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Phil would load me down with a waist high stack of songs from the archives and just say, 'Find ones that you really like.' I was never a Deadhead and I'm kinda turning into one now because I've gotten to discover all this music that I never knew. -Jackie Greene |
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Photo by Jay Blakesberg
 Phil Lesh & Friends by Jay Blakesberg |
Recently Greene released an EP entitled Small Tempest with his own band and a record with a band called The Skinny Singers. "The Skinny Singers is myself and my friend Tim Bluhm, who is the lead singer of a rock band called The Mother Hips. We've been friends for a while and we decided that we'd get together and form our own acoustic duo. It's turned out to be more than just an acoustic thing and is now just about songs we've written together," says Greene. "It started off as a fun thing for us because I am seen as the serious guy in my band and he is in his, as well. The Skinny Singers is kinda a goof that is fun and isn't supposed to be taken too seriously. We really tried to make a record that just two people could do. It's not chock full of instrumentation. It's just the best it could be and the biggest it could sound with just two people doing it."
In mid-September, The Skinny Singers played a four show CD release run that was highlighted by Phil Lesh joining the band at The Independent (read the review here). When Lesh took the stage he jokingly remarked, "I hope I am skinny enough to belong to this band." The group ran through Greene's original "Gone Wanderin'" before closing out the show with The Dead classics "Friend of the Devil," "Ripple" and "Sugaree" to the delight of the intimate crowd.
 Lesh & Greene by Jay Blakesberg |
The sit-in came on the heels of Phil and Friends rehearsals for the fall tour, where Greene said things went very well and seemed easier than he had imagined they would. "I guess Phil must have noticed that my vocal range is almost identical to Jerry's. We don't have to change the keys or anything; it's just natural for me to sing in that register," Greene says. "I like a lot of the uptempo songs like 'Bertha' and 'Deal,' and I really like to sing the bluesy songs like 'Speedway' because I can just growl on it and play harmonica. It is just such a great song."
In addition to focusing on the extensive Grateful Dead catalog, the band is breaking out several of Greene's originals and a slew of new covers. "I'm letting Phil decide what songs of mine we are going play," Greene says. "He's picking tons of them, so we might be doing up to four or five a night, and it seems great because they fit right in."
Another surprise for this tour is the addition of an acoustic set in select locations. "Jackie's music and his playing really lend themselves to playing acoustically," Lesh says. While he only confirmed that the band would be playing the stripped down third set at Red Rocks, there is much speculation that the band will break out the acoustic instruments for at least one more show on the tour. "It was an idea that we came up with because of the album Reckoning, and I just thought it would be such a great vibe to do a set like that on our tour," says Greene. "Everybody was stoked on the idea, and I'm glad because I think a lot of The Dead songs work very well like that."
Like Reckoning, Lesh's recorded output for the past 20 years has mostly been confined to concert recordings with one notable exception. In 2002, at the height of "The Q," Lesh decided the energy in the group was right to put some songs on tape. He led the group into the studio where they recorded the songs that were released as There and Back Again. The record featured several songs written by Lesh and longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, as well as tracks composed by Warren Haynes and other band members. While There and Back Again is Lesh's only studio recording since The Grateful Dead's Built To Last came out in 1989, he did hint that maybe this new lineup would enter the studio together.
 Phil Lesh by Jay Blakesberg |
"A new album isn't out of the question," he says. "I haven't made any definite plans, but we already worked together in the studio with this lineup, minus Steve [Molitz], on the TV project and it was very, very successful. We were able to do some really interesting work in a very short time. What it really depends on is how much new, original, material we can come up with between us."
Whether or not they record an album, it will be exciting to watch this diverse group of musicians grow together as a band. As they learn more about each other's playing styles the quality of the improvisation and the overall sound is sure to skyrocket.
"The potential of this particular band is absolutely immense," says Lesh. "Everybody has such great little ideas that they can stick in there. Nobody seems reticent or reluctant to put ideas out, even in the body of the song, which I really like because it gives the song itself a whole new interpretation."
With the TV project in the works and a tour with a new band underway, Lesh is proving that he is an anomaly in many ways. At 67, he is still striving to grow and develop as a musician and a person. He consciously brought Molitz and Greene into the band because "the kind of energy that Steve and Jackie bring to the band is so fresh and so exciting that the rest of us old guys kinda gotta get jacked up to that level," he says. "It makes us play differently and that's really what I am after with the band. I want to be inspired to play outside of my comfort zone and outside of the box that I have always been in with The Grateful Dead."
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