Grateful Dead Bassist Phil Lesh Passes Away, Aged 84
Phil Lesh was a member of The Grateful Dead until their dissolution in 1995 following the death of Jerry Garcia.
Grateful Dead in 1970 (Phil Lesh on far right) (Credit: Herb Greene, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Phil Lesh, the bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, has passed away, a statement on his social media reads.
No cause of death has been revealed, but Lesh died “peacefully” with his family beside him. He was 84.
The statement reads:
Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and full of love. 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.
In 1965, when Lesh was training to be a bassist, he and Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, and Bill Kreutzmann played in a band called the Warlocks.
In December of that year, the band adopted a new name, and The Grateful Dead was born.
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While Lesh wasn’t often a lead singer or songwriter in the band, he did co-write the opening and closing songs on 1970’s American Beauty, Box Of Rain and Truckin’, as well as singing lead on Box Of Rain.
He once said of Truckin’ (via Pitchfork), “We took our experiences on the road and made it poetry… the last chorus defines the band itself.”
Of the five founders, only keyboardist McKernan would not remain with the band throughout its career, leaving in 1972. Lesh, Garcia, Weir, and Kreutzmann were all fixtures until the Grateful Dead’s eventual disbandment.
Lesh was a member of The Grateful Dead until their dissolution in 1995 following the death of Jerry Garcia, the band’s principal songwriter, lead guitarist, and vocalist.
Lesh went on to perform in The Dead and The Other Ones before founding Phil Lesh & Friends and didn’t rejoin his Grateful Dead bandmates in the revival group Dead & Company.
Searching For The Sound, Lesh’s book about his time with the Grateful Dead, released in the mid-2000s, revealed his diagnosis and treatment for prostate cancer. In 2015, he shared that he’d been diagnosed with bladder cancer and had surgery to treat it.
You can find more information about the photo above here.
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