Tragic news befell the music and Deadhead community on Friday. Phil Lesh, co-founder and bass player for the Grateful Dead, has passed away.
When I first paid attention to the Grateful Dead, I didn’t realise it was Lesh who guided me through the first gateway into the band’s mystical catalagoue and quasimythological story.
There were a few songs I played on repeat when I walked to West Hampstead Station most mornings during my London tenure. None captured my imagination quite like Box of Rain. I was entranced by the galloping bassline. Most of all, I was allured by the rich imagery in the lyrics. Fascinated by what a “box of rain” is. What it looks like.
For a band steeped in Americana, folk and bluegrass, this song felt so abstract at the time. How could you possibly grasp anything like this?
What do you want me to do
To do for you to see you through?
It’s all a dream we dreamed
One afternoon long ago
The only other song to get as much airplay during that time was Sweet Baby James. But Box of Rain unlocked a portal for me to the Grateful Dead that I’ll never have with James Taylor.
Box of Rain led to Touch of Grey, which led to Shakedown Street, which led to Fire on the Mountain, which led to Eyes of the World 5/17/74. From that moment on I was hooked.
Fitzie’s track of the day, part one: Box of Rain, by the Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead were a strange band. Of course you can also refer to them still in the present if you believe, like me, that the band is still very much alive in the songs floating in the air and in our memories.
Lesh, like Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia and Pigpen and Micky Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, offered something truly unique to how a band operates. Admirers of Lesh credit his classical training to playing the bass in a supremely unique way. Not just in keeping time or melody, but fluttering between the interwoven tradeoffs between Garcia and Weir, and the driving percussion of Hart and Kreutzmann.
It’s truly something to listen to the Dead’s music and then, all of a sudden, a Phil bomb drops. A magical array of chords and notes dancing within, around and above everything else.
It’s all part of the mystery of the Dead, which comprised of the strangest amalgamation of musical backgrounds and interests. Americana, bluegrass, jazz, classical, psychadelia. And, of course, the Deadheads themselves, who for decades bottled up thousands of wondrous moments and freely share them among friends and strangers.
Lesh’s death is a tragic, tragic loss for the community. Still, the music lives on. The Grateful Dead’s music is still alive, pulsating with the thundrous beat of Lesh’s bass.
Fitzie’s track of the day, part two: Help On The Way / Slipknot / Franklin’s Tower / The Music Never Stopped, by the Grateful Dead
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