Thank you for all the good tunes, good times, and changing the world in a positive way. Phillip Chapman Lesh was born March 15, 1940 and passed away October 25, 2024. Lesh is most known for being the bassist for the Grateful Dead, and many projects that grew out of it post 1995, when lead guitarist Jerry Garcia passed away. He sporadically attended college (at a time when it was protection from the draft), at San Mateo College, UC Berkeley and Mills College. He was a sound engineer at radio KPFA when he met Garcia. They would play together for decades. As a core four member of the Dead, Lesh was in projects that kept the spark of the band alive beyond a half century. Lesh had a liver transplant in 1998.Thank you, Cody & family. I hope this death doesn’t reopen the wound. In 2006, he had surgery to remove prostate cancer.
Although I am not a fan of popular music, my mind goes back to the days when new groups used one of our theatres in an attempt to launch their career in music. Some of them were very talented. It is always sad when they are no longer with us and a piece of history is lost forever. I am laughing now, remembering one such concert when a group managed an audience of almost 2,000. Halfway through the first song, they dropped everything and bolted for the exit. Confused, I came off the lighting and sound control desk to find that they had bolted because the theatre cat had run across the stage in pursuit of a mouse. Those were the days. In a way it all seemed surreal, the Beatles coming down to London to give concerts, Abbey road studios and Kings Rd Chelsea on a Saturday night. Then it all seemed to end as fast as it started. PS. The theatre was a massive disused cinema, complete with cats and mice. I was 16 years old and became so engrossed that I abandoned my studies to become a doctor. It was also where I earned my title of the nutty professor. Almost 60 years ago to the day.
Just feeling rather sad, thinking back to those days and the fact that so many many of those people are no longer with us to enjoy the memories. Over the last few years, I have given up trying to renew acquaintances with people from those days, because on so many occasions I seem to be the sole survivor. The joys of getting old. Sorry if you took my comment the wrong way, it was posted just after one such friend died and all I now have are the memories from the 1960's.
