Known For
Acting
Born
Mar 15, 1940
Died
Oct 25, 2024
Place of Birth
Berkeley, California, USA
Credits
57 titles
Phil Lesh
Biography
Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career. After the band's disbanding in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of Grateful Dead family music with side project Phil Lesh and Friends, which paid homage to the Dead's music by playing their originals, common covers, and the songs of the members of his band. Lesh operated a music venue called Terrapin Crossroads. He scaled back his touring regimen in 2014 but continues to perform with Phil Lesh & Friends at select venues. From 2009 to 2014, he performed in Furthur alongside former Grateful Dead bandmate Bob Weir. Lesh was born in Berkeley, California, United States, and started out as a violin player. While enrolled at Berkeley High School he switched to trumpet and participated in all of the school's music-related extracurricular activities. Studying the instrument under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band, he developed a keen interest in avant-garde classical music and free jazz. After attending San Francisco State University for a semester, Lesh was unable to secure a favorable position in the school's band or orchestra and determined that he was not ready to pursue a higher education. Upon dropping out, he successfully auditioned for the renowned Sixth Army Band (then stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco) with the assistance of Hansen, but was ultimately determined to be unfit for military service. Shortly thereafter, he enrolled at the College of San Mateo, where he wrote charts for the community college's well-regarded big band and ascended to the first trumpet chair. (A snippet of tape of Lesh on trumpet at CSM can be heard on "Born Cross-Eyed" from the Grateful Dead's 1968 release Anthem of the Sun.) After transferring with sophomore standing to the University of California, Berkeley in 1961, he befriended future Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten before dropping out again after less than a semester. At the behest of Constanten, he studied under the Italian modernist Luciano Berio in a graduate-level course at Mills College in the spring of 1962; their classmates included Steve Reich and Stanford University cross-registrant John Chowning. While volunteering for KPFA as a recording engineer during this period, he met bluegrass banjo player Jerry Garcia. Despite seemingly opposite musical interests, they soon formed a friendship. Following a brief period as a Post Office Department employee and keno marker in Las Vegas (initially rooming with Constanten, who soon departed to study under Berio and other members of the Darmstadt School in Europe); a second stint with the Post Office in San Francisco; and a collaboration with the likes of Reich, Jon Gibson and Constanten upon the latter's return from Europe under the auspices of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Lesh was talked into becoming the bassist for Garcia's new rock band (then known as The Warlocks) in the fall of 1964. This was a peculiar turn of events, as Lesh had never before played bass. According to Lesh, the first song he rehearsed with the band was "I Know You Rider". He joined them for their third or fourth gig (memories vary) and stayed until the end. ... Source: Article "Phil Lesh" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For
Filmography
Inside Scofield
Grateful Dead Meet-Up 2022
Self
Bob Dylan & Phil Lesh & Friends – Baltimore Arena 1999
Self
Grateful Dead: Giants Stadium 1991
Self
Basketball: A Love Story
Self (archive footage)
Long Strange Trip
Self
Long Strange Trip
Self
Dear Jerry - Celebrating The Music of Jerry Garcia
Self
Grateful Dead: Fare Thee Well - 50 Years of Grateful Dead (Santa Clara)
Self - Performer
Grateful Dead: Fare Thee Well - 50 Years of Grateful Dead (Chicago)
Self - Performer
Grateful Dead: 2015.07.05 - Chicago, IL
Self
Grateful Dead: Fare Thee Well - Rainbows Are Real, Chicago, IL
Self
Grateful Dead: 2015.07.04 - Chicago, IL
Self
Grateful Dead: 2015.07.03 - Chicago, IL
Self
Grateful Dead: 2015.06.27 - Santa Clara, CA
Self
Grateful Dead: 2015.06.28 - Santa Clara, CA
Self
Move Me Brightly - Celebrating Jerry Garcia's 70th Birthday
Self
Grateful Dead: Sunshine Daydream
Self
Grateful Dead: All The Years Combine - The DVD Collection
Self
Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place
Self (archive footage)
Grateful Dead: Crimson, White & Indigo
Self
Grateful Dead: Rocking The Cradle - Egypt 1978
Self
Phil Lesh and Friends: Live at the Warfield
Self
Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show
Self
Grateful Dead: Bird Song
Self
Festival Express
Self
Grateful Dead: View from the Vault IV
Self
Grateful Dead: View from the Vault III
Self
Rising Low
Self
Grateful Dead: View from the Vault II
Self
The End of the Road
Self
Grateful Dead: View from the Vault
Self
Grateful Dead: View from the Vault
Self
Classic Albums
Self
Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty
Self
Nash Bridges
Phil Lesh
Grateful Dead
Self
Infrared Sightings
Music
Truckin' With The Dead
Self
Grateful Dead: Live at Foxboro
Self
Grateful Dead: Truckin Up to Buffalo
Self
Grateful Dead: The Making of "Built to Last"
Self
Grateful Dead: Downhill from Here
Self - Performer
Grateful Dead: Ticket to New Year's Eve Concert
Self
Grateful Dead: So Far
Self - Bass
Grateful Dead: Dead Ahead
Self - Grateful Dead
Apocalypse Now
Musician
Grateful Dead: The Closing of Winterland
Self
The Kennedy Center Honors
Self - Honoree
The Grateful Dead Movie
Self