Tour Proves That Life is Still in Dead
By Steve Morse
Boston Globe
Published July 20, 2001

Phil Lesh gets right to the point. ''The community needs to know that all is not chaos and conflict in the realm of the former Grateful Dead,'' says the Dead's longtime bassist.

He is referring to the latest tour of Phil Lesh & Friends, who play theTweeter Center tonight. They're sharing the stage with Ratdog, which stars former Dead singer Bob Weir. Lesh has asked Weir to join him at recent shows for such Dead nuggets as ''Truckin','' ''Playing in the Band,'' ''Cassidy,''and ''Music Never Stopped''.

Look for more of the same tonight. It's a reunion that has eased the worried minds of Deadheads, who have seen their beloved band splinter since