29 Facts About Phil Lesh

Philip Chapman Lesh was an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he developed a unique style of improvised six-string bass guitar.

Phil Lesh scaled back touring in 2014 but continued to perform concerts.

Phil Lesh's father encouraged him to take up the violin at the age of eight.

Phil Lesh studied the instrument under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band and became interested in avant-garde classical music and free jazz.

Phil Lesh enrolled at the College of San Mateo, where he wrote arrangements for the community college's big band and played trumpet.

Phil Lesh invited Garcia to perform on the station's Midnight Special show, and despite their different musical interests they became friends.

Phil Lesh briefly worked in the Post Office Department, where he drove a service truck.

Phil Lesh joined them for their third or fourth gig and stayed until the end.

In late 1966 Phil Lesh moved with the group to San Francisco, where they were signed to a recording deal with Warner Brothers, and found himself playing at venues such as The Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom.

Phil Lesh said that his playing style was influenced more by Bach's counterpoint than by contemporaneous rock and soul bass players.

Phil Lesh cited Jack Bruce of Cream as an influence.

Phil Lesh became an innovator in the new role that the electric bass was developing during the mid-1960s.

Early on, Phil Lesh grasped the sonic possibilities presented by recording in the studio, and his style of playing often led to complaints by the band's record label.

Phil Lesh introduced his bandmates to the aural explorations of the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

All of the band's shows were recorded by Deadhead tapers, and it became possible to listen to any given performance from 1972 or 1974 and hear the Grateful Dead interpreting the musical innovations that Phil Lesh stimulated through Coltrane's influence.

Phil Lesh later introduced the band to composer Charles Ives, which created their ability to go spontaneously from a discordant jam into a blues or country song.

Phil Lesh collaborated with Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the Dead's onetime sound engineer in designing the Wall of Sound, an enormous sound reinforcement system they used for forty-odd shows in the 1974 tour.

In 1994, Phil Lesh was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead.

Phil Lesh published his autobiography, Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead in 2005.

In 2012, Phil Lesh founded a music venue called Terrapin Crossroads, in San Rafael, California.

Furthur disbanded in early 2014 and, at age 74, Phil Lesh ceased touring full time.

Phil Lesh took part in the 2015 Fare Thee Well concerts, and a short North American tour with Bob Weir in the spring of 2018.

Phil Lesh married Jill Johnstone, a waitress from the cafe next door to the Grateful Dead's office in San Francisco.

Phil Lesh had a lifelong interest in the occult and was a member of the Research Into Lost Knowledge organisation.

In 1998, Phil Lesh underwent a liver transplant as a result of a chronic hepatitis C infection.

Phil Lesh became an outspoken advocate for organ donation on live recordings of his performances.

On October 26,2006, Phil Lesh stated on his official website that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the disease that killed his father, and would be undergoing an operation in December 2006.

In October 2015, Phil Lesh announced that he had had bladder cancer surgery.

Phil Lesh stated that his prognosis was good and that he expected to make a full recovery.