Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann & Mickey Hart Honor Phil Lesh

Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh died on Friday, October 25 at age 84. The three core remaining members of the Grateful Dead — Bobby Weir, Billy Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart — posted a statement in response to the news of Lesh’s death.

Read the statement from Bobby, Billy and Mickey below:

Today we lost a brother. Our hearts and love go out to Jill Lesh, Brian and Grahame. Phil Lesh was irreplaceable. In one note from the Phil Zone, you could hear and feel the world being born. His bass flowed like a river would flow. It went where the muse took it. He was an explorer of inner and outer space who just happened to play bass. He was a circumnavigator of formerly unknown musical worlds. And more.

We can count on the fingers of one hand the people we can say had as profound an influence on our development – in every sense. And there have been even less people who did so continuously over the decades and will continue to for as long as we live. What a gift he was for us. We won’t say he will be missed, as in any given moment, nothing we do will be without the lessons he taught us – and the lessons that are yet to come, as the conversations will go on.

Phil loved the Dead Heads and always kept them in his heart and mind. The thing is… Phil was so much more than a virtuoso bass player, a composer, a family man, a cultural icon…

There will be a lot of tributes, and they will all say important things. But for us, we’ve spent a lifetime making music with Phil Lesh and the music has a way of saying it all. So listen to the Grateful Dead and, in that way, we’ll all take a little bit of Phil with us, forever.

For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon, long ago….

– Mickey, Billy and Bobby

Bobby Weir shared a separate note regarding the loss of Lesh:

Billy Kreutzmann shared this message about Lesh:

Mickey Hart shared a separate note as well:

Lesh co-founded the Grateful Dead in 1965 with Weir, Kreutzmann, Jerry Garcia and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Hart joined the band in 1967. Pigpen died in 1973 and Garcia died in 1995, the latter’s death bringing an end to the Grateful Dead. Keyboardists Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick, who were all members of the Grateful Dead, have also passed away.

Godchaux’s widow, vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux MacKay, Lesh’s former classmate Tom Constanten and fellow one-time Dead keyboardist Bruce Hornsby are the other remaining surviving members of the band.

The estate of Jerry Garcia responded to Lesh’s death:

Bruce Hornsby’s response:

Many of Lesh’s peers and collaborators have expressed condolences in the wake of his death. Among the cascade of tributes were those from Trey Anastasio, Mike Gordon (Phish opened their concert tonight by covering “Box Of Rain”), Warren Haynes, Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge and guitarist John May, and scores of others. Scroll on to survey the many tributes to Lesh

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