This morning, October 25, Phil Lesh from the Grateful Dead passed away at 84 years old.
Phil Lesh grew up in Berkeley, California, and went to study music at UC Berkeley in 1961. There, he learned from Luciano Berio and even shared classes with Steve Reich.
In ’65, Phil joined Jerry Garcia and others in a band called the Warlocks. But on December 4 of that year, during one of Ken Kesey’s Acid Test parties in San Jose, they became known as the Grateful Dead.
Their first album came out in March ’67. It was named Grateful Dead, but people loved them for their long concerts too. Phil didn’t often write or sing lead vocals but helped create songs like “Box of Rain” and “Truckin’” on American Beauty. He once mentioned about “Truckin’,” “We took our experiences on the road and made it poetry… the last chorus defines the band itself.”
After Jerry Garcia’s death ended Grateful Dead in ’95, Phil played with different musicians as Phil Lesh and Friends but skipped joining Dead & Company with his old buddies.
Around the mid-2000s, he wrote a book about his time with the band called Searching for the Sound. Around then, he also shared he had prostate cancer and later faced bladder cancer too.
This Friday brought together thoughts from Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bobby Weir:
