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And it’s just a box of rain/Or a ribbon for your hair/Such a long, long time to be gone/And a short time to be there…

With the passing on Friday of Phil Lesh at the age of 84, another chapter of Grateful Dead’s long, strange trip has come to a close.  A founding member of the Dead, Lesh positioned his bass as a crucial element of the band’s sound.  Even as his fluid lines complemented the rhythms of Bob Weir’s guitar and the thunderous boom of Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart’s drums, Lesh found his closest musical kinship with Jerry Garcia’s lead guitar.  Whether closely linked with Garcia or contrasting him, Lesh broadened an already-expansive sound.  His bass might be an earthy, anchoring element – or might just take the band straight into the cosmos.

The Berkeley native came to the pre-Dead outfit The Warlocks with a C.V. unlike any of the other members.  He had played both violin and trumpet in school, studying the latter with conductor Bob Hansen of the Golden Gate Park Band and writing horn charts for the College of San Mateo’s big band.  Developing an interest in the avant-garde, he continued his education under electronic music pioneer Luciano Berio at Mills College; one of his classmates was Steve Reich, an innovator in musical minimalism.  Lesh was working as an engineer for Berkeley radio station KPFA when he met Jerry Garcia and invited him to perform on the station’s Midnight Special program.  They hit it off.  He saw Garcia and his band, The Warlocks, in spring 1965 and, before long, Garcia invited him to join them on bass.  Never mind that Lesh had never picked up a bass before; he was guided by his innate musicality and classical influences to bring the instrument to the fore.  Much like his Bay Area friend Jack Casady, Lesh wasn’t content for his bass to serve as simple musical underpinning.  His melodic and improvisational excursions would play a role in defining the Grateful Dead ethos.

Besotted with the possibilities of technology in sound, Lesh championed innovation and creativity in the studio -earning the ire of Warner Bros. Records honcho Joe Smith as the band ran far over budget on 1968’s Anthem of the Sun – as well as on the road.  He took a keen interest and threw his support behind the titanic, 604-speaker, 26,400-watt, forty-foot-high Wall of Sound system developed by Owsley “Bear” Stanley and used during the Dead’s 1974 tour.  Though he couldn’t be described as a prolific songwriter, Lesh was nonetheless responsible for co-authoring some of the group’s most beloved songs including “Truckin’,” “Box of Rain,” and “Unbroken Chain.”  He sang high tenor harmony in the group’s early days, and sang lead on “Box of Rain” (featuring a gorgeous Lesh melody and moving Robert Hunter lyric inspired by Lesh’s father’s battle with prostate cancer) as well as sharing the vocals on “Uncle John’s Band” and “Cumberland Blues.”

Lesh always remained true to his adventurous musical spirit.  When the group – by then, already an institution – scored their first (and last) top ten Pop hit with 1987’s “Touch of Grey,” he reportedly scoffed at the larger venues the band was forced to play to accommodate legions of new fans.  Not that he didn’t appreciate the fans and the rewards, but he was concerned about maintaining the core connection between band and audience that allowed the Dead’s most expansive jams to take flight.  He needn’t have worried; the Dead continued to take music into the stratosphere until Garcia’s death in 1995.  After 2,314 performances, the Grateful Dead was no more.  He picked up the pieces with such outfits as Phil Lesh and Friends (with a rotating cast of musicians who had learned at the altar of the Grateful Dead) and The Other Ones (with Dead alumni Weir, Hart, and, later, Kreutzmann).  The Other Ones disbanded in 2002 but regrouped as The Dead in 2003 with the original members and many friends.  After the Dead’s 2009 tour, Weir and Lesh pressed on as Furthur.  In 2015, one year after the final performance of Furthur, Lesh teamed with Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann for the Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead shows in Santa Clara and Chicago.  It was the first time the foursome had performed together since 2009 and would prove to be the last.  Over the course of five shows, a whopping 81 songs were performed.

Though Lesh endured bouts of cancer and other medical emergencies over the past quarter of a century, he remained active in music.  In 2012, he opened Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael, California, often taking the stage there with his sons as The Terrapin Family Band; the music venue shuttered in 2021.  He was equally and passionately committed to philanthropy, forming the Unbroken Chain Foundation with his wife Jill to support causes including education, the environment, and communities in need.

Phil Lesh’s musicality and humanity anchored the Grateful Dead for three decades and continued to inspire fans in his many endeavors since.  Though we mourn the loss, Robert Hunter’s words ring true: A box of rain will ease the pain, and love will see you through.  Lesh sang those words and lived by those principles.  In a short time, he made a big difference.