Memoir: How Phil Lesh revived grateful dead British composers
RIPIn 1991 I spent time with the rock-star Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who has died aged 84.
Phil had conceived a passion verging on obsession with recent, mostly British, symphonists of considerable obscurity. Havergal Brian, anyone? Phil was there first.
Phil’s Rex Foundation used Grateful Dead profits to fund recordings of symphonies by Havergal Brian, Robert Simpson and Bernard Stevens. Later he embraced Harrison Birtwistle. Elliott Carter was another beneficiary. He and I spent an hour or two discussing serious esoterica.
I wrote up the story for the Independent magazine, and reproduced it on slippedisc.
Read on here.
Enjoyed this a lot. Thanks for posting. Will send me to listen to those composers. Wonder if Birtwhistle ever listened to the Dead…
RIP Phil, from a guy who spent many a summer dancing their tail off in the Phil zone at Alpine Valley
There indeed few that Champion modern Brtish Composers but one recently stands out…for me…and that is the Pianist and teacher Duncan Honybourne…in so far as British,earlier 20th Cent…music my neighbour’s ‘imposing’ D.H’s playing as an after dinner Digestif turned to be an Epiphani !
Try it …enjoy it !
This is the article that needed and needs to be written about Phil. Thank you not only for writing it but taking the time to get the facts straight. So many so-called writers who write about the Dead use tired tropes and borrowed phrases to lazily attempt to define the band’s culture. Bravo my friend! Bravo!
Here is a quote from Norman’s Independent magazine article from August 1991 which is contained in the linked SD article from October 18, 2015:
“These deafening intermezzos have become a hallmark of Dead concerts, unique and much envied in rock circles.”
In my pre-classical music days I saw the Dead twice: at the Hollywood Palladium in 1971 and the UCLA Pauley Pavilion in 1972.
At the Palladium (which was essentially a ballroom with a relatively low ceiling) there was no seating; everyone in the audience stood and could move about as they pleased. My friend and I spent most of the concert about 15-20 feet directly in front of the stage and we could talk and understand each other speaking at normal conversational volume. No yelling or raising our voices in the least to communicate. We were very pleasantly surprised at the very low volume at which they played.
Did Lesh subsidize Hyperion’s recordings of the Simpson symphonies? If so, that alone earns him thanks and plaudits, apart from the pleasure he provided to those who enjoyed the Grateful Dead.
He paid for the 9th