“He was surrounded by his family and full of love,” according to an official statement. “Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love. We request that you respect the Lesh family’s privacy at this time.”
A classically trained trumpeter, Lesh switched to bass at the late Jerry Garcia‘s request after joining a fledgling Bay Area band called the Warlocks. He’d met Garcia in passing a couple of times, and they hit it off. The Warlocks were soon rechristened as the Grateful Dead, then took over as the house band during Ken Kesey’s legendary Acid Tests.
In a cool happenstance, Lesh’s self-taught style – and a passion for jazz – opened up a series of new musical vistas for the group. “What you can do is prepare yourself to be open – open for the pipeline to open and the magic to flow down through us,” Lesh later enthused. “It means leaving yourself behind. It’s not a question of, ‘Oh God, don’t let me f— up,’ or anything like that. It’s a question of, ‘Here I am. Work me, Lord.'”
Soon, Lesh was co-writing some of their best-known songs, including “Truckin'” and “Box of Rain.” He also initially provided tenor backing vocals, as heard on their turn-of-the-’70s classics Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. In later years, Lesh’s voice darkened into a pleasant baritone.
He never tired of their improvisational flights of fancy. “In terms of the Grateful Dead,” Lesh told Forbes, “the medium is the message in the sense that when you see us up there playing music, collaborating and making music together, making music that’s never been made before, there’s always some new element in it.”
The Grateful Dead toured and recorded from 1965 until Garcia’s sudden death in 1995, a loss that deeply impacted Lesh. “Jerry was the hub,” he told Rolling Stone. “We were the spokes – and the music was the tread on the wheel.”
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