Phil Lesh

Phillip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940 in Berkeley , California ; mostly just Phil Lesh) is an American musician who was best known as the bassist of the Grateful Dead .

Phil Lesh (2008)

biography

youth

Phil Lesh started playing the trumpet when he was 14 . He started studying at UC Berkeley, but dropped out in the middle of his first semester. He enrolled in the class of the composer Luciano Berio at Mill's College, where he studied avant-garde and electronic music with Tom Constanten , who would later also be part of the Grateful Dead for a short time. One of his classmates was Steve Reich . Here he finally had the opportunity to compose his own pieces. One day when he heard Jerry García play the banjo , he asked him to play on the radio show he was working on as a sound engineer. He and Garcia quickly became friends.

1965-1995

In 1965 Lesh, Garcia, and Bob Weir were guests at a party in Palo Alto . They smoked weed (marijuana) in Garcia's car and Lesh mentioned that he was interested in learning an electrical instrument, maybe electric bass . Lesh attended the Warlocks next gig and was invited to play bass with the band. The band soon changed their name to the Grateful Dead and Phil Lesh remained a member of the group until the end.

His influence on the group was less in songwriting and singing than in his unique way of playing bass. In contrast to many "traditional" rock bassists, he does not see himself as part of the rhythm section, but rather plays his instrument more like a melody instrument. He mentions Johann Sebastian Bach as his greatest influence , although borrowings from Charles Mingus or Jimmy Garrison can also be heard from him.

In addition to the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh worked heavily on David Crosby's solo debut If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971). In 1975 he finished the piece "Seastones" with Ned Lagin . It was described as cybernetic organic music and the two of them used a large system with computers and technical equipment to create impressionistic sound patterns. Jerry Garcia, Grace Slick and David Crosby supported her in the project. As early as 1974, Lesh and Lagin had performed similar music during the breaks from the Grateful Dead concerts.

Aside from these rare solo activities, Phil Lesh mainly focused on working with the Grateful Dead.

1995 – present

After the end of the group there was a reunion with the former members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart under the name The Other Ones (after a famous Grateful Dead piece). In the meantime, have The Other Ones in The Dead renamed and continue regularly on tour.

In December 1998, Phil Lesh underwent a liver transplant. In 1999 he was back on tour with Phil Lesh & Friends , which had been founded the year before, and in autumn released his first solo album, a live recording. Further tours with Phil Lesh & Friends followed, including one with Bob Dylan . The band's line-up changes regularly and was only the same from 2000 to 2003. During this time, the first studio album There And Back Again (2002) was released. The album includes some new compositions by Phil Lesh together with Robert Hunter , who already wrote the lyrics for Jerry Garcia. You can also hear pieces by the band members and an old Grateful Dead classic. As with all Grateful Dead concerts, fans at Phil Lesh & Friends are allowed to record the concerts with microphones and to exchange the recordings non-commercially. Phil Lesh even goes so far as to make his own recordings available for download on the Internet for his fans . The quality of these recordings is almost as good as CD, especially since it is made available in lossless compression (in contrast to mp3 or ogg ). In April 2005, Phil Lesh published the book Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead , which has not yet been published in German.

illness

When his first son was born in 1986, Phil took out life insurance. The associated medical examination revealed that Phil had liver disease hepatitis C. He suspects that he became infected in the mid-1960s and that his heavy alcohol consumption had exacerbated the disease. In 1990 Phil stopped drinking completely and became a vegetarian . In 1995, his father-in-law died of liver cancer caused by hepatitis C. Over the years Lesh's condition worsened and in 1998 a transplant was necessary. In September he had a breakdown and was hospitalized. His wife Jill was told several times that he was unlikely to make it through the night. In December he had an operation. The operation went well and 12 hours later he was able to get out of bed for a short walk. Since Phil Lesh only survived because of a donor liver and blood transplantation, he has been promoting blood and organ donations at every concert and on other occasions since his operation.

On October 26, 2006, a message from Phil personally reached the public. He was suffering from prostate cancer, but due to his history he was under constant medical supervision so that the cancer could be detected early. In December 2006 he was operated on. In October 2015, Lesh announced that he had bladder cancer but expected a full recovery after treatment.

Instruments

Phil Lesh started with a Gibson EB0 Bass, from which he then switched to a Fender Jazz Bass . In 1968 and 1969 he played a Guild Starfire Bass, which can also be heard on the album Live / Dead . The next instrument was a heavily modified Gibson EB3. This bass was stolen from him and he played the Starfire again, which now had new pickups and other changes. This bass can be heard on Europe '72 . 1973 Phil Lesh his first Alembic got 4-string bass, a Alembic Series I . Then he played a bass for Doug Irwin, who had also built guitars for Jerry Garcia and now and then an old Fender Jazz. In the early 1980s he got his first Modulus 6-string bass. Phil Lesh still plays with such basses today.

Amps

Phil Lesh used various amps from different manufacturers in the 1960s before finally settling on Fender Dual Showman Amps, which he had modified by Owsley Bear and "Alembic". About the middle of 1972 Phil began using those amps in conjunction with McIntosh "3500" brand tube amps. These amps had an output of 350 watts each and were equipped with 8 6L6GC tubes. Shortly afterwards, he was persuaded by Alembic to use F2B preamps from Alembic instead of the fenders. He also swapped the McIntosh tube amps for solid-state stereo 2300 models, which were lighter and more reliable and contributed to the legendary "Wall Of Sound" of the Grateful Dead. The amp was plugged into two hard trucker boxes. He played with this setup until the late 1970s, in the meantime switching to Gauss speakers (15s in one Hard Tucker cabinet, 12s in the other), which replaced the JBL speakers that had been present since the late 1960s. Eventually Phil switched to “Groove Tubes” preamps and used Crest amps with Mayer speakers and processors.

In his solo phase he used, as far as known, a wireless setup with Eden preamps and Meyer amp stacks Custom (specially specified for him).

Discography

• 1999 - Love Will See You Through
• 2002 - There And Back Again
• 2005 - Searching for the Sound: My Life in the Grateful Dead (Phil Lesh reads from his biography.)
• 2006 - Life At The Warfield Theater (DVD / CD live recordings by Phil Lesh & Friends from May 18 and 19, 2006)

Web links

• Phillesh.net - official website ( English )
• Philzone.com - large fansite ( English )
• Archive.org - legal download of Phil Lesh concerts