Phil is a native Californian and first was a young trumpet player. He played at the 'youth symphony' level and even played in the Army band, but was discharged because he was unfit for military service.
He was born in 1940, so he's quite a bit older than most of 'The Youth Culture'.
I loved the early Dead's experimental stuff and it seems that he was responsible for this. And, I guess to a certain extent, Mickey Hart. Lesh doesn't seem to register the big change when the group released 'AMERICAN BEAUTY' and 'WORKINGMAN'S DEAD'. It would seem that a radical shift from 'electronic music' to 'country' would have been a tough thing for him to accept, but I guess that wasn't the case. It would bother me.
He has a successful liver transplant. His drug of choice seems to have been beer, although pot and acid and everything else were part of his psychedelic diet.
He claims that Jerry Garcia had a cat that he taught to fetch; p. 273.
From the book's page at Amazon:
"In a book "as graceful and sublime as a box of rain" (New York Times Book Review), the beloved bassist tells the stories behind the songs, tours, and jams in the Grateful Dead's long, strange trip from the 1960s to the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995 and beyond. From Ken Kesey's "acid tests" to the Summer of Love to bestselling albums and worldwide tours, the Dead's story has never been told as honestly or as memorably as in this remarkable memoir."
I read it this time in two days. Hard to put down and lots of details about the band and the community of Dead Heads.
Musician's biographies are my soft spot.
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