The thing to realize about Phil is that he was a classically trained musician and had a view of music that was very intellectual for a bass player, so he was thinking in terms of harmony and counterpoint that most rock musicians never consider (though maybe more than most people think.) Add all that to the fact that he wasn't afraid to take chances on stage and it leads to some of the most interesting and inventive music. A lot of people have the idea that the Dead were just a drug band but they were all very dedicated musicians who worked as hard as they could at perfecting their sound. I was listening to the Good Ol Grateful Dead podcast and on it there is an excerpt from Lesh and Garcia talking during the rehearsals for Mars Hotel. Lesh wrote "Unbroken Chain" and it took the band an ungodly amount of takes to get it right. At one point during rehearsals Lesh is explaining a progression to Garcia and Garcia says, "where's the fun in that?" Lesh says, "it's not supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be right." There's another video where he is coaching Garcia and Weir through the harmonies in "Candyman." I doubt the band would have acheived the musical prominence they did without Lesh coaching the others on theory not to mention his natural ear for the "groove."
Well done. Im a bass player of over 60 years. I've been a fan of Phil from the first album on. So he was a huge early influence on me. Such a unique and inventive player. Brilliant stuff. And his tone is the best I've ever heard.
Appreciate the video Mikey P…had never heard of you until this. Looked you up while listening to the start of it and I appreciate the extremely wide variety of modern music you comment and-based on the very tasteful and supremely informed takes you drop here in this one-it’s refreshing to have the perspective of someone outside of the GD Universe when talking about the absolute singular nature of Phil as an artist. You should be taken seriously in any musical discussion based solely on your opinion in here about Lesh being the most important cog in the GD machine. While Cornell is a lot of hype by fans and scholars alike as being a show that is worth considering in the “Top 10” or something list of ones the band ever played, rather than the reality of it being anything more than just another brutally beautiful evening of GD mastery in May 77, the spotlight on Phil is a perfect place to shine on for an example of his prowess and totally original style. Getting too verbose…that thing he is doing doing during that Scarlet, and which he did so often in 76-77 shows with that tone or pedal, has always sounded to me like he is snapping some Sacred Lysergic Rubberband…and it is glorious…if listened to with the right kind of “lenses” and proper amplification and setting it seems like all manner of colors would be blasting forth from it, even ones undiscovered as of this comment. Subscribed! RIP PHIL…
Great video. I've never heard another bass player who sounds remotely close to Phil's style. He swung, he played behind, he played ahead, he played it straight he played it from any harmonic angle possible..he literally did it all. Some of my fave Phil moments are Music Never Stopped intro, what he plays behind Jerry's leads makes the hair on my arms stand up. Or what he played on King Solomans Marbles is another. We lost a legend but what a legacy he left us with the music. That Cornell Fire solo you ended with is some of the hottest playing they ever did, solid choice!
I can't say I've really heard much of the Dead's music but everything here demonstrates his off kilter swagger. It's shocking that they were loved by folks who were amateur pharmaceutical enthusiasts....
Without love in the dream it will never come true. Phil had the love and made all of our dreams come true. Thank you brother. We love you and are grateful for your love. Cornell is Cornell because of Phil. Thank you for showcasing it.
Phil was also the most approachable and kind. TXR was one of the most intimate musical developments of the post 95 era. Rest in peace and love, Brother Phil
I saw enjoy when a musical lover/musician gets the dead and here’s and feels what I did in 1972….now 52 years later I still feel moved by the spirit and creativity and soul they have brought forth….thanks Michael👍🙏🏻🙏🏻
This is the video I was looking for, the one that points out and explains the greatness of Phil Lesh. I’ve never seen Jerry live, but I seen plenty of Phil and Friends and when you’re at the show his playing is high up in the mix, different speakers are assigned to different strings, he often would say something in the microphone unheard to the audience, only to band and crew, calling key changes on the fly, segues, etc. I’ve yet to read Phil’s book - Searching for the Sound, I just ordered it on Amazon, I heard it’s a great read. Bill Kreutsmann’s book was fantastic. I can recommend that book truly
Thanks for this video. Most of us that went to shows back then knew how important Phil was while the world generally didn’t understand. 103 shows for me between ‘80 and ‘95 and not one bad Phil night.
I never saw the Grateful Dead, but I saw every iteration of the surviving members. Saw most of their other bands like Phil.and Friends, Bembe Orisha, Ratdog, etc. And it is always better with Phil there. Bar none, my favorite musician I ever got to see live. I feel blesses to have seen him like 20 times, which is miniscule compared to some. Every time I ever saw him, he played with the biggest smile. Music is made so much better by musicians who it isn't a chore for. And Phil never got to a point where he didn't like playing music for the people. This one hurt.
Thanks for this. I've seen Phil a bunch of times and had some incredible experiences. He was the man. I will miss him greatly. RIP Phil Lesh (~);} I wanted to add everyone is going to say listen to Phil with the Q. Which was good, but check out Phil and Ryan Adams at The Fillmore Denver. Ryan had only played with Phil twice but it was incredible. Ryan was holding on for dear life. He ended up doing really good, I thought. It was an incredible show. One of the best. I think there are some vids on YT of it. The power went out the night before at The Fillmore so Phil and Ryan went next door to Sancho's Broken Arrow and played 10 songs and shot pool.
Thank you. When I first heard he passed I went back to those Cornell `77 shows and listened to them as well. As a bass player they are examples of what you can truly do in a song and I feel like I pick up something new every time I listen to that show
You said it. I always loved Phil and his playing. Never realized somehow just how much of the music IS Phil. We’re all better off for having “known” him.
