PHIL LESH & FRIENDS GO THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Phil Lesh & Friends announce the release of There and Back Again, the group's eagerly-awaited studio debut album on Phil's newly created Lapis Music/Columbia Records label, as well as a major U.S. summer tour. There and Back Again marks the legendary Grateful Dead bassist/composer/vocalist's first studio sessions since 1989's Built To Last, the Grateful Dead's last studio recording, and is Lesh's first solo recording since Love Will See You Through, a 1999 live set featuring an earlier incarnation of Phil Lesh & Friends.

There and Back Again--which showcases the group's permanent line-up of Phil Lesh (electric bass, lead & harmony vocals), Warren Haynes (lead, slide and rhythm guitar, lead and harmony vocals), Jimmy Herring (lead and rhythm guitar), Rob Barraco (keyboards, lead and harmony vocals), John Molo (drums, percussion)--will be in stores on Tuesday, May 21. One interesting note for Deadheads is this album will feature "Liberty," a song that Jerry Garcia wrote with Robert Hunter, but was never recorded before Jerry passed away.

Phil Lesh founded Lapis Music after thirty years as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, and five years of playing (as Phil Lesh & Friends) with a constantly changing cast including some of America's finest musicians. Lapis plans to search out new, vital, and uncompromising music; and in partnership with Columbia, bring it to a wider audience. Hoping to be personally involved as a creative advisor with the bands on the newly-created label, Phil is honored to join the distinguished roster of Columbia Records artists and delighted to able to form a partnership with Columbia to present some of the more adventurous music being made today.

Celebrating the release of There and Back Again, Phil Lesh & Friends will take to the road for a major U.S. summer concert tour beginning Wednesday, May 22, in Santa Fe, New Mexico (see itinerary following). The group will precede the album's release with two performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Saturday, May 4, and Sunday, May 5.

Recorded from January 8 - January 30, 2002, There and Back Again was produced by veteran producer/engineer Don Gehman (Hootie & the Blowfish, Bruce Hornsby & the Range, Hot Tuna, John Mellencamp, R.E.M.) for Rhapsody Productions and includes songs road-tested at Phil's sold-out concerts, new studio material, and a full-band interpretation of the Grateful Dead rarity "Liberty," formerly available only on the Dead box set So Many Roads (1965-1995). "Every song is strong enough to stand up and make an impression," says Phil of the album, who describes his band's playing as "absolutely transcendent. This is the band I want to keep."

There and Back Again heralds the songwriting return of Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, who has penned the words to six of the album's eleven tracks. Hunter himself has provided an eloquent description of the record's sublime pleasures: "Here it is way before dawn again, 5:01 to be exact, much too excited to sleep except for an episodic dozing off. Reason is that Phil Lesh stopped by yesterday, hot from a month in the studio, to play the rough mixes of the Quintet studio album for me. How shall I say it? It's like a new isotopes of rock and roll matter has entered the universe. Or like a piece of the sun split off and started circling the moon. A whole new beginning based on the old premises, unexpectable if not simply inconceivable at this age and date, but there it is! The side clocks in at 74 minutes and is sweeping, clean as a whistle, dirty as sin, untrammeled with multiple overdubs. The rest of you guys will have to wait until its May release date but I got an enviable first chance to hear the past, future and ultimate present of what the living spirit of Grateful Dead music always aspired to be,: laid down with spark, guts and integrity. Home again!"

"When we first started rehearsing," Phil said of his current quintet, "in the first 30 minutes everybody knew that it was really something special. It was beyond chemistry. Everybody in this band is adventurous enough to play outside themselves and forget about what they know, and deal with the context of what's happening in the moment.

"The alchemy is so strong that it's almost automatic the way our group mind can open up the pipeline for that eternal music we're all trying to channel and funnel through ourselves so that it can exist in our plane."

That chemistry and alchemy is apparent every time Phil Lesh & Friends step onto a stage. And you can also hear it on every track on There and Back Again. "I wanted this band to make a record because I wanted to see whether we could translate that energy that we have live, with the onstage jamming, into compositions for recording, which is really an art in itself. I was never that satisfied with my work in the studio before and I wanted to find out what we could do. And I must say, this band has surpassed my wildest dreams with regards to what they can do in the studio." Joining Phil are guitarists Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule) and Jimmy Herring (Aquarium Rescue Unit, Allman Brothers), keyboardist Rob Barraco (Zen Tricksters) and drummer John Molo (Bruce Hornsby).

Special There and Back Again Preorder Offer

Three years ago, perilously ill with hepatitis C, Phil underwent a liver transplant that both saved his life and gave him a completely new outlook on his music. "The experience transformed me and made me realize I had to keep working -- doing what I was put here to do --and realize what is really important," Phil says. He urges "everyone to make sure you don't have hepatitis C, get a test. Become an organ donor and give blood. You can help save the life of someone you'll never even meet."

Created in the spring of 1997 by Phil Lesh and friends, the Unbroken Chain Foundation is a nonprofit organization which seeks to perpetuate the long-standing tradition of community service that has been the hallmark of the remarkable three-decade relationship between the Grateful Dead and its audience. The foundation's mission is to generate support for, and public awareness of, groups and individuals that bring hope and inspiration to communities where great need exists, and to create partnerships of people working together for a common good, especially in such areas as the arts, education and the environment. Links to the Unbroken Chain Foundation can be found at Phil's website.

There and Back Again | Track Listings
1. Celebration (Lesh/Hunter)
2. Night of a Thousand Stars (Lesh/Haynes/Hunter)
3. The Real Thing (Haynes)
4. Again and Again (Herring/Hunter)
5. No More Do I (Lesh/Hunter)
6. Patchwork Quilt (Haynes)
7. Liberty (Garcia/Hunter)
8. Midnight Train (Lesh)
9. Leave Me Out Of This (Barraco/Mattson)
10. Welcome to the Underground (Haynes)
11. Rock-n-Roll Blues (Lesh/Hunter)

[Published on: 3/22/02]

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PHIL LESH & FRIENDS GO THERE AND BACK AGAIN

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