Song of the Week – A Tribute to Phil Lesh

Guest contributor Jim Iacoponi wrote today’s SotW.  Jim is a tie-dyed-in-the-wool fan of the Grateful Dead.  He attended over 50 Grateful Dead concerts before Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and has seen countless more shows in the various group configurations since.  Besides being a Dead Head, Jim is a talented engineer, an artistic ceramist, and an exceptional pizzaiolo!  TM

On Friday, October 25th, the music world lost a deeply loved and most talented musician, the Bay Area’s own Phil Lesh. He was 84.

A founding member of the Grateful Dead, Phil was rarely in the spotlight when the band performed its 2,284 concerts from 1965 through 2015, leaving that largely to Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. Back in the day, “let Phil sing” was often shouted out by fans. He rarely did.

Of the 484 songs (original and cover) that the Dead performed over the years only 4 were penned by Phil. Yet it was his bass that drove the band, its pace, and strength, and his deep musical connection with Jerry that bent each show to the heights and breadth of where jams could go. If Jerry was the explorer and Bob the storyteller, Phil was the bedrock from which the group launched its trips.

In the early ‘70s my high school friend Peter had the first (and best) car cassette player I’d ever seen with 30 watts per channel and two 8-inch speakers in his Impala. Peter had hours of live Dead shows: Carousel Ballroom, Winterland, Eugene, Cow Palace. We cruised a lot! And there I first met Phil.

The Dead’s 2nd sets were known for their spacey jams, moving from one song to the next with epic wandering and reconnection. They captured their and the crowds’ moment, hitting that ‘high point’ for the evening. No two sets were alike. “The Other One” was a 2nd set fan favorite. Phil’s bass opens it with a riff all Heads know and continues to pulse and push, as Bob’s voice tells a tale of a trip on a bus driven by Cowboy Neal (Cassady, of Merry Pranksters fame) to Nevereverland.

Those magical bootleg tapes and Phil’s bass hooked me for life.

The well-known song “Truckin’” always got fans back up on their feet after a slower ballad and with Jerry, Phil’s bass jumpstarts the tune and carries the rhythm through to the end. “Truckin’s” lyric traces the band on a US tour with stops in cities out East and commentary on a few:

On January 30, 1970, the Dead’s hotel in New Orleans was raided and the band was busted on marijuana charges:

…Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street

Chicago, New York, Detroit and it’s all on the same street

Your typical city involved in a typical daydream

Hang it up and see what tomorrow brings

Dallas, got a soft machine

Houston, too close to New Orleans

New York got the ways and means

But just won’t let you be…

Sittin’ and starin’ out of the hotel window

Got a tip they’re gonna kick the door in again

I’d like to get some sleep before I travel

But if you got a warrant, I guess you’re gonna come in

Busted, down on Bourbon Street

Set up, like a bowlin’ pin

Knocked down

It get’s to wearin’ thin

They just won’t let you be…

In classic Phil fashion, his bass tees up the song’s beloved refrain. Even today at shows by all of the bands that celebrate the Dead’s music, his driving riff is memorialized, and the crowd responds, singing at the top of the top of their lungs:

…Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me

Other times I can barely see

Lately it occurs to me

What a long, strange trip it’s been…

Phil and Dead lyricist Robert Hunter wrote what I think is one of the most poignant of the Dead’s songs, “Box Of Rain.” Phil was coming to terms with his father’s succumbing to cancer, thinking about the past, wondering about the future, and how to bring peace and comfort in such distress:

…Look out of any window

Any morning, any evening, any day

Maybe the sun is shining

Birds are winging or rain is falling from a heavy sky

What do you want me to do

To do for you to see you through?

For this is all a dream we dreamed

One afternoon long ago…

The singer offers a ‘box of rain’ as a way to bring solace, and love to lighten the load:

…What do you want me to do

To do for you to see you through?

A box of rain will ease the pain

And love will see you through…

And while he didn’t sing lead often, Phil’s uneven voice carried the audience through “Box of Rain,” offering its closing lyrics with depth and personal tenderness:

…And it’s just a box of rain

I don’t know who put it there

Believe it if you need it

Or leave it if you dare

And it’s just a box of rain

Or a ribbon for your hair

Such a long, long time to be gone

And a short time to be there.

“Box of Rain” was the last song in the encore of the Dead’s last show (at Soldier Field) in 1995, before Jerry died.

Almost two years ago my family committed our Dad’s ashes to the Pacific under the Golden Gate Bridge in a beautiful ceremony of remembrance, kinship, and closure. I chose to say “see you around” to Dad by playing the Dead’s “Brokedown Palace” on the boat that day.

While not one of Phil’s four songs, it lives because Phil did. The song ends:

..Fare you well, fare you well

I love you more than words can tell

Listen to the river sing sweet songs

To rock my soul.

It is indeed a fitting farewell to the life-long friend of that tie-dyed tribe Phil helped guide for nearly six decades.

Thank you, Phil. For Deadheads and music fans everywhere, you’ll live on because the music you made for all those years will always live on. What a long, strange trip indeed!

Enjoy… until next week.

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