes musical expertise and data that I didn’t have once I was youthful.”