Surviving Grateful Dead Members Share Eulogies for Phil Lesh

On Friday (October 25), Grateful Dead founder Phil Lesh dead at the age of 84. Many music icons have paid tribute to the beloved musician, and now surviving Grateful Dead members posted eulogies as well.

“Today we lost a brother,” the joint says statement reads on social media. It continues:

Our hearts and love go out to Jill Lesh, Brian and Grahame. Phil Lesh was irreplaceable. In one note from the Phil Zone you could hear and feel how the world was born. His bass flowed like a river would flow. It went where the muse took it. He was an explorer of indoor and outdoor space who happened to play bass. He was a explorer of previously unknown musical worlds. And more.

We can count on the fingers of one hand that the people we can say have had an equally profound influence on our development – ​​in every respect. And even fewer have done this continuously over the decades and will continue to do so as long as we live. What a gift he was to us. We won’t say he will be missed, because at any given time, nothing we do will be without the lessons he taught us – and the lessons yet to come, as the conversations continue.

Phil loved the Dead Heads and always kept them in his heart and mind. The point is… Phil was so much more than a virtuoso bassist, a composer, a family man, a cultural icon…

There will be many tributes and they will all say important things. But for us, we’ve spent a lifetime making music with Phil Lesh and the music says it all. So listen to the Grateful Dead and that way we’ll all take a little bit of Phil with us forever.

Because this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago.

By Bob Weir statementhe reminisced about how Lesh “introduced me (and us) to the wonders of modern classical music, with its textures and developments, which we soon tried to integrate into what we had to offer.”

Mickey Hart wrote that Lesh was “larger than life, right in the middle of the band and in my ears, filling my brain with waves of bass.” Bill Kreutzmann explained that Lesh “wasn’t just like a brother to me – he was like an older brother. A roommate. A band member. A mentor.”

Jerry Garcia’s family also shared one statementin which they write that they will “miss his sharply dry humor, wry smile and brilliant insights.”

Trey Anastasio, who played with Phil Lesh & Friends and at the Fare Thee Well concerts, made a after in commemoration of their friendship, and on Friday he covered “Box Of Rain” – one of the Dead’s most beloved songs, written by Lesh – with Phish in Albany. Check that out below.