The drummer in one of my bands, who's a real Deadhead, let me know.
Phil's bass playing has always had the power to fascinate, entrance, amaze, and delight me. Sometimes I hear something he played - could be old, could be newer, maybe from the studio, maybe live - that makes me laugh out loud with joy, smile, shake my head and murmer "oh, Phil!" under my breath.
I can't claim to play like him (can anyone?) but he has been an influence on my ever since I started playing bass; and of course it's partly because of him that I own an Alembic bass.
Some good words I found online:
... his lines held so much melody that one could listen to a song for his playing alone.
-- NY Times, Phil Lesh, Bassist Who Anchored the Grateful Dead, Dies at 84
“What makes the Dead’s sound so distinct from any other kind of rock and roll may be Lesh’s bass,” Nick Paumgarten noted in a 2012 New Yorker piece....
-- Variety, Phil Lesh, Bassist for the Grateful Dead, Dies at 84
Where I live, sometimes we get thunderstorms where the lightning starts high overhead, thunder crackles and rumbles across the sky for a long time, then comes a BOOM! when it finally reaches the ground; after that, the echoes resound and slowly fade.
Phil, we're left with just your echoes now, we'll be listening to them for a long time. Thank you, and rest in peace and love.
Lightly edited from my post on Talkbass