Hey there Michael P, this is the first piece of your video work that I've come across. I appreciate that you bring musical knowledge, a passionate regard for the content, and a feel for what can happen when musicians engage with each other to your essay. As a lifelong amateur who still considers himself to be, primarily, a musician, I hear the ring of truth in your words. Well done !!
Well said. Your enthusiasm and dissection of the music is spot on! Thank you. Fitting that you ended with Fire from Cornell. When I was 16 and introduced to the Dead (1980) this was the song that put me over the top. I had a bootleg cassette of Cornell and listened to it on my portable tape recorder while delivering construction materials in SF during summer break. And this one came on and exploded thru the shitty cassette recorder 3 inch speaker. Up until then, I wasn't convinced but that Fire tilted the scale. I saw many shows in the early 80's and now I always say, "Who are the grateful dead and why do they keep following me around?" A big part is Phil. Thanks!
Thank you, Michael, for your appreciation of the great Phil Lesh! It has been fun watching your journey on The Bus and immediate appreciation of the Phil Zone! He would push, poke, prod, stroke, whatever was needed. We were so lucky to have so many great years of this band and the sublime (or sledgehammer) Phil Lesh!
Phil always gave his best.....whether he wanted to or not. The loads gone now.....but he didnt leave us alone. Thanks again brother Palmesano......the Dead's never dead. RIP brother Phil. ron
Phil was a special Gift and Blessing. Jerry said it best, "When Phil was ON, the Grateful Dead were ON." Crazy great inventive adventurer in music. Improvisational and Experimental to the maximum all days and always. Not a half baked note ever. Thank you Phil. Super Well Done !!!
Thanks Michael. It’s wonderful to watch your videos where your enthusiasm for the music matches ours. Thanks for putting this out there. When you “get it” it’s like a light flashing that’s kind of “on” for a lifetime.
Yes, I was listening to the three CD box of this show in my car several times thru shortly before Phil passed. And as someone who’s always on the hunt for a new musical discovery, it’s unusual for me to listen to the same album twice in a short period. However, like you remarked with respect to dancing in the streets, I could listen to that all day. And you picked the right spot in the song, also, IMO, one of the greatest moments of Jerry’s adrenaline filled riffing. RIP Phil. PS- my CD copy sounds way better than on Spotify. Thus, it’s one of the rare occasions I go back to physical media in the car.
I started playing bass when I was 12 (43 now) and the first song I was taught to play was Bertha, and Phil was and is one of my biggest inspirations. My high school band played Scarlet Begonias at our junior year talent show, and I completely ripped off his licks from 5.8.77. First time I tripped was at The Other Ones in '98. Saw Phil Lesh & Friends many times. What a legend, for which we're all grateful.
I couldn't agree more with your sincere analysis. Phil was a professional but playful player. Your song choices to show his expertise was spot on. The slides he does on Estimated Prophet in that show are so clean, its just philnomenal. And yes, he brought so much joy to so many people. I honestly can't think of another band that has done so much charity work. They basically put on benefit show after benefit show, even when the band wasn't making much money in the early days. Deadheads know this music is healing through stress relief, providing community and comradery, and most of all is just flat out fun. Thanks for your tribute!
7:50 Your point that he often would not resolve to the root of the chord is probably the most important one to make about Phil’s playing. He didn’t just play what you would expect, but at the same time it ALWAYS seemed to suit the music and/or push it in an alternate direction. He was always challenging the musicians around him to keep up. His sense of timing was also impeccable. He and Rick Danko are my two favorite bassists of the early ‘70s.
For sheer 'Philbombs' experience, listen to the Jack Straw from Seattle Center 8/27/1983. An excellent audience recording here on YT. You can feel the audience shudder as he punches 15000 people in the gut repeatedly. It's astonishing and quite visceral.
Bass and drums always drives music. Mr.Lesh excelled at this to the point that it took two drummers to create balance. Needless to say, you could find me in the Phil Zone when I had the good fortune of attending their live performances
I respect your view about Phil. He was absolutely incredible. I was very fortunate to see The Dead all through the 1980's. Their music had a major impact on my life. If you had a musical mind and were patient for it to come around, absolute magic that they themselves or anyone else could never duplicate. Look around you and see 80,000 beaming smiles! Nothing else like it! My church
This past weekend I listened to the Dead's 1971 gig in Pittsburgh PA from Dave's Picks Volume 51. What a great set, The Other One was a perfect piece of music for Phil's bass. The opening of that piece still gives me chills, 53 years after it was performed.
COOL VIDEO. thanks. i love the dead, and i agree cornell '77 is some of the best. one thing that cannot be overstated when it comes to discussing Phil's excellence is the impact of mickey hart on the rhythm and style that the bass could take on. 2 drummers with polyrhythmic intentions can make a playground for a gifted musician (Phil). He could dance all over the place and still find firm footing as he had 2 drummers working hard to provide a framework. This allowed him to go all over the place and still sound on rhythm. This seems like it allowed him to simply dance along. I love the nuance and slight differences in the live shows. I have become a huge fan (much too late) as I appreciate the differences in each of the hundred versions of scarlet/fire that I have heard. Eyes of the world changed my world, and Phil was at least 1/6 of that. I owe him a lot, and I thank you for highlighting his accomplishments in a language I don't fully understand (music).
Thank you, Michael. You said it right: Phil was driving the bus. There is a Sugar Magnolia out there (later days GD, Bruce Hornsby on keys) with the whole band alit and Philbombs galore in the coda - sheer fun.
