The Isolated Bass Grooves of The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh (RIP)

This past Fri­day, the bassist of The Grate­ful Dead, Phil Lesh, passed away at age 84. Almost imme­di­ate­ly the trib­utes poured in, most rec­og­niz­ing that Lesh was­n’t your ordi­nary bassist. As Jon Par­e­les wrote in the New York Times, Phil Lesh held songs “aloft.” His “bass lines hopped and bub­bled and con­stant­ly con­versed with the gui­tars of Jer­ry Gar­cia and Bob Weir. His tone was round­ed and unassertive while he eased his way into the coun­ter­point, almost as if he were think­ing aloud. [His] play­ing was essen­tial to the Dead’s par­tic­u­lar grav­i­ty-defy­ing lilt, shar­ing a col­lec­tive mode of rock momen­tum that was teas­ing and prob­ing, nev­er blunt­ly coer­cive.”

My first encounter with the Grate­ful Dead came when I was 16 years old. I vivid­ly remem­ber the guy who played bon­gos on my friend’s head when we arrived at the show. I also remem­ber the spin­ners trip­ping on acid, danc­ing down the halls and short-cir­cuit­ing my lit­tle mind. But the con­cert itself remains only a hazy mem­o­ry. And cer­tain­ly the artistry of Lesh, Gar­cia, Weir, and the drum­mers was lost on me. Only years lat­er, did it all start to click. That’s when I dialed into the Bar­ton Hall con­cert at Cor­nell (May 8, 1977) and encoun­tered Lesh’s bass lines at the start of “Scar­let Bego­nias.” Once you hear them, they’re hard to shake. The video above zooms into that per­for­mance, explor­ing the devel­op­ment of Lesh’s bass play­ing through­out the spring of ’77. The next video down lets you hear the com­plete Bar­ton Hall per­for­mance of “Scar­let Bego­nias” in all of its glo­ry.

When oth­ers try to cap­ture what made Phil, Phil, they’ll fea­ture anoth­er beloved show–Vene­ta, OR (6/27/72). Below, you can hear iso­lat­ed tracks of Phil’s bass work on “Bertha” and “Chi­na Cat Sun­flower/I Know You Rid­er.” (Click the links in the pri­or sen­tence to hear Lesh and the band per­form­ing the songs together–so you can hear how the bass ties in.) Trained in free jazz and avant-garde clas­si­cal music, Lesh infused rock with the influ­ences of Coltrane, Min­gus, and Stravinsky–not to men­tion oth­ers. And, with that, the bass was nev­er the same.

For any­one want­i­ng to get fur­ther into the Phil Zone, read his excel­lent mem­oir Search­ing for the Sound: My Life with the Grate­ful Dead.

Bertha

Chi­na Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rid­er

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Grate­ful Dead’s “Rip­ple” Played By Musi­cians Around the World (with Cameos by David Cros­by, Jim­my Buf­fett & Bill Kreutz­mann)

The Grate­ful Dead Pays Trib­ute to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” in a 1982 Con­cert: Hear “Raven Space”

When the Grate­ful Dead Played at the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids, in the Shad­ow of the Sphinx (1978)