Phil Lesh, founding member and bassist of the Grateful Dead, has died

CNN
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Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of the legendary rock band Grateful Dead, has died. He was reportedly 84 years old.

The news was announced on Lesh's verified Instagram on Friday, which said he died “peacefully” on Friday morning.

“He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought great joy to everyone around him and leaves a legacy full of music and love,” the announcement on social media read. “We ask that you respect the Lesh family’s privacy at this time.”

CNN has reached out to a representative for the Grateful Dead. A cause of death was not immediately known, but the Associated Press reported that Lesh had previously survived prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a liver transplant in 1998 that resulted from a hepatitis C infection and years of heavy drinking.

Lesh is from Berkeley, California and founded the band Grateful Dead in Palo Alto in 1965 with Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bill Kreutzmann.

Lesh also learned violin and trumpet and achieved second place in the California Oakland Symphony Orchestra as a teenager.

Lesh was driving a mail truck and working as a sound engineer for a small radio station in 1965 when Garcia asked him to play bass for a young rock band then known as The Warlocks.

After developing a feel for the instrument and studying with Garcia, the two often negotiated over who would lead the melody of the songs they created, establishing one of the many specialties for which the Dead would become known – long and improvisational Passages No two live performances of a particular song have ever been the same.

“It's always fluid, we just figure it out on the fly,” Lesh said during a rare interview with the AP in 2009. “You can't have these things set in stone in the rehearsal room.”

Although Lesh is best known for his legendary and freestyle bass playing, he composed music for some of the band's most popular songs and also occasionally provided vocals. These tracks included “Pride of Cucamonga,” “Unbroken Chain,” and “Box of Rain.”

In 2002, Lesh and Weir observed what it felt like for the storied group to perform on stage.

“It's when the pipeline is open and that eternal moment – as he describes it – where the music really lives is open to us and we become the vessel that that goes to, so music goes in “In a way, it's about bringing eternity into time,” Lesh told CNN at the time in response to Weir's comments.

The band became known for their legendary live performances and paved the way for other popular groups such as Phish.

Referring to the Dead's loyal fanbase and following, Lesh said in 2002, “It's the community that really creates this music, and we're just there on the receiving end, tapping into the pipeline and giving it back to them, maybe at a higher level.” Level.” So we get it from them and give it back to them.”

After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995 following Garcia's death, Lesh largely refrained from joining the other surviving members onstage at their reunion performances.

However, he took part in the Grateful Dead tour in 2009 and again in 2015 in a series of Fare Thee Well concerts to mark the band's 50th anniversary.

He continued to play frequently with a rotating cast of musicians he called Phil Lesh and Friends.

The Dead will be honored at a pre-Grammy Awards benefit gala in Los Angeles in January. The band was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2007.

Speaking to CNN in 2006, Lesh reflected on the feeling of performing with his bandmates.

“It's paradise. At this moment I'm not really there. And no one is. We are the music, and as such our personalities really cease to exist at all. We have been absorbed into the larger personality of the group mind, that is what was created. This is what happens when we improvise creatively and the flow really happens. When we actually channel, we open that pipeline to another reality that speaks to us. And we act as transformers, and we have to incorporate that into musical thinking. But this is not something you can consciously do, learn, or learn. It’s just something that happens to you when the stars align correctly and when your individual consciousness is open enough.”

Lesh is survived by his wife Jill and sons Brian and Grahame.

This is a developing story and will be updated.