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Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder and Bassist, Dead at 84

The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh, who helped co-found the legendary band and served as their bassist, has died at the age of 84.

With Constanten, he attended a course taught by the great Italian avant-garde composer Luciano Berio at Mills College, where he met future minimalist figurehead Steve Reich, with whom he collaborated on a musical “happening” called Event III/Coffee Break. The Sixties became an era of intense musical experimentation for the group, most prominently on the band’s second album, Anthem of the Sun, where Lesh suggested overdubbing several different live versions of “The Other One” on top of one another and letting them drift apart. A one-off 1994 acoustic show featuring some Grateful Dead members was billed as Phil Lesh and Friends, a moniker he would use for performances with an ever-shifting musical cast for the remainder of his career.

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