Phil Lesh has passed

[rick andrews]

I'm sad to post that Phil Lesh passed away today. It was a long strange trip indeed. Thanks for the ride. RIP.

[Mark Perrodin]

our very own dave zirbel played with phil on a number of occasions. he might have a tale or two.

[Eric Dahlhoff]

"Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there."
We'll miss you Phil!

[Mark Perrodin]

dave is a working steel player and guitarist. humble to a fault. i put these pics up to remember the times he had with his friend phil. phil and dave look like they were having fun.

[Mark Perrodin]

[Dave Zirbel]

Thanks Mark, good memories for sure…yeah RIP Phil…I logged in over 250 shows for about 8 years at Phil’s venue/restaurant, Terrapin Crossroads, and that’s nothing compared to some of the other local musicians. I played with Phil a handful of times….never expected that to happen! Can’t say we were super close but we were friendly towards each other. He had some heavyweight steel players in at times such as Jon Graboff, Barry Sless, and Robert Randolph…I think Pete Grant and Jon Mitgard played there too.

Anyhow that place was thriving, music 7 days a week, anywhere from 2 to 4 bands a day..sometimes even 5. Mon-Friday you had the happy hour band and an evening band in the restaurant and bar. On Saturdays and Sundays you had the brunch band, plus happy hour and evening sets, and if there was a show in The Grate Room concert hall, the bar shows didn’t stop. The parking lot was alway full…there was also a nice amphitheater outside which was always fun…they had excellent sound reinforcement equipment and several awesome sound engineers. They did not cut corners on sound.

In the Grate Room, Phil had some great players such as John Scofield, Medeski, Martin and Woods, Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes), Los Lobos, to name a few. One time Greg Alman stopped by unannounced with his band and took over the stage in the bar. And heck, little old me got to play not only with Phil, but with Peter Rowan, Bob Weir, and Chris Robinson…..

And then Covid hit and pretty much killed it. But the community centered around that venue is still thriving and the musicians are playing all over the Bay Area.

I was one of those guys who converted to pedal steel through the Grateful Dead…and I’m truly grateful (pun intended), and honestly when that venue opened, I had gone onto to other kinds of music, but it was familiar territory, a comfort zone and I’m pretty nostalgic, and fell back into it…I had fun and made a bunch of friends and contacts, but I also burned out, but I feel lucky and blessed to have been at that special place at that time…

Thank you sincerely Phil, for that. Condolences to his wife and sons.

[Ross Shafer]

RIP Phil!

[Jon Light (deceased)]

He is as large as anybody in my musical life in terms of what I learned from his music. This tore me up yesterday. I'm doing a lot of listening today.

[Bob Bender]

I was lucky to have grown up in the SF Bay area in the late 60’s. We always regarded the Dead as our local band. They even played our high school. Somehow I ended up on stage behind the amps that night. Phil’s thundering bass rattled my bones. What a great time. Phil’s playing gave the Dead their signature sound. Check out David Crosby’s “Laughing” with Phil and Jerry using that great echo chamber on steel at Wally Heider’s studio in late ‘69.Thank you Phil for the memories.

[John Larson]

He is as large as anybody in my musical life in terms of what I learned from his music. This tore me up yesterday. I'm doing a lot of listening today.

Had a pretty long drive yesterday so I listened to most of the Dead's 6/10/73 show in DC and really honed in on the Phil bass bombs, there's a great version of "Box of Rain" on there as well. Phil wrote an epitaph for his dad and now in a long strange way it's become his epitaph too.

I think he might legitimately be my favorite rock bass player second only to maybe Geddy Lee, he was so adventurous on bass never playing standard licks and his tone was second to none.

[Marc Muller]

Unbroken Chain - Instrumental Redux.
Playing along with my transcription of Phil's bass part, (heard here as a sample), and some of Keith's piano in an edited version that highlights all the crazy wonderful parts of this deep Phil composition. I played drums and even threw in some of the background vocals.
The whole song is a work of art, and extremely challenging to play. But seemed a worthy endeavor for this particular Sunday night.
What a life! Onward and further Phil

https://youtu.be/PPP-pEebeew?si=vV_rTMiiIcRsZfLj

[Jim Pitman]

A Box of Rain, Phil’s composition i so loved. Great post Dave Z.

[Brooks Montgomery]

Warren Haynes interview in Rolling Stone really summed up what was so special about Phil Lesh.

He was always patient in waiting for the magic to happen in a jam, didn’t force it, and always was looking for it.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... 235143654/

or:

https://apple.news/AsJ7Zbb3_QV2EgMnpIFC9hg


(This was in my apple news feed. If you can’t open it, I can maybe cut-and-paste if you’re interested)

“He had a distinct and unique sound, but also the approach. It was almost like he was part of an orchestra and he was playing in addition to a bass part that wasn't there. He was so experimental and so unorthodox, that nine out of 10 other great bass players would have played something completely different, and that's what made him him.
He had this saying, "there are no mistakes, only missed opportunities." And what he meant by that is if you play a wrong note, you let that influence what comes next, and then, in a lot of cases, it's going to lead to something better than what you were going to do. And that's what performances with Phil were continually about. It was taking something that might not be instantly working, and letting that be the new path, and exploring that. There was no right and wrong in his way of looking at music. And as open-minded as I consider myself to be, I had never looked at things quite to that extent before, and it was such a joy playing music with it for that reason, because the experiment was a huge part of the picture.”

[David Farrell]

RIP Phil! Thanks for all the music!

[Glenn Suchan]

As to Phil’s approach to playing bass guitar: Years ago I’d read that he had an interest in classical music performance prior to playing in the Grateful Dead. Furthermore, the same article stated that he was interested in the electronic music composed and performed by Morton Subotnick and Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as the twelve-tone serialism of Arnold Schoenberg. That would also explain his collaboration with Ned Lagen on the experimental electronic music album from 1975, ‘Seastones’.

Keep on pickin’!
Glenn

[John Larson]

As to Phil’s approach to playing bass guitar: Years ago I’d read that he had an interest in classical music performance prior to playing in the Grateful Dead. Furthermore, the same article stated that he was interested in the electronic music composed and performed by Morton Subotnick and Karlheinz Stockhausen, as well as the twelve-tone serialism of Arnold Schoenberg. That would also explain his collaboration with Ned Lagen on the experimental electronic music album from 1975, ‘Seastones’.

Keep on pickin’!
Glenn

Not to derail the thread but there's some of my favorite Jerry steel picking on that Seastones record.

Indeed Phil's more experimental mind influenced by the greats of 20th century avant-garde composition is no doubt behind many of the experimental recording ideas in Anthem of the Sun.

[Chris Templeton]

An an example of the havoc the Covidian Era wreaked, especially with bands, where the face to face has become less and less, where "ghosting" friends became common.
At least I have some perspective of how things used to be, the kids mostly don't unless informed by Youtube. where as now, the computers and social media have edged their way in between relationships.
All contingent on procuring rare earth minerals, of mined by slaves or wage slaves. Many have become like prisoners tossing notes from cage to cage.
North America, love it, or go to mars.