LOS ANGELES -- Phil Lesh, bass guitarist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday at age 84.
Lesh's death was announced on Instagram. Lesh was the oldest and one of the longest surviving members of the band.
"Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love," the Instagram statement reads in part.
The statement did not cite a specific cause of death and attempts to reach representatives for additional details were not immediately successful. Lesh had previously survived bouts of prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a 1998 liver transplant necessitated by the debilitating effects of a hepatitis C infection and years of heavy drinking.
Lesh's death comes two days after MusiCares named the Grateful Dead its Persons of the Year. MusiCares, which helps music professionals needing financial or other kinds of assistance, cited Lesh's Unbroken Chain Foundation among other philanthropic initiatives. The band will be honored in January at a benefit gala ahead of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
Drummer Mickey Hart called him the group's intellectual, saying he brought a classical composer's mindset and skills to a five-chord rock 'n' roll band.
Lesh began his long musical odyssey as a classically trained violinist, starting with lessons in third grade. He took up the trumpet at 14, eventually earning the second chair in California's Oakland Symphony Orchestra while still in his teens.
But he had largely put both instruments aside and was driving a mail truck and working as a sound engineer for a small radio station in 1965 when lead guitarist Jerry Garcia recruited him to play bass in a fledgling rock band called The Warlocks.
When Lesh told Garcia he didn't play the bass, the musician asked, "Didn't you used to play violin?" When he said yes, Garcia told him, "There you go, man."
Armed with a cheap four-string instrument his girlfriend bought him, Lesh sat down for a seven-hour lesson with Garcia, following the latter's advice that he tune his instrument's strings an octave lower than the four bottom strings on Garcia's guitar. Then Garcia turned him loose, allowing Lesh to develop the spontaneous style of playing that he would embrace for the rest of his life.
Phillip Chapman Lesh was born March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, Calif., the only child of Frank Lesh, an office equipment repairman, and his wife, Barbara.
He would say in later years his love of music came from listening to broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic on his grandmother's radio. Musical influences he often cited were composers like Bach and Edgard Varèse, as well as jazz greats like John Coltrane and Miles Davis.
Lesh had gravitated from classical music to cool jazz by the time he arrived at the College of San Mateo, eventually becoming first trumpet player in the school's big band and a composer of several orchestral pieces the group performed.
But he set the trumpet aside after college, concluding he didn't have the lung power to become an elite player.
Soon after he took up the bass, The Warlocks renamed themselves the Grateful Dead and Lesh began captivating audiences with his dexterity.
Although he was never a prolific songwriter, Lesh also composed music for, and sometimes sang, some of the band's most beloved songs. Among them were the upbeat country rocker "Pride of Cucamonga," the jazz-influenced "Unbroken Chain" and "Box of Rain." The band often closed its concerts with the song.
After the group's dissolution following Garcia's 1995 death, Lesh often skipped joining the other surviving members when they got together to perform.
He did take part in a 2009 Grateful Dead tour and again in 2015 for a handful of "Fare Thee Well" concerts marking the band's 50th anniversary and what Lesh said would be the last time he would play with the others.
Lesh continued to play frequently, however, with a rotating cast of musicians he called Phil Lesh and Friends.
In later years, he usually held those performances at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and nightclub he opened near his Northern California home in 2012, which was named after the Grateful Dead song and album "Terrapin Station."
Lesh is survived by his wife Jill and sons Brian and Grahame.
FILE - Phil Lesh performs with The Dead, at the Forum in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, on May 9, 2009. Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, at age 84. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)
FILE - The Grateful Dead, from left, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart perform during a reunion concert in East Troy, Wis. on Aug. 3, 2002. Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, at age 84. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
FILE - Phil Lesh, of The Grateful Dead, performs during a reunion concert in East Troy, Wis. on Aug. 3, 2002. Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, at age 84. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
IMAGE DISTRIBUTED FOR THE GRATEFUL DEAD - Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead performs at Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well Show at Soldier Field on Saturday, July 4, 2015, in Chicago, Ill. (Photo by Jay Blakesberg/Invision for the Grateful Dead/AP Images)