Phil Lesh, the classically trained musician who co-founded the Grateful Dead and whose unconventional bass playing steered the band into some of its most experimental directions, died Friday at the age of 84.
Lesh’s death was announced on social media, with a short statement reading: “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.” […]
The Grateful Dead played “electric chamber music,” according to Lesh, whose primary influence as a bassist was Johann Sebastian Bach’s style of counterpoint (the relationship of two independent yet interdependent musical voices). When not dropping his infamous “bass bombs,” he played his instrument as though it were a low guitar, usually with a pick, and often like a lead instrument. The Sixties became an era of intense musical experimentation for the group, most prominently on the band’s second album, Anthem of the Sun, where Lesh suggested overdubbing several different live versions of “The Other One” on top of one another and letting them drift apart. “I have nostalgic feelings for that psychedelic-ranger era, when we would play Anthem live in its entirety,” he told Rolling Stone in 2014. “It was apocalyptic – every time.”
Key to the dynamic of The Dead was the way Mr. Lesh used the bass to provide ever-shifting counterpoints to the dancing leads of the lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, the curt riffs of the rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, the bold rhythms of the drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, and, in the band’s first eight years, the warm organ work of Ron McKernan, known as Pigpen.
A source of particular excitement was the relationship between Mr. Lesh’s instrument and Mr. Garcia’s. At times they mirrored each other. At other times they contrasted, in the process widening the music’s melodic nuances while helping to create the kind of variety and tension that allowed the band to improvise at length without losing the listener.
I played bass guitar in bands during high school and college. But what Phil did was just so far out of reach. Nobody could do it. He was an essential element to the Grateful Dead’s music and he can’t ever be replicated.
It was like having another guitar player in the band, but with that bass kick. Top of the scale and way down low. Click here for another example. Amazing stuff.
