Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who started in classical music, dies at 84

Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of countercultural rock band the Grateful Dead, has died. He was 84 years old. His family posted the news on Lesh’s official Instagram page.

Born in Berkeley, Calif., in 1940, Lesh was initially drawn to classical music. He played violin as a child before turning his attention to the trumpet, which he studied throughout high school and his time at the College of San Mateo. In the early ‘60s, he met banjo player Jerry Garcia, who later asked him to join his rock band, the Warlocks, as their bassist — an instrument Lesh did not play. He accepted nonetheless, and in 1965, the Grateful Dead was born, with Lesh finding his footing in the improvisation-driven group as he went.

“On a day-to-day basis, the psychic pivot to the Dead is Phil Lesh, the most aggressive purist, the anti-philistine Artist,” wrote Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally in his 2002 book A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead. “It is he who most often and most loudly demands that they dance as closely as possible to the edge of the nearest available precipice. Intellectual, kinetic, intense, he was once nicknamed Reddy Kilowatt in recognition of his high mental and physical velocity.”

Over the Dead’s decades of musical longevity and reinvention, Lesh went on to sing lead vocals on some of the band’s most memorable songs, including “Box of Rain” off the 1970 album American Beauty, which he composed alongside longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, and “Unbroken Chain” off 1974’s From the Mars Hotel.

After Garcia’s death in 1995, Lesh reunited with fellow band members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart and keyboardist Bruce Hornsby to tour as The Other Ones, and later, The Dead. He also released albums with his own group, Phil Lesh and Friends, and for a decade operated a popular venue called Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael, Calif. There, Lesh often performed alongside his sons, Grahame and Brian. Though Terrapin closed in 2021, the Lesh family continued to champion live music in Northern California, most recently organizing a festival called Sunday Daydreams, which Lesh headlined this past summer.

“I would have to say that music and performing are as essential as food and drink to me, but even more so as I get older,” Lesh told The Marin Independent Journal in June. “While it can sometimes be more of a challenge physically than it was when I was a young whippersnapper, I’ve found that age brings wisdom, and with that comes musical experience and knowledge that I didn’t have when I was younger.”

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