RIP Phil Lesh My son asked me not too long ago what it was like to have gone to a Grateful Dead concert. Well, the best and ablest description would be to liken the experience to a promenade in the Souk. The Grateful Dead experience was truly one large mystical bazaar. And in the middle of that great marketplace lay a gravitational field, like no other. In the center stood Bob Weir. On stage left Jerry Garcia, the tillerman who directed the course of a great vessel. To the back, the reverberations of the percussion propelled the great vessel. And on stage right stood Phil Lesh whose bass notes set the beat and glued all together. His the sail. Each show represented a unique Hajj of varying cloth. Sometimes cotton, sometimes wool, and on a rare occasion, the finest silk. Where one chose to orbit was unique to each celebrant. Some would levitate toward the whirling dervishes, some would dance in the halls, some would stay glued to their seats, and some wander. Out of Wonderlust, my journey was always to travel. Consequently, I would bounce from one spot to the next never riveted to one spot. I tended to spend most of my time on the stage left side of shows. Jerry’s licks tended to be an anti-gravitational field and you felt like you were floating, bouncing with each note. Perhaps out of stage shyness, Jerry would focus attention to the keyboard player, to Bobby, to Phil, to Billy or to Mickey. The musical notes connected him to one and all including the mass of the audience. Once, I was drawn to stage right. Threading my way through the pilgrims, a deep gravitational note burst out throwing my long hair back. I looked up and saw Phil smiling his prankster grin. I had entered the Phil Zone and he had reminded me that I needed to stay awake for the journey. His adhan delighted the masses, love, not fade away. His call to prayer was the glue that kept the players firmly grounded, and which gave flight to the many pilgrims in attendance. He was the jester bouncing between king and assembled peoples. During a performance of unbroken chain, his rhythm wrapped around the tree of notes, put forth by Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir in a manner similar to a caduceus. The interwoven links made up the whole. If you understand this, if you appreciate this, then you have ridden the bus. To not understand is not to be less in any manner, but you have either been on the pilgrimage or are still waiting to be on the pilgrimage. Thank you, Phil, for being the prankster and conductor! Say, goodnight Phil
Fantastic video and tribute, encapsulating the essence of Phil and the Dead as an entity and unique sonic environment. Hope this inspires others to climb aboard the bus... "once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right" ~;-}
thanks. you're teaching me how to listen to this music that i've loved listening to all my adult life, nearly 40 years now. there are quite a few Cornell tracks out there with isolated parts (Phil, Bobby and Jerry) that really help to break down all that is going on in a Dead song. i think it was Wynton Marsalis who said that jazz is an argument among people with strong things to say. more please. take care!
You should check out his work with the Q. That band took the GD music to another level almost reminiscent of early 70’s jazz fusion. It was generally a much higher energy version of the songs and it was a joy to see. Phil was an absolute monster playing with Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring and Rob Barraco. When they were on I’d put them up against any live band ever.
Phil is my hero for all these reasons. He was always just dancing around the fret board, and I agree he was just playing to have fun with the band. Check Phil out on Without A Net, he is on it and the mix is great! Thanks Michael!
Hey Michael. Love your videos. Major Deadhead. Couldn’t agree more - Phil drove the bus. Love your examples of Phil doing his thing from Cornell which by the way I graduated from in January 1977 right before the legendary May 8th show. I’d like to suggest another Phil standout. China Cat-Rider from Providence Civic Center June 26, 1974. Phil out of control. Two hands on the wheel. Slippery and crazy gorgeous!
Thanks for the video. Another nice tribute to Phil. It’s ironic how many people who liked to hate the Grateful Dead when they were a going concern are now heaping praise in them. Being a deadhead in the day meant taking crap. I remember reading reviews in the newspaper after a 3 night run, usually by someone who didn’t attend the show and never published a set list, crapping all over them. I read an article that actually said the Grateful Dead didn’t know how to tune their instruments and couldn’t start or stop a song together. (BTW, I was in my junior high school marching band. And we sucked a mighty suck. However, we could start and stop a song together and the music teacher made sure our instruments were in tune. It was the marching and playing in unison that were troublesome.) Basically it all got boiled down to drugs; the band is on drugs, the audience is on drugs and no one would ever like this music unless they’re on drugs. It’s at best seeing the tree and missing the forest or a professional music critic(izer) who couldn’t stand the fact that something was becoming enormously popular that they didn’t like. They had to belittle and diminish it to protect their egos. Going on nearly 30 years since Jerry Garcia died, now the naysayers and people who just missed it are heaping endless praise on the Dead for a long list of reasons. I heard my first Dead album, Skull and Roses, when I was in 8th grade. I got it immediately. When I first heard The Other One on that album, I could follow it and I remember thinking, “I didn’t know music could do that.” So 30 years after the passing of Jerry, the music never stopped. They never billed themselves as the Grateful Dead but it was hardly the end of the music and musicians of the Grateful Dead. It was just the next chapters in the long book of the Grateful Dead which was started in 1965 and is still being written. Finally Phil made it to 84. He was a husband, a father, a grandfather, he received a liver transplant in 1998 (26 years on a transplanted liver is basically a miracle) and survived prostate and bladder cancer. He lived an amazing life and 84 isn’t a bad run. Thanks for a real good time. Fare thee well.
Thanks so much for the love and insight you bring, it shines through so clearly. Phil bombs were the best, but you could do a whole hour on his different phrasing on what you played here. Sure was a fun ride!
So easy for bass to get buried and become under current… like you said. We take it for granted the role he played in the bottom end was so dynamic and adventurous!
My twin bro Michael Paladoris and I had a dank 5th generation copy of Cornell 77. It had some hiss but the bass was all there. It was our high-school years and we blasted that show from our ‘85 Monte Carlo all over Springfield, IL. Thank You Phil 🎸
We discovered “The Lesh Spot “ …in any room , with The Dead cranked up , we would wander and put our ears against doors, tables, bureaus, and pick up the frequencies transmitted thru wood and other solids…it’s pretty amazing
add '74 eyes of the world! Thanks, Bro! great honoring. PS I think Phil himself said that Help on the Way was an avenue of some their wildest experimentation (think Jazz?) 🙂
Thanx for this! If you can get around to it, the next night in Buffalo is equal if not better. 5-9-77. Betty board. Help>Slip>Franklin’s. Stunning. Comes A Time. Heart wrenching. Would love to see a reaction!
I always thought that Phil ‘s Bass was analogous to Ringo‘s drumming. I.e. Convention be damned, what does the song need? And Phil was always able to answer that question in a way that a conventional bass player would never imagine. I love how you say that he made you earn the low notes. I never thought of it like that, but it’s so true, and the notes are so rewarding when you get them!
It's still so astounding to me how popular this band has become in the last 15 years or so? While I saw them in the 80s & 90s, I always felt I was part of a little hidden secret that I and a few others were a part of. To see the outpouring of memorials all over the internet for phil is heartwarming! Post 95, my favorite gd offshoots was p & f! Getting to hear those old tunes the gd hadn't performed since I was an infant was just downright glorious!
The perfect description. Phil sometimes singlehandedly pulled the band into excursions to territories unknown and uncharted. In his own right, his inner ear for music was just the perfect counterpoint to Jerry's astonishing musicality. I started listening to the Dead in late 1966, and it was apparent then that Phil was ahead of the pack of all the other bass players. Something set him apart. He like no other inspired me in my own playing.
I realized the driving force of the Dead resided in the baseline finally last summer when I was listening to 'Hell in a Bucket.' I played the song over and over as well as many other Dead songs, concluding that Phil Lesh was the main reason people danced through entire Dead shows.
From the get-go. Phil sold so many subwoofers, that's a stat I'd love to know. Seriously. Washington College, early 70's, East Hall, we must get subs...subs...!! to properly decode & reproduce. The Wall of Sound Betty Board era. WTF Phil is DOING must be properly amped as well!! Enter the glowing Macintosh amps. Yes Michael, it was Phil that amply propelled he and his legendary bandmates into the stratosphere! May the four winds blow him safely home. ;-)
If you loved the Grateful Dead like many of us. There were things to the way they played that wrapped around your soul when listening to their music that you just don't find in many bands today. Many say it was the drugs back then that did it. But that doesn't give enough credit to these great musicians who brought this wonderful music to us. Thank you Phil for your contribution to changing people's souls. I know I was one and you will be greatly missed!
Some of my favorite Phil moments are from the entire One From the Vault show. An underrated Phil bomb that no joke shook the foundation of my house (through a pair of HPM 100s) is at 2:20 of China Rider from the 1974 Winterland shows before their hiatus. Nuclear detonation. In his book Searching for the Sound, he talked about someone he was learning the instrument from tell him early on, never hit an open string on bass unless you REALLY mean it lol
I’ve never been the type that is usually affected by celebrity deaths but Phil’s passing hit me incredibly hard. There will never be another like him just like there will never be another like Jerry. “Like a steel locomotive rolling down the track he’s gone, he’s gone, ain’t nothing gonna bring him back.” 💔
Some of his playing on "The Eleven" around 68-69 was out of this world. He was one of THE best bassists ever.
The thing to realize about Phil is that he was a classically trained musician and had a view of music that was very intellectual for a bass player, so he was thinking in terms of harmony and counterpoint that most rock musicians never consider (though maybe more than most people think.) Add all that to the fact that he wasn't afraid to take chances on stage and it leads to some of the most interesting and inventive music. A lot of people have the idea that the Dead were just a drug band but they were all very dedicated musicians who worked as hard as they could at perfecting their sound. I was listening to the Good Ol Grateful Dead podcast and on it there is an excerpt from Lesh and Garcia talking during the rehearsals for Mars Hotel. Lesh wrote "Unbroken Chain" and it took the band an ungodly amount of takes to get it right. At one point during rehearsals Lesh is explaining a progression to Garcia and Garcia says, "where's the fun in that?" Lesh says, "it's not supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be right." There's another video where he is coaching Garcia and Weir through the harmonies in "Candyman." I doubt the band would have acheived the musical prominence they did without Lesh coaching the others on theory not to mention his natural ear for the "groove."
Yes, the groove. He went there often, and took the rest of the band there often. As powerful as Jerry was, it wasn't all Jerry.
Jerry may have been the voice but Phil was the soul.
@@Halcyon156 Excellent take! Very true. I'm afraid to say I undervalued Phil. He's getting he's props from me now posthumously ! Lol
@@pholkhero2145 👍
Yes, and it took them forever to get the rhythm right in "Truckin". 12/8 timing.
What a wonderful way to honor a musician passing. This was great! Thank you!
Thanks for honoring the great Phil Lesh.
Well done. Im a bass player of over 60 years. I've been a fan of Phil from the first album on. So he was a huge early influence on me. Such a unique and inventive player. Brilliant stuff. And his tone is the best I've ever heard.
Appreciate the video Mikey P…had never heard of you until this. Looked you up while listening to the start of it and I appreciate the extremely wide variety of modern music you comment and-based on the very tasteful and supremely informed takes you drop here in this one-it’s refreshing to have the perspective of someone outside of the GD Universe when talking about the absolute singular nature of Phil as an artist. You should be taken seriously in any musical discussion based solely on your opinion in here about Lesh being the most important cog in the GD machine.
While Cornell is a lot of hype by fans and scholars alike as being a show that is worth considering in the “Top 10” or something list of ones the band ever played, rather than the reality of it being anything more than just another brutally beautiful evening of GD mastery in May 77, the spotlight on Phil is a perfect place to shine on for an example of his prowess and totally original style.
Getting too verbose…that thing he is doing doing during that Scarlet, and which he did so often in 76-77 shows with that tone or pedal, has always sounded to me like he is snapping some Sacred Lysergic Rubberband…and it is glorious…if listened to with the right kind of “lenses” and proper amplification and setting it seems like all manner of colors would be blasting forth from it, even ones undiscovered as of this comment.
Subscribed! RIP PHIL…
Great video. I've never heard another bass player who sounds remotely close to Phil's style. He swung, he played behind, he played ahead, he played it straight he played it from any harmonic angle possible..he literally did it all. Some of my fave Phil moments are Music Never Stopped intro, what he plays behind Jerry's leads makes the hair on my arms stand up. Or what he played on King Solomans Marbles is another. We lost a legend but what a legacy he left us with the music. That Cornell Fire solo you ended with is some of the hottest playing they ever did, solid choice!
I can't say I've really heard much of the Dead's music but everything here demonstrates his off kilter swagger. It's shocking that they were loved by folks who were amateur pharmaceutical enthusiasts....
@TheBigburcie I can assure you that there were many professional pharmaceutical enthusiasts.
Thanks dead music
✌️😎
@@TheBigburcie That's cause the band were highly skilled amateur pharma enthusiasts.
This is why I love music. It triggers in people something nothing else does. Thank you for this video.
Without love in the dream it will never come true.
Phil had the love and made all of our dreams come true. Thank you brother. We love you and are grateful for your love.
Cornell is Cornell because of Phil. Thank you for showcasing it.
Phil was also the most approachable and kind.
TXR was one of the most intimate musical developments of the post 95 era.
Rest in peace and love, Brother Phil
Saw so many shows at TXR for years it felt like home, man do I miss that place, ThankYou ((Phil)) 🤲 ❤ ⚡️
I saw enjoy when a musical lover/musician gets the dead and here’s and feels what I did in 1972….now 52 years later I still feel moved by the spirit and creativity and soul they have brought forth….thanks Michael👍🙏🏻🙏🏻
PHILLLLLL!!!!! I love this thank you for showcasing the gloriousness of Phil's playing!
This is the video I was looking for, the one that points out and explains the greatness of Phil Lesh. I’ve never seen Jerry live, but I seen plenty of Phil and Friends and when you’re at the show his playing is high up in the mix, different speakers are assigned to different strings, he often would say something in the microphone unheard to the audience, only to band and crew, calling key changes on the fly, segues, etc. I’ve yet to read Phil’s book - Searching for the Sound, I just ordered it on Amazon, I heard it’s a great read. Bill Kreutsmann’s book was fantastic. I can recommend that book truly
Hes my favorite musician. I sincerely appreciate this. Very well done.
Thanks for this video. Most of us that went to shows back then knew how important Phil was while the world generally didn’t understand. 103 shows for me between ‘80 and ‘95 and not one bad Phil night.
I never saw the Grateful Dead, but I saw every iteration of the surviving members. Saw most of their other bands like Phil.and Friends, Bembe Orisha, Ratdog, etc. And it is always better with Phil there. Bar none, my favorite musician I ever got to see live. I feel blesses to have seen him like 20 times, which is miniscule compared to some. Every time I ever saw him, he played with the biggest smile. Music is made so much better by musicians who it isn't a chore for. And Phil never got to a point where he didn't like playing music for the people.
This one hurt.
Thanks Michael. I needed this!! As a Dead fan since the early 70's I have loved Phil's playing and I will really miss him.
Thanks for this. I've seen Phil a bunch of times and had some incredible experiences. He was the man. I will miss him greatly. RIP Phil Lesh (~);} I wanted to add everyone is going to say listen to Phil with the Q. Which was good, but check out Phil and Ryan Adams at The Fillmore Denver. Ryan had only played with Phil twice but it was incredible. Ryan was holding on for dear life. He ended up doing really good, I thought. It was an incredible show. One of the best. I think there are some vids on YT of it. The power went out the night before at The Fillmore so Phil and Ryan went next door to Sancho's Broken Arrow and played 10 songs and shot pool.
Was one of the times at the Jammys? I feel like Lesh played with him on one of them.
Big thanks Michael for posting this!✌️
Thank you. When I first heard he passed I went back to those Cornell `77 shows and listened to them as well. As a bass player they are examples of what you can truly do in a song and I feel like I pick up something new every time I listen to that show
You said it. I always loved Phil and his playing. Never realized somehow just how much of the music IS Phil. We’re all better off for having “known” him.
Hey there Michael P, this is the first piece of your video work that I've come across.
I appreciate that you bring musical knowledge, a passionate regard for the content, and a feel for what can happen when musicians engage with each other to your essay.
As a lifelong amateur who still considers himself to be, primarily, a musician, I hear the ring of truth in your words.
Well done !!
grateful video, thanks Phil
Well said. Your enthusiasm and dissection of the music is spot on! Thank you. Fitting that you ended with Fire from Cornell. When I was 16 and introduced to the Dead (1980) this was the song that put me over the top. I had a bootleg cassette of Cornell and listened to it on my portable tape recorder while delivering construction materials in SF during summer break. And this one came on and exploded thru the shitty cassette recorder 3 inch speaker. Up until then, I wasn't convinced but that Fire tilted the scale. I saw many shows in the early 80's and now I always say, "Who are the grateful dead and why do they keep following me around?" A big part is Phil. Thanks!
Thank you! So happy your perspective shifted and you get the chance to appreciate this music so thoroughly.
Thank you, Michael, for your appreciation of the great Phil Lesh! It has been fun watching your journey on The Bus and immediate appreciation of the Phil Zone! He would push, poke, prod, stroke, whatever was needed. We were so lucky to have so many great years of this band and the sublime (or sledgehammer) Phil Lesh!
Phil always gave his best.....whether he wanted to or not. The loads gone now.....but he didnt leave us alone. Thanks again brother Palmesano......the Dead's never dead. RIP brother Phil. ron
Phil was a special Gift and Blessing. Jerry said it best, "When Phil was ON, the Grateful Dead were ON." Crazy great inventive adventurer in music. Improvisational and Experimental to the maximum all days and always. Not a half baked note ever. Thank you Phil. Super Well Done !!!
Thank you, Michael.
Thanks for the dive into Phil.
Thanks for making this wonderful tribute Michael!
Thanks Michael. It’s wonderful to watch your videos where your enthusiasm for the music matches ours. Thanks for putting this out there. When you “get it” it’s like a light flashing that’s kind of “on” for a lifetime.
Yes, I was listening to the three CD box of this show in my car several times thru shortly before Phil passed. And as someone who’s always on the hunt for a new musical discovery, it’s unusual for me to listen to the same album twice in a short period. However, like you
remarked with respect to dancing in the streets, I could listen to that all day. And you picked the right spot in the song, also, IMO, one of the greatest moments of Jerry’s adrenaline filled riffing. RIP Phil. PS- my CD copy sounds way better than on Spotify. Thus, it’s one of the rare occasions I go back to physical media in the car.
Those May ‘77 shows are still among my favorites
Beautiful stuff Mike.
Seeing you so joyful for Phil and the music.
That’s what it’s all about.
Well done.
💙⚡️💀⚡️❤️
May he Rest in Peace. 🥺
Great video! Love you, Mike!!
I started playing bass when I was 12 (43 now) and the first song I was taught to play was Bertha, and Phil was and is one of my biggest inspirations. My high school band played Scarlet Begonias at our junior year talent show, and I completely ripped off his licks from 5.8.77. First time I tripped was at The Other Ones in '98. Saw Phil Lesh & Friends many times. What a legend, for which we're all grateful.
I traded for Durban poison & G-13 clones at a 98 other ones show. Amazing show and eventual smoke! Those were the days.
I couldn't agree more with your sincere analysis. Phil was a professional but playful player. Your song choices to show his expertise was spot on. The slides he does on Estimated Prophet in that show are so clean, its just philnomenal. And yes, he brought so much joy to so many people. I honestly can't think of another band that has done so much charity work. They basically put on benefit show after benefit show, even when the band wasn't making much money in the early days. Deadheads know this music is healing through stress relief, providing community and comradery, and most of all is just flat out fun. Thanks for your tribute!
7:50 Your point that he often would not resolve to the root of the chord is probably the most important one to make about Phil’s playing. He didn’t just play what you would expect, but at the same time it ALWAYS seemed to suit the music and/or push it in an alternate direction. He was always challenging the musicians around him to keep up. His sense of timing was also impeccable. He and Rick Danko are my two favorite bassists of the early ‘70s.
Thank you for honoring Phil. It is going to take a while for it to sink in that he's no longer physically with us.
For sheer 'Philbombs' experience, listen to the Jack Straw from Seattle Center 8/27/1983. An excellent audience recording here on YT. You can feel the audience shudder as he punches 15000 people in the gut repeatedly. It's astonishing and quite visceral.
Always enjoy your passion for music, Bro!
Bass and drums always drives music. Mr.Lesh excelled at this to the point that it took two drummers to create balance. Needless to say, you could find me in the Phil Zone when I had the good fortune of attending their live performances
I respect your view about Phil. He was absolutely incredible. I was very fortunate to see The Dead all through the 1980's. Their music had a major impact on my life. If you had a musical mind and were patient for it to come around, absolute magic that they themselves or anyone else could never duplicate. Look around you and see 80,000 beaming smiles! Nothing else like it! My church
This past weekend I listened to the Dead's 1971 gig in Pittsburgh PA from Dave's Picks Volume 51. What a great set, The Other One was a perfect piece of music for Phil's bass. The opening of that piece still gives me chills, 53 years after it was performed.
Thank you for this.
Easily the most underrated bass player in rock.
You touched my own geek zone with this one.
cheers.
COOL VIDEO. thanks. i love the dead, and i agree cornell '77 is some of the best. one thing that cannot be overstated when it comes to discussing Phil's excellence is the impact of mickey hart on the rhythm and style that the bass could take on. 2 drummers with polyrhythmic intentions can make a playground for a gifted musician (Phil). He could dance all over the place and still find firm footing as he had 2 drummers working hard to provide a framework. This allowed him to go all over the place and still sound on rhythm. This seems like it allowed him to simply dance along. I love the nuance and slight differences in the live shows. I have become a huge fan (much too late) as I appreciate the differences in each of the hundred versions of scarlet/fire that I have heard. Eyes of the world changed my world, and Phil was at least 1/6 of that. I owe him a lot, and I thank you for highlighting his accomplishments in a language I don't fully understand (music).
Thanks for this! I feel so fortunate to have been able to see this amazing group of musicians live and in person. Really transformative for me….😊❤☮️
Thank you phil.
Thank you, Michael. You said it right: Phil was driving the bus.
There is a Sugar Magnolia out there (later days GD, Bruce Hornsby on keys) with the whole band alit and Philbombs galore in the coda - sheer fun.
RIP Phil Lesh
My son asked me not too long ago what it was like to have gone to a Grateful Dead concert. Well, the best and ablest description would be to liken the experience to a promenade in the Souk. The Grateful Dead experience was truly one large mystical bazaar.
And in the middle of that great marketplace lay a gravitational field, like no other. In the center stood Bob Weir. On stage left Jerry Garcia, the tillerman who directed the course of a great vessel. To the back, the reverberations of the percussion propelled the great vessel. And on stage right stood Phil Lesh whose bass notes set the beat and glued all together. His the sail.
Each show represented a unique Hajj of varying cloth. Sometimes cotton, sometimes wool, and on a rare occasion, the finest silk. Where one chose to orbit was unique to each celebrant. Some would levitate toward the whirling dervishes, some would dance in the halls, some would stay glued to their seats, and some wander. Out of Wonderlust, my journey was always to travel. Consequently, I would bounce from one spot to the next never riveted to one spot.
I tended to spend most of my time on the stage left side of shows. Jerry’s licks tended to be an anti-gravitational field and you felt like you were floating, bouncing with each note. Perhaps out of stage shyness, Jerry would focus attention to the keyboard player, to Bobby, to Phil, to Billy or to Mickey. The musical notes connected him to one and all including the mass of the audience.
Once, I was drawn to stage right. Threading my way through the pilgrims, a deep gravitational note burst out throwing my long hair back. I looked up and saw Phil smiling his prankster grin. I had entered the Phil Zone and he had reminded me that I needed to stay awake for the journey. His adhan delighted the masses, love, not fade away. His call to prayer was the glue that kept the players firmly grounded, and which gave flight to the many pilgrims in attendance. He was the jester bouncing between king and assembled peoples.
During a performance of unbroken chain, his rhythm wrapped around the tree of notes, put forth by Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir in a manner similar to a caduceus. The interwoven links made up the whole. If you understand this, if you appreciate this, then you have ridden the bus. To not understand is not to be less in any manner, but you have either been on the pilgrimage or are still waiting to be on the pilgrimage.
Thank you, Phil, for being the prankster and conductor!
Say, goodnight Phil
We will mos def miss you Phil!! Thank you brother!!!
Awesome video, check out 5/01/77 “Comes a time” Phil kills it and at the 9 minute mark is just bliss😢
Fantastic video and tribute, encapsulating the essence of Phil and the Dead as an entity and unique sonic environment. Hope this inspires others to climb aboard the bus... "once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right" ~;-}
thanks. you're teaching me how to listen to this music that i've loved listening to all my adult life, nearly 40 years now. there are quite a few Cornell tracks out there with isolated parts (Phil, Bobby and Jerry) that really help to break down all that is going on in a Dead song. i think it was Wynton Marsalis who said that jazz is an argument among people with strong things to say. more please. take care!
It is a sad day. The Bass Man. Thank you.
You should check out his work with the Q. That band took the GD music to another level almost reminiscent of early 70’s jazz fusion. It was generally a much higher energy version of the songs and it was a joy to see. Phil was an absolute monster playing with Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring and Rob Barraco. When they were on I’d put them up against any live band ever.
Phil is my hero for all these reasons. He was always just dancing around the fret board, and I agree he was just playing to have fun with the band. Check Phil out on Without A Net, he is on it and the mix is great! Thanks Michael!
"Thank you...for a real good time"!
thank you !
Hey Michael. Love your videos. Major Deadhead. Couldn’t agree more - Phil drove the bus. Love your examples of Phil doing his thing from Cornell which by the way I graduated from in January 1977 right before the legendary May 8th show. I’d like to suggest another Phil standout. China Cat-Rider from Providence Civic Center June 26, 1974. Phil out of control. Two hands on the wheel. Slippery and crazy gorgeous!
Thank you Michael 😊Phil was magnificent Lesh is MORE!
Lesh Phillin'.
Bass Great!
Estimated Prophet opening from 5/8/77 is like sets of waves crashing on the shore. He brought the environment to New York!
Jack Straw 8-16-1991 Shoreline Amphitheater is one of my favorite Phil moments!
Well done. Thank you.
Thanks for the video. Another nice tribute to Phil. It’s ironic how many people who liked to hate the Grateful Dead when they were a going concern are now heaping praise in them. Being a deadhead in the day meant taking crap. I remember reading reviews in the newspaper after a 3 night run, usually by someone who didn’t attend the show and never published a set list, crapping all over them. I read an article that actually said the Grateful Dead didn’t know how to tune their instruments and couldn’t start or stop a song together. (BTW, I was in my junior high school marching band. And we sucked a mighty suck. However, we could start and stop a song together and the music teacher made sure our instruments were in tune. It was the marching and playing in unison that were troublesome.) Basically it all got boiled down to drugs; the band is on drugs, the audience is on drugs and no one would ever like this music unless they’re on drugs. It’s at best seeing the tree and missing the forest or a professional music critic(izer) who couldn’t stand the fact that something was becoming enormously popular that they didn’t like. They had to belittle and diminish it to protect their egos. Going on nearly 30 years since Jerry Garcia died, now the naysayers and people who just missed it are heaping endless praise on the Dead for a long list of reasons. I heard my first Dead album, Skull and Roses, when I was in 8th grade. I got it immediately. When I first heard The Other One on that album, I could follow it and I remember thinking, “I didn’t know music could do that.” So 30 years after the passing of Jerry, the music never stopped. They never billed themselves as the Grateful Dead but it was hardly the end of the music and musicians of the Grateful Dead. It was just the next chapters in the long book of the Grateful Dead which was started in 1965 and is still being written. Finally Phil made it to 84. He was a husband, a father, a grandfather, he received a liver transplant in 1998 (26 years on a transplanted liver is basically a miracle) and survived prostate and bladder cancer. He lived an amazing life and 84 isn’t a bad run. Thanks for a real good time. Fare thee well.
I've been camping out in '72, '73, and '74. This tells me that I need to revisit '76, '77 and '78.
i became a teen just after jerry died for alot of us in that era he was our jerry thanx for giving him his flowers .love ya phil
Thanks so much for the love and insight you bring, it shines through so clearly. Phil bombs were the best, but you could do a whole hour on his different phrasing on what you played here. Sure was a fun ride!
Thank you so much for doing such a great description of Phil’s brilliance.
So easy for bass to get buried and become under current… like you said. We take it for granted the role he played in the bottom end was so dynamic and adventurous!
Thanks for honoring this brilliant bassist
My twin bro Michael Paladoris and I had a dank 5th generation copy of Cornell 77. It had some hiss but the bass was all there. It was our high-school years and we blasted that show from our ‘85 Monte Carlo all over Springfield, IL.
Thank You Phil 🎸
Best of Phil - June 9, 1990 Cal Expo - Feel Like a Stranger
Love how round his tone was in 90. Good stuff. Thanks man
2006 Phil and Friends Camden Nj. The best show of the summer.
That was a wonderful tribute.
We discovered “The Lesh Spot “ …in any room , with The Dead cranked up , we would wander and put our ears against doors, tables, bureaus, and pick up the frequencies transmitted thru wood and other solids…it’s pretty amazing
Always loved the moment when his bass comes in on “The Other One” from “Skull and Roses”. He was truly one of a kind.
add '74 eyes of the world! Thanks, Bro! great honoring. PS I think Phil himself said that Help on the Way was an avenue of some their wildest experimentation (think Jazz?) 🙂
Thanx for this! If you can get around to it, the next night in Buffalo is equal if not better. 5-9-77. Betty board. Help>Slip>Franklin’s. Stunning. Comes A Time. Heart wrenching. Would love to see a reaction!
Phil Bombs baby !!
Michael, I've always appreciated your insights. Thanks for this one
I always thought that Phil ‘s Bass was analogous to Ringo‘s drumming. I.e. Convention be damned, what does the song need? And Phil was always able to answer that question in a way that a conventional bass player would never imagine. I love how you say that he made you earn the low notes. I never thought of it like that, but it’s so true, and the notes are so rewarding when you get them!
Thank You!
It's still so astounding to me how popular this band has become in the last 15 years or so? While I saw them in the 80s & 90s, I always felt I was part of a little hidden secret that I and a few others were a part of. To see the outpouring of memorials all over the internet for phil is heartwarming! Post 95, my favorite gd offshoots was p & f! Getting to hear those old tunes the gd hadn't performed since I was an infant was just downright glorious!
The perfect description. Phil sometimes singlehandedly pulled the band into excursions to territories unknown and uncharted. In his own right, his inner ear for music was just the perfect counterpoint to Jerry's astonishing musicality. I started listening to the Dead in late 1966, and it was apparent then that Phil was ahead of the pack of all the other bass players. Something set him apart. He like no other inspired me in my own playing.
I realized the driving force of the Dead resided in the baseline finally last summer when I was listening to 'Hell in a Bucket.' I played the song over and over as well as many other Dead songs, concluding that Phil Lesh was the main reason people danced through entire Dead shows.
Listened to Phil’s Birthday run this weekend 6/7/77, 6/8/77, 6/9/77. Phil was dropping bombs everywhere! Amazing playing!!!
6-9-77 franklins tower has a short Phil solo that is so tasty.
That Dancin in streets jam is definitely my favorite part of the Cornell show. Phil’s bass just drives that.
nothing can top the 70's playing in the band jams
The guy in DSO plays just like him, he’s amazing. If you haven’t seen DSO, it’s a MUST see
You made my day.
Excellent video!
Some beautiful lead bass in Foolish Heart, Hartford 3/19/90, Long live the Philo Stomp ❤
The music lives forever ♾️
I get The Grateful Dead now also and I owe it to you,MP! It only took me 50 years!
From the get-go. Phil sold so many subwoofers, that's a stat I'd love to know. Seriously. Washington College, early 70's, East Hall, we must get subs...subs...!! to properly decode & reproduce. The Wall of Sound Betty Board era. WTF Phil is DOING must be properly amped as well!! Enter the glowing Macintosh amps. Yes Michael, it was Phil that amply propelled he and his legendary bandmates into the stratosphere! May the four winds blow him safely home. ;-)
If you loved the Grateful Dead like many of us. There were things to the way they played that wrapped around your soul when listening to their music that you just don't find in many bands today.
Many say it was the drugs back then that did it. But that doesn't give enough credit to these great musicians who brought this wonderful music to us.
Thank you Phil for your contribution to changing people's souls. I know I was one and you will be greatly missed!
Some of my favorite Phil moments are from the entire One From the Vault show. An underrated Phil bomb that no joke shook the foundation of my house (through a pair of HPM 100s) is at 2:20 of China Rider from the 1974 Winterland shows before their hiatus. Nuclear detonation. In his book Searching for the Sound, he talked about someone he was learning the instrument from tell him early on, never hit an open string on bass unless you REALLY mean it lol
Great tribute to him ❤️
I’ve never been the type that is usually affected by celebrity deaths but Phil’s passing hit me incredibly hard. There will never be another like him just like there will never be another like Jerry.
“Like a steel locomotive rolling down the track he’s gone, he’s gone, ain’t nothing gonna bring him back.” 💔