According to his Instagram account, Hil Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead whose nuanced bass playing helped create the band’s otherworldly sound, passed away on Friday at the age of 84.
In honor of a member of the psychedelic band known for its lengthy improvisations in its live shows, which drew dedicated “Dead Head” fans who traveled from concert to concert, tributes from the music industry poured in, and the Empire State Building in New York announced that it would illuminate the skyscraper in tie-dye colors.
He died peacefully, the Instagram post stated, in the company of his family. Even though he also sang lead and backing vocals, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Lesh as the 11th greatest bass player of all time. He was regarded by many fans as having the same impact as Jerry Garcia, the band’s frontman, who passed away in 1995.
According to Rolling Stone, Garcia’s guitar “became as recognisable a part of the Dead’s sound as his idea — play bass and lead at the same time, his notes darting in and around the melody.”
On Instagram, Phish’s lead guitarist Trey Anastasio wrote, “Phil was more than a revolutionary, groundbreaking bass player — he transformed how I thought about music as a teenager.”
The Dead, a counterculture movement that promoted love, peace, and hallucinogenic drugs, rose to prominence during the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco. The band was founded in California in 1965.
In any case, the Dead’s music persevered through significantly longer than that as a combination of rock, society, nation and jazz.
Longtime members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart formed various lineups under the name Dead & Company following Garcia’s death, while Lesh chose to form Phil Lesh and Friends, which continued to perform until 2023.
According to his official Dead biography, Philip Chapman Lesh was born on March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, California. He began playing classical violin before switching to “cool jazz” big-band trumpet.
After that, he went to school with experimental Italian composer Luciano Berio. In 1965, his friend Garcia told him that he was going to be the new bass player for the Warlocks, Garcia’s band that was a forerunner to the Grateful Dead.
