Phil Lesh Movies and Career Information

Phillip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940 in Berkeley, California) is a 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. Phil & Friends helped keep a legitimate entity for the band's music to continue but have been on hiatus since 2008. Recently, Lesh has been performing with Furthur alongside former Dead bandmate Bob Weir. Although Lesh started out as a violin player, in high school he switched to trumpet. Studying under Bob Hansen, he had a keen interest in avant-garde classical music and free jazz; he also studied under the Italian modernist Luciano Berio at Mills College (classmates included minimalist composer Steve Reich, and future Dead keyboardist Tom Constanten). While still a college student he met then-bluegrass banjo player Jerry Garcia. Despite antipodal musical interests, they formed a friendship and eventually Lesh was talked into becoming the