Obituary: Grateful Dead cofounder, bassist Phil Lesh dead at 84
Phil Lesh performs with Karl Denson at The Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael on Jan. 27, 2016. Alessio Neri/STAFF.
Grateful Dead cofounding bassist Phil Lesh passed away early Friday morning, his family announced on social media.
The virtuosic musician, who trained on violin and trumpet before helping the iconic Bay Area band that defined the area’s rock scene of the 1960s, was 84.
“He was surrounded by his family and full of love,” the announcement said. “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.”
While a cause of death was not immediately announced, Lesh was previously treated for prostate and bladder cancer, and in 1998 received a liver transplant for treatment of liver disease. He lived in Marin for years.
Lesh was born in Berkeley and picked up the violin in elementary school and the trumpet at 14. While still in his teens, he was named second chair (violinist) in the Oakland Symphony. He briefly attended UC Berkeley before dropping out to pursue music.
He was playing neither in 1965, instead working as a delivery driver and as a sound engineer at KPFA when then-banjo player Jerry Garcia asked him to to play in his band, The Warlocks (which became the Dead). He had no experience as a bassist at that point, but Garcia taught him how to apply his violin experience to the instrument.
Lesh and Garcia became the melodic core of the Grateful Dead, with his bass often being as much a lead instrument as Garcia’s guitar. Their communication was strong, enabling the band, which included drummer Bill Kreutzmann, keyboardist Ron McKernan and guitarist Bob Weir, to jam spontaneously and go off in different jazz-influenced directions at concerts. Because the songs often sounded different, fans began attending numerous outings. He wrote or cowrote some of the the Dead’s most-loved songs like “Truckin’,” “St. Stephen” and “Box of Rain.”
Lesh’s bass playing deviated from traditional rock rhythm, often going into more melodic territories.
In 1994, the Grateful Dead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Following Garcia’s death in 1995, the band underwent numerous incarnations. Lesh played in a couple of them, but not in the most recent iteration as Dead and Company, which included John Mayer and bassist Oteil Burbridge. Instead, he continued to work on his own material, performing numerous concerts throughout the Bay Area, including a headlining show at Stern Grove Festival in 2022. The last time he performed with the other remaining members from the Grateful Dead’s golden age—Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart—was a series of farewell shows for the band’s 50th anniversary at Chicago’s Soldier Field and Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
In 2011, he opened a restaurant and music club Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael, where he’d often show up to perform unannounced. The venue ran for 10 years before closing in 2021 at the height of the pandemic.
In 2020, Rolling Stone named him to its list of the best bassists of all time, at No. 11.