How Phil Lesh Reimagined the Electric Bass

Phil Lesh grew up listening to classical and jazz music. Then he reimagined the electric bass and changed rock history.

The Grateful Dead’s co-founder died on October 25 at age 84. His approach to the bass made him one of the first rock musicians to move that instrument from a supporting role to the forefront—complimenting Jerry Garcia’s pioneering guitar work.

Additionally, he co-wrote some of the band’s best-known songs, such as “Truckin’” and “St. Stephen” while his exploratory playing helped inspire the Grateful Dead’s iconic jams.

Garcia once commented on Lesh’s importance to the Grateful Dead, “When Phil’s happening the band’s happening.” Drummer Mickey Hart described the bassist as the group’s intellectual with a classical composer’s mind.

Classical music shaped Lesh’s approach to music from an early age. He learned violin in third grade before taking up the trumpet at age 14. As a teen, Lesh earned a chair in the Oakland Symphony Orchestra.

Still, he’d mostly given up on music and worked as a mail truck driver and sound engineer. In 1965, Garcia invited Lesh to play bass in The Warlocks. However, Lesh didn’t play the bass. Garcia persisted and asked, “Didn’t you used to play violin?” Lesh said yes and Garcia responded, “There you go, man.”

The combination of classical training and playing an instrument he didn’t know merged two kinds of musical philosophy. Lesh knew enough to understand how music worked. Yet, he wasn’t limited to orthodoxy on the instrument. Following an extensive lesson with Garcia, Lesh learned to play with the freedom of a jazz musician.

Improvisation was crucial to the Grateful Dead. But improvisation is still a form of composing. It’s just composition happening in the present. Meanwhile, Lesh had to learn this kind of discovery while the band performed live.

An Unorthodox Style

Lesh said his unorthodox and adventurous playing style came from Garcia, who instructed him how to play like a lead guitarist. Traditionally, the bass player held down an ensemble’s foundation—the earthy low notes, emphasizing chord roots and groove.

But Lesh mixed sprawling arpeggios with classically influenced motifs. He had the rare ability to keep time while also navigating a tune’s melody.

The late composer and bass player Rob Wasserman said of Lesh, “He happens to play bass but he’s more like a horn player, doing all those arpeggios—and he has that counterpoint going all the time.”

In a band known for its long jams, even the Grateful Dead’s most popular songs took on new forms live—a fluid experience. And “fluid” may be the best word to describe Lesh’s playing. Though the bassist typically shunned interviews, he explained his group’s experimentalism to the Associated Press in 2009, “You can’t set those things in stone in the rehearsal room.”

Paying tribute to Lesh, Phish’s Trey Anastasio wrote on social media, “Phil was more than a revolutionary, groundbreaking bass player—he transformed how I thought about music as a teenager. I have countless memories of standing in awe, listening to his winding, eloquent bass lines blending seamlessly with Jerry and Bobby [Weir’s] guitars, Brent Mydland’s keys, and the thunderous drums of Billy [Kreutzmann] and Mickey [Hart]. I’m so grateful for those beautiful memories.”

Early Years

Lesh was born in Berkeley, California, on March 15, 1940. His grandmother dialed in broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic on the radio. He recalled an early memory of hearing Brahms’ First Symphony and how it impacted him at a young age.

His influences included jazz legends John Coltrane and Miles Davis, and composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Edgard Varèse. All these influences—from structured German and French classical composition to rule-breaking jazz—defined Lesh’s playing.

By the time The Warlocks became the Grateful Dead, Lesh became a legend among die-hards, who pushed their way toward “The Phil Zone,” standing in front of Lesh during concerts.

Feel Your Way

The Grateful Dead often finished its concerts with “Box of Rain,” a song written and sung by Lesh. He’d written it for his dying father. When lyricist Robert Hunter listened to the instrumental, he said, “If ever a lyric ‘wrote itself,’ this did—as fast as the pen would pull.”

“Box of Rain” is a fitting way to close a Grateful Dead concert. Hunter’s verses join the personal to the existential. It recalls what Lesh took from Bach’s counterpoint. How a melody can be both independent and interdependent. Lesh was many things, too. He was the Grateful Dead’s anchor, yet capable of leading them into boundless expansions.

Walk out of any doorway
Feel your way, feel your way like the day before
Maybe you’ll find direction
Around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you

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Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images