Phil Lesh
| Phil Lesh | |
|---|---|
Phil Lesh performing at Terrapin Crossroads December 6, 2013
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Philip Chapman Lesh |
| Born |
March 15, 1940 Berkeley, California, United States |
| Genres | Rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Bass guitar, vocals |
| Years active | 1961–present |
| Labels |
Warner Bros Grateful Dead Records Arista Columbia |
| Associated acts | |
| Website | www |
| Notable instruments | |
|
|
Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is a 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. Phil Lesh & Friends helped keep a legitimate entity for the band's music to continue. Recently, Lesh has opened 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 his former Grateful Dead band mate Bob Weir.
Lesh was born in Berkeley, California, and started out as a violin player. While enrolled at Berkeley High School, he switched to trumpet. 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 institution'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.
...
Wikipedia