The moment could arrive anywhere, anytime, but you always knew it was coming. It was the moment, at a Grateful Dead show or on a live recording, when Phil Lesh and his bass would make themselves known.
Most bass players in traditional rock & roll bands provide a solid low-end foundation for what’s around then. Maybe they sing an occasional harmony or are content with a supportive, background role. That was never the case with Lesh. At some point, whether in early jams on “China Cat Sunflower” or “Dark Star” or “Fire on the Mountain” or many other songs over the three decades before Jerry Garcia died, Lesh never settled for the conventional walking bass lines heard on most rock or blues records. Instead, his instrument would poke around the melody, pushing, prodding, and nudging the music out of one section and into a new, uncharted one. Sometimes he sounded…
