Phil Lesh

Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career. After the band's disbanding in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of Grateful Dead family music with side project Phil Lesh and Friends, which paid homage to the Dead's music by playing their originals, common covers, and the songs of the members of his band. Lesh operated a music venue called Terrapin Crossroads. He scaled back his touring regimen in 2014 but continues to perform with Phil Lesh & Friends at select venues. From 2009 to 2014, he performed in Furthur alongside former Grateful Dead bandmate Bob Weir. Lesh was born in Berkeley, California, United States, and started out as a violin player. While enrolled at Berkeley High School he switched to trumpet and participated in all of the school's music-related extracurricular activities. Studying the instrument under Bob Hansen, conductor of the symphonic Golden Gate Park Band, he developed a keen interest in avant-garde classical music and free jazz. After attending San Francisco State University for a semester, Lesh was unable to secure a favorable position in the school's band or orchestra and determined that he was not ready to pursue a higher education. Upon dropping out, he successfully auditioned for the renowned Sixth Army Band (then stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco) with the assistance of Hansen, but was ultimately determined to be unfit for military service. Shortly thereafter, he enrolled at the College of San Mateo, where he wrote charts for the community college's well-regarded big band and ascended to the first trumpet chair. (A snippet of tape of Lesh on trumpet at CSM can be heard on "Born Cross-Eyed" from the Grateful Dead's 1968 release Anthem of the Sun.) After transferring with sophomore standing to the University of California, Berkeley in 1961, he befriended future Grateful Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten before dropping out again after less than a semester. At the behest of Constanten, he studied under the Italian modernist Luciano Berio in a graduate-level course at Mills College in the spring of 1962; their classmates included Steve Reich and Stanford University cross-registrant John Chowning. While volunteering for KPFA as a recording engineer during this period, he met bluegrass banjo player Jerry Garcia. Despite seemingly opposite musical interests, they soon formed a friendship. Following a brief period as a Post Office Department employee and keno marker in Las Vegas (initially rooming with Constanten, who soon departed to study under Berio and other members of the Darmstadt School in Europe); a second stint with the Post Office in San Francisco; and a collaboration with the likes of Reich, Jon Gibson and Constanten upon the latter's return from Europe under the auspices of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Lesh was talked into becoming the bassist for Garcia's new rock band (then known as The Warlocks) in the fall of 1964. This was a peculiar turn of events, as Lesh had never before played bass. According to Lesh, the first song he rehearsed with the band was "I Know You Rider". He joined them for their third or fourth gig (memories vary) and stayed until the end. ... Source: Article "Phil Lesh" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Known For: Acting

Born: Berkeley, California, USA, 1940-03-15

Died: 2024-10-25

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1966	The Acid Test	Self	90
2	1970	San Francisco Rock: A Night at the Family Dog		0
3	1970	Gimme Shelter	Self	74
4	1977	Grateful Dead: New Jersey Half-Step Uptown Toodleloo - Live at The Capitol Theater	Self - Performer	0
5	1977	The Grateful Dead Movie	Self	75
6	1978	Grateful Dead: The Closing of Winterland	Self	0
7	1981	Grateful Dead: Dead Ahead	Self - Grateful Dead	0
8	1987	Grateful Dead: So Far	Self - Bass	0
9	1987	Grateful Dead: Ticket to New Year's Eve Concert	Self	60
10	1989	Grateful Dead: Downhill from Here	Self - Performer	60
11	1989	Grateful Dead: The Making of "Built to Last"	Self	0
12	1989	Grateful Dead: Truckin Up to Buffalo	Self	45
13	1989	Grateful Dead: Live at Foxboro	Self	0
14	1993	Truckin' With The Dead	Self	0
15	1995	Grateful Dead	Self	0
16	1997	Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty	Self	64
17	2000	Grateful Dead: View from the Vault	Self	52
18	2000	Grateful Dead: View from the Vault	Himself	0
19	2001	The End of the Road	Self	40
20	2001	Grateful Dead: View from the Vault II	Self	0
21	2002	Grateful Dead: View from the Vault III	Self	0
22	2002	Rising Low	Himself	65
23	2003	Grateful Dead: View from the Vault IV	Self	0
24	2003	Festival Express	Self	71
25	2006	Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show	Self	100
26	2011	Magic Trip: Ken Kesey's Search for a Kool Place	Self (archive footage)	69
27		Grateful Dead: Bits And Pieces About...		0
28	2005	Grateful Dead: Bird Song	Self	0
29	2006	Phil Lesh and Friends: Live at the Warfield	Himself	0
30	2008	Grateful Dead: Rocking The Cradle - Egypt 1978	Self	80
31	2011	Grateful Dead: Crimson, White & Indigo	Self	0
32	2012	Grateful Dead: All The Years Combine - The DVD Collection	Self	0
33	2013	Grateful Dead: Sunshine Daydream	Self	40
34	2013	Move Me Brightly - Celebrating Jerry Garcia's 70th Birthday	Self	80
35	2015	Grateful Dead: 2015.06.27 - Santa Clara, CA	Self	0
36	2015	Grateful Dead: 2015.06.28 - Santa Clara, CA	Self	0
37	2015	Grateful Dead: 2015.07.03 - Chicago, IL	Self	0
38	2015	Grateful Dead: 2015.07.04 - Chicago, IL	Self	0
39	2015	Grateful Dead: 2015.07.05 - Chicago, IL	Self	75
40	2015	Grateful Dead: Fare Thee Well - Rainbows Are Real, Chicago, IL	Self	0
41	2015	Grateful Dead: Fare Thee Well - 50 Years of Grateful Dead (Chicago)	Self - Performer	98
42	2015	Grateful Dead: Fare Thee Well - 50 Years of Grateful Dead (Santa Clara)	Self - Performer	0
43	2016	Dear Jerry - Celebrating The Music of Jerry Garcia	Self	100
44	2017	Long Strange Trip	Self	82
45	2019	Grateful Dead - Giants Stadium 1991	Self	0
46	2020	Bob Dylan & Phil Lesh & Friends – Baltimore Arena 1999	Self	0
47	2022	Grateful Dead Meet-Up 2022	Self	0
48	2022	Inside Scofield		0

No.	Year	Title	Role	Vote Average
1	1975	Apostrophes	Self - Grateful Dead	85
2	1997	Classic Albums	Self	77
3	2017	Long Strange Trip	Self	58
4	2018	Basketball: A Love Story	Self (archive footage)	70

Phil Lesh

Film

Television