He was surrounded by his family and full of love.
Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love.
We request that you respect the Lesh familys privacy at this time.
Lesh performs with the Grateful Dead in 1978.Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images
No cause of death was given.
In one note from the Phil Zone, you could hear and feel the world being born.
His bass flowed like a river would flow.
It went where the muse took it.
He was an explorer of inner and outer space who just happened to play bass.
He was a circumnavigator of formerly unknown musical worlds.
He also claimed responsibility for their long-form improvisation inclinations, electronic experiments, and nightly free-form space interludes.
The latter included numerous guests from the extended multigenerational improvised-rock community.
Philip Chapman Lesh, the Deads elder member, was born March 15, 1940, inBerkeley, California.
His father fixed office machines and his parents co-owned a repair business.
Lesh played viola and trumpet in school but gradually became more interested in composing than in performing.
The rechristened Grateful Dead became the house band for Ken Keseys infamous Acid Tests.
In 1975, he played electronically processed bass on electronic musician Ned Lagins abstractSeastones.
Jerry was the hub, he toldRolling Stone.
We were the spokes.
And the music was the tread on the wheel.
In 1998, Lesh received a liver transplant for the hepatitis C he had contracted decades earlier.
The procedure led him to become an impassioned organ-donor advocate.
He survived prostate cancer in 2006.
(The groups 1999 post-Dead debut featured Trey Anastasio and Page McConnell of Phish.
Lesh also released three albums of jammy rock under the name.)
In 2005, Lesh published his memoir,Searching for the Sound: My Life With the Grateful Dead.
Phil was like a father to me.
That year, Lesh revealed he had contracted bladder cancer.
Im one of these guys whos always open, hetoldRelixin 2010.
See, music is infinite.
