In a message dated 99-04-13 12:55:16 EDT, you write:
<< PHIL'S NEW ZONE
Grateful Dead bassist is feeling fine after his successful liver transplant
and will celebrate with three shows at the Warfield
Bassist Returns to Stage in Phil Lesh & Friends Shows
James Sullivan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 13, 1999
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle
URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/04/13/D
D3153.DTL&type=music
When Phil Lesh went in for a liver transplant in December, old friend and
transplant survivor David Crosby kidded him about his hospital gown.
``He wanted a picture of me with my ass hanging out,'' Lesh says with a
laugh.
At the time, it was no laughing matter. Last September the Grateful Dead
bassist, 59, was rushed to the hospital with an acute case of internal
bleeding. After he had lived for years with the symptoms of liver disease,
diagnosed in 1991 as hepatitis C, the infection finally caught up with him.
This week Lesh celebrates his successful surgery, returning to the concert
stage with three Phil Lesh & Friends shows at the Warfield. Proceeds from
Thursday's opening night will benefit Lesh's Unbroken Chain foundation, which
he plans to use to increase awareness about liver disease.
He feels good. ``The doctors are extremely pleased,'' Lesh says in his first
interview since the operation. ``The first weeks after the transplant they
were using words like `beautiful' and `perfect.' There've been a couple of
little bumps, but they've been minor ones.''
Helping himself to a piece of lemon cake, he's sitting alongside his wife,
Jill, at the dining room table of their new Marin County home. Through tall
plate-glass windows they share a view of the morning dew on the property's
lush greenery.
Having experienced a hepatitis ``flareup'' as far back as the early 1970s,
Lesh cleaned up more than a decade ago, around the birth of his first of two
sons, Grahame and Brian. He quit drinking, started exercising and became a
vegetarian.
Still, the disease began to affect his energy and appearance. Lesh struggled
last summer through the first tour of the Other Ones, the eight-piece
post-Dead group he established with band mates Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. He
was 30 pounds underweight. But the performances drew raves from fans and
critics around the country and kept him going.
``You can be in bad shape, and if the music is happening you don't even
notice,'' Lesh says. ``When I was playing with those guys, I was in heaven.''
But when he got home, he knew it was time to deal with his illness. ``People
were saying, `Wow, you don't look good, man,' '' he says.
``You could see he was gray,'' says his wife, who lost her father to liver
cancer several years ago.
As word spread of Lesh's illness, the Deadhead community rallied via the
Internet. ``One Sunday just before we went out of town (to the Mayo Clinic in
Jacksonville, Fla.), they all agreed to send me good vibes at the same time.
``We sat out here'' -- he waves a hand at the porch -- ``and you could feel
it.''
Such serenity, he says, isn't always the norm within the Dead camp. ``After
Jerry (Garcia) died there was a lot of stress in the organization. We had to
consolidate our operations, and there was resistance to that.''
Lesh's wife now goes to the Dead's board meetings. ``While Jerry was alive,
let me say, it wasn't as difficult as it is now,'' he says. ``Now I feel I'm
in the minority most of the time.''
After Garcia's death in 1995, Lesh fought against bringing investors into
the Dead fold, which was reeling from the loss of its touring income. ``Phil
was kind of the lone cowboy,'' says his wife. ``It seemed like a quick fix at
the time, but then you'd be hearing `Truckin' ' for Chevy trucks and stuff
like that.''
When the Other Ones formed a year ago, there was much speculation over who
would take Garcia's place. The band compromised, hitting the road with two
guitarists, Steve Kimock and Mark Karan. (Kimock and Other Ones drummer John
Molo will play in Lesh's band this week, along with guitarist Trey Anastasio
and keyboardist Page McConnell of the band Phish.)
Lesh fought to keep the Other Ones lineup compact. ``I know that it could be
even more successful musically if there wasn't quite so much clutter -- not
so much solo after solo after solo, but more of a conversation. Which was
what the Grateful Dead were all about.''
Originally intended as a one-time reunion, the Other Ones were preparing to
tour again this summer. Lesh declined.
``It was not so much a question of my health as the issues that are still
unresolved,'' he says. Among other things, the band needs new material, he
says.
``Otherwise it's just going to be the best Grateful Dead cover band in the
world,'' he chuckles, folding his hands.
In the meantime, he is returning to his early training as a classical
composer, working on a ``symphonic tapestry'' of Dead riffs and themes
tentatively titled ``Keys to the Rain.''
``I have sketches for all seven movements and a little bit of the
introduction composed, and I'm hoping to get down to it seriously this
year,'' he says.
The Phil Lesh & Friends shows are an opportunity for him to collaborate with
musicians outside the Dead's immediate circle. ``What I'm interested in doing
now is pursuing my own path. That certainly doesn't preclude playing with
those guys,'' including ``Open Nature,'' an April 27 benefit at the Luther
Burbank Center in Santa Rosa billed to Lesh, Weir and Hart individually.
``It's just that the Grateful Dead was my band for 30 years. I never went
out and played with other musicians.
``The neat thing is there are as many people interested in playing with me
as I am interested in playing with them.''
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