Phil Lesh and Friends

Infobox musical artist
Name = Phil Lesh and Friends


Img_capt =
Background = group_or_band
Birth_name =
Alias =
Born =
Died =
Origin = San Francisco, CA
Instrument =
Genre = psychedelic rock, rock, folk rock, jam
Occupation =
Years_active = 1994 - present
Label = Columbia Records
Associated_acts =
URL = http://www.phillesh.net
Current_members = Phil Lesh
Steve Molitz
Jackie Greene
Larry Campbell
John Molo
Teresa Williams

Past_members = Warren Haynes
Ryan Adams
Chris Robinson
Jimmy Herring Rob Barraco
John Scofield
Trey Anastasio
Page McConnell
Jeff Mattson
Mookie Siegel
Jeff Sipe
Steve Kimock
Jeff Chimenti
Michael Kang
Bill Nershi
Kyle Hollingsworth
Jeff Pevar
Robben Ford
Paul Barrere
Bill Payne
Al Schnier
Jerry Garcia
Bob Weir
Vince Welnick
Jorma Kaukonen
Derek Trucks
Joan Osborne
Barry Sless

Phil Lesh and Friends is an American rock band formed and led by Phil Lesh, bassist of the Grateful Dead.

Phil & Friends is not a traditional group in that several different lineups of musicians have played under the name, including groups featuring members of Phish, Little Feat, and the Zen Tricksters.

Music

The Phil & Friends concept takes the music of the Grateful Dead (and an ever-increasing number of other influences, including Bob Dylan, Traffic, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Warren Haynes' Gov't Mule, the Allman Brothers, etc) and explores and interprets it in new ways. Through the period known as the Quintet years (see below), a Phil & Friends show was often focused on harder, faster rock than that which the Grateful Dead played, thanks in large part to Haynes' and Herring's talents at the Southern rock style. Lesh was fond of calling it "Dixieland-style rock." However, all of the incarnations of Phil & Friends have followed a trend of "updating" the Grateful Dead's massive body of work, and all have been extremely adept at the long, exploratory jams that were a trademark of the Dead. Phil & Friends has been acclaimed for giving new life to the Grateful Dead's material, bringing in new styles and innovations, while at the same time remaining loyal to the original music and the original fans. It is this melding of musical influences that has given them extremely wide appeal not only among old Deadheads, but the modern-day fans of other jam bands as well.

Phil & Friends has continued the Grateful Dead's tradition of allowing fans to record concerts, and trade these recordings freely. The Internet has been an invaluable source for these tapers to disseminate this music through various sources, including Archive.org, and the vast BitTorrent file-sharing network. Phil has also embraced the Internet by providing free soundboard recordings of many concerts through his website, even providing high-resolution CD covers for fans to print. For his Summer 2006 tour, Phil partnered with Instant Live, a company that was able to provide soundboard CDs of a concert immediately upon its finishing, as well as make these recordings available for fans to download online, though this service was not free.

History

The Phil Lesh Quintet

The most permanent of the Phil Lesh and Friends lineups, known as the Phil Lesh Quintet (PLQ or just "the Q" for short) played on a mostly-regular basis from September of 2000 through December 2003. The members of this incarnation were Lesh, Warren Haynes (guitar & vocals; also of Gov't Mule and Allman Brothers Band), Jimmy Herring (guitar; The Dead, Allman Brothers Band, Aquarium Rescue Unit, and most recently Widespread Panic), Rob Barraco (keyboards; the Zen Tricksters, Dark Star Orchestra) and John Molo (drums; Bruce Hornsby and the Range, The Other Ones, Modereko, Keller Williams, David Nelson Band, Jemimah Puddleduck, and John Fogerty). This unit released an album, "There and Back Again", on Columbia Records in 2002. It included several new songs from Lesh and Robert Hunter, longtime Grateful Dead lyricist, as well as one recent favorite from Jerry Garcia and Hunter, and several original contributions from Haynes, Barraco/Mattson and Herring.

2007 – 2008

The latest formation of Phil & Friends, including Lesh, Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, fiddle), Jackie Greene (vocals and guitar), Steve Molitz (keyboards), and John Molo (drums), debuted in September 2007 in Santa Barbara, California.

On February 4, 2008, Phil and Friends joined Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir and drummer Mickey Hart, along with Barry Sless and Ratdog guitarist Mark Karan, for a concert called "Deadheads for Obama", in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The show was the first time that Weir, Hart, and Lesh had played together since 2004. Even more recently, the band performed the final shows at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, California. Bob Weir sat in for a run of five nights that included sets of the Grateful Dead's first few albums.

In June and July, 2008, Phil Lesh and Friends will be performing a concert tour of the eastern United States. [ [http://www.phillesh.net/philzonepages/friends_stuff/calendar.html#summer "Summer Jamboree '08", phillesh.net] ]

Discography

* "Love Will See You Through" (1999)
* "There and Back Again" (2002)
* "Live at the Warfield" (2006)

Notes

External links

* [http://www.phillesh.net PhilLesh.net — Phil Lesh's official website]
* [http://www.philzone.com PhilZone.com — fan website]
* [http://www.archive.org Archive.org]
* [http://www.gdradio.net GDRadio.net]