{"id":119201,"date":"2024-10-28T05:12:47","date_gmt":"2024-10-27T22:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=119201"},"modified":"2024-10-28T05:12:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-27T22:12:47","slug":"phil-lesh-obituary-grateful-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=119201","title":{"rendered":"Phil Lesh obituary | Grateful Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">It is significant that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2024\/oct\/25\/phil-lesh-grateful-dead-dies\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Phil Lesh<\/a>, who has died aged 84, claimed that one of his earliest memories was of being stunned by hearing Brahms\u2019s Symphony No\u00a01. Lesh became renowned as the bassist with the Grateful Dead, but his classical training and wide-ranging musical tastes ensured that his playing stretched far beyond the traditional narrow confines of the bass guitar in rock music.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/grateful-dead\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">Grateful Dead<\/a>, formed in San Francisco in 1965, pioneered their own brand of improvisational music, and Lesh\u2019s playing was imaginative enough to enable them to roam freely from rock, blues and country through sprawling jams. Even their most ardent fans acknowledged that their concerts could be hit-and-miss affairs, as the band waited for inspiration. But when it did, the results were unforgettable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">Their live performances are preserved in numerous official recordings and on countless bootleg tapes, but Live\/Dead (1969) and the box-set So Many Roads (1965-1995) offer examples of the band stretching out at length, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-Xic-CHInek\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Lesh\u2019s extended introduction to Dark Star<\/a> on the former a trademark moment. His eloquent, contrapuntal basslines were as distinctive and vital to the band\u2019s sound as Jerry Garcia\u2019s lead guitar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">Lesh helped write several of the Dead\u2019s best known songs. His most personal piece is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NwhktLINnjo\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Box of Rain<\/a> (from the 1970 album American Beauty), a melancholy ode to his dying father on which he sang lead vocal, with lyrics by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2019\/sep\/24\/robert-hunter-grateful-dead-lyricist-dies-78\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Robert Hunter<\/a>. But he also scored songwriting credits on the Dead\u2019s on-the-road odyssey <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=pafY6sZt0FE\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Truckin\u2019<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zO-JEcuHrU4\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Cumberland Blues<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">He co-wrote and sang on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BRbBcniI1Ao\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Unbroken Chain<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=IFSnOZy955U\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Pride of Cucamonga<\/a> from the album From the Mars Hotel (1974), put a funk-like stamp on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AIXxpROmPx0\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Passenger<\/a> from Terrapin Station (1977), and was one of the masterminds behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Xa8ImA_wSKI\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">St Stephen<\/a>, an early favourite at Grateful Dead concerts.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"6c0e10f6-43a2-4a7c-b532-f5561fcce77b\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement\" class=\" dcr-173mewl\"><figcaption data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" class=\"dcr-1fujct4\"><span class=\"dcr-1inf02i\"><svg width=\"18\" height=\"13\" viewbox=\"0 0 18 13\"><path d=\"M18 3.5v8l-1.5 1.5h-15l-1.5-1.5v-8l1.5-1.5h3.5l2-2h4l2 2h3.5l1.5 1.5zm-9 7.5c1.9 0 3.5-1.6 3.5-3.5s-1.6-3.5-3.5-3.5-3.5 1.6-3.5 3.5 1.6 3.5 3.5 3.5z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><span class=\"dcr-1qvd3m6\">Phil Lesh, right, and Jerry Garcia rehearsing with the Grateful Dead in San Franciso, 1976.<\/span> Photograph: Ed Perlstein\/Redferns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">Born in Berkeley, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/california\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\">California<\/a>, Phil was the son of Frank, an amateur musician who owned a small business, and his wife, Barbara (nee Chapman). He was often looked after by his maternal grandmother, Jewel \u201cBobbie\u201d Chapman, a music lover who kept the radio tuned to classical stations. As Phil wrote in his autobiography Searching for the Sound: My Life With the Grateful Dead (2005): \u201cI was awakened to the power of music early in life through the magic of radio broadcasts and by listening to my father play, from memory, his favourite tunes on the piano.\u201d Lesh began learning the violin, and played with Berkeley\u2019s Young People\u2019s Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">At 14 he switched to the trumpet, then transferred from El Cerrito high school to Berkeley high school to study harmony. He became interested in free jazz and the classical avant garde and, after short stints at San Francisco State College and the College of San Mateo, enrolled at UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">However, he again dropped out in favour of studying with the Italian experimental composer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2003\/may\/28\/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries2\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Luciano Berio<\/a> at Mills College in Oakland (among his classmates was the future star of minimalism, Steve Reich). Lesh created several of his own compositions and tried some writing with Reich.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"f555a9ef-4e27-45c3-8792-6b01ea10fc42\" data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement\" class=\" dcr-173mewl\"><figcaption data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" class=\"dcr-1fujct4\"><span class=\"dcr-1inf02i\"><svg width=\"18\" height=\"13\" viewbox=\"0 0 18 13\"><path d=\"M18 3.5v8l-1.5 1.5h-15l-1.5-1.5v-8l1.5-1.5h3.5l2-2h4l2 2h3.5l1.5 1.5zm-9 7.5c1.9 0 3.5-1.6 3.5-3.5s-1.6-3.5-3.5-3.5-3.5 1.6-3.5 3.5 1.6 3.5 3.5 3.5z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><span class=\"dcr-1qvd3m6\">The Grateful Dead in 1970. From left : Bill Kreutzmann, Ron \u2018Pigpen\u2019 McKernan, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh.<\/span> Photograph: IanDagnall Computing\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">In 1965 he met Garcia, at the time better known as a bluegrass banjo player than an electric guitarist, and who was performing with his band the Warlocks at a pizza parlour in Menlo Park in San Francisco\u2019s Bay Area. Lesh would recall being struck how \u201cmusic with that kind of directness and simplicity could deliver an aesthetic and emotional payoff comparable to that of the greatest operatic or symphonic works\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">The story goes that Garcia immediately informed Lesh that he was the band\u2019s new bass player, to which Lesh replied: \u201cWhy not?\u201d Soon afterwards the group changed its name to the Grateful Dead. Perhaps uninhibited because he had never previously played bass, Lesh approached the instrument in the same spirit as other 1960s innovators such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2014\/oct\/26\/jack-bruce\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Jack Bruce<\/a> of Cream, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2002\/jun\/29\/guardianobituaries.arts\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">John Entwistle<\/a> of the Who, and Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">The Dead\u2019s colourful career ended with the death of Garcia in 1995, a year after they had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But the band members had frequently branched out into projects outside the band, and continued to do so.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">In 1975 Lesh had combined with the electronics specialist Ned Lagin and various California-based musicians on the experimental album <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XW370_ETZ4Y\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Seastones<\/a>. In 1998 he joined his fellow Dead survivors Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, and the sometime Dead keyboard player Bruce Hornsby, in the Other Ones, who later renamed themselves the Dead.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"1e71a26b-cb42-4b84-a78c-6c654d94b45e\" data-spacefinder-role=\"supporting\" data-spacefinder-type=\"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.ImageBlockElement\" class=\" dcr-a2pvoh\"><figcaption data-spacefinder-role=\"inline\" class=\"dcr-1pvqcrw\"><span class=\"dcr-1inf02i\"><svg width=\"18\" height=\"13\" viewbox=\"0 0 18 13\"><path d=\"M18 3.5v8l-1.5 1.5h-15l-1.5-1.5v-8l1.5-1.5h3.5l2-2h4l2 2h3.5l1.5 1.5zm-9 7.5c1.9 0 3.5-1.6 3.5-3.5s-1.6-3.5-3.5-3.5-3.5 1.6-3.5 3.5 1.6 3.5 3.5 3.5z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><span class=\"dcr-1qvd3m6\">Phil Lesh in 2007.<\/span> Photograph: Matt Sayles\/AP<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">The same year Lesh, who had been suffering from chronic hepatitis C, had a liver transplant. Fully recovered, he then worked with his own outfit, Phil Lesh and Friends. This had enjoyed a brief incarnation in 1994 when it featured Garcia, but from 1999 became a rotating group of musicians that included members of Phish, Little Feat, the Allman Brothers Band and Jefferson Airplane.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">From 1999 to 2003, a version of the band called the Phil Lesh Quintet became its most permanent incarnation, and they recorded a couple of live albums and the studio album There and Back Again (2002). In 2008 the group was augmented by Weir and Hart for a concert in support of Barack Obama\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">The group also performed at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and music venue opened by Lesh in San Rafael, California, in 2012, where Lesh\u2019s sons, Grahame and Brian, both musicians, often played with the house band. In 2009 Lesh and Weir had reunited in Furthur, a sextet playing music by or in the spirit of the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">Lesh rejoined Weir, Hart and Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann in 2015 for three concerts at Soldier Field stadium, Chicago, billed as Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">In 2006 Lesh had undergone surgery for prostate cancer, the disease that had killed his father. In 2015, he revealed he had had surgery for bladder cancer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\">He is survived by his wife, Jill, with whom he formed the Unbroken Chain Foundation to support music, education and environment charities, Grahame and Brian, and a grandson.<\/p>\n<footer class=\"dcr-106f06m\">\n<p class=\"dcr-106f06m\"><span data-dcr-style=\"bullet\"\/> Phillip Chapman Lesh, musician, singer and composer, born 15 March 1940; died 25 October 2024<\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"fluid\"\r\n     data-ad-layout-key=\"-fb+5w+4e-db+86\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-3711241968723425\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"7910942971\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><div data-type=\"_mgwidget\" data-widget-id=\"1660802\">\r\n<\/div>\r\n<script>(function(w,q){w[q]=w[q]||[];w[q].push([\"_mgc.load\"])})(window,\"_mgq\");\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/music\/2024\/oct\/27\/phil-lesh-obituary\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is significant that Phil Lesh, who has died aged 84, claimed that one of his earliest memories was of being stunned by hearing Brahms\u2019s Symphony No\u00a01. Lesh became renowned &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/?p=119201\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hotvideos24.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}