Phil Lesh - Music

Music

Lesh was an innovator in the new role that the electric bass developed during the mid-1960s. Contemporaries such as James Jamerson, Paul McCartney, and Jack Casady adopted a more melodic, contrapuntal approach to the instrument; before this, bass players in rock had generally played a conventional timekeeping role within the beat of the song, and within (or underpinning) the song's harmonic or chord structure. While not abandoning these aspects, Lesh took his own improvised excursions during a song or instrumental. This was a characteristic aspect of the so-called San Francisco Sound in the new rock music. In many Dead jams, Lesh's bass is, in essence, as much a lead instrument as Garcia's guitar.

Lesh was not a prolific composer or singer with the Grateful Dead, although some of the songs he did contribute—"New Potato Caboose", "Box of Rain", "Unbroken Chain", and "Pride of Cucamonga"—are among the best-known in the band's repertoire. Lesh's high tenor voice contributed to the Grateful Dead's four-part harmony sections in their group vocals in the early days of the band, until he relinquished singing high parts to Donna Godchaux. In the 1980s, he resumed singing, but as a baritone. His interest in avant-garde music was a crucial influence on the Dead.

In 1994, he was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Grateful Dead.