Phil Lesh, the bassist and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died early on Friday “surrounded by his family and full of love,” according to a statement shared on his official Instagram page. He was 84.
No cause of death was provided, but the influential musician “passed peacefully,” according to the statement.
Lesh, a classically trained violinist and trumpeter, was part of the original formation of the Grateful Dead, a band founded in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965 that would later develop a massive following of die-hard fans known as “Deadheads.”
Lesh was recruited to play bass by his friend and Dead’s soon-to-become lead guitarist Jerry Garcia in 1965 in a rock band called The Warlocks.
Even though the bass wasn’t the young musician’s instrument at the time, his excitement took over and he didn’t have to think much about it.
“I knew something great was happening, something bigger than everybody, bigger than me for sure,” Lesh told the band’s historian Dennis McNally in 2002, according to Variety.
Inspired by classical giants as a young child — including the New York Philharmonic, which he would listen to on his grandmother’s radio — Lesh also cited jazz masters like John Coltrane and Miles Davis as the artists who helped shape his own approach to music, a genre-defining style that mirrored that of the Grateful Dead.
Known for its eclecticism and counterculture roots, the band’s sound has been described as a “free-flowing fusion of folk, rock, soul, blues and jazz,” with improvisational skills that created a new category of rock group: the “jam band,” according to Grammy.com.
“Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love,” the statement shared on his Instagram page reads, while asking Deadheads “to respect the Lesh family’s privacy at this time.”
Lesh was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside his band members in 1994. He remained with the Dead until the band disbanded the following year, after the death of Garcia.
Lesh is survived by his wife, Jill, and their sons, Grahame and Brian, who performed alongside their father in the Terrapin Family Band. They frequently played shows Lesh’s former music venue, Terrapin Crossroads, in San Rafael, Calif.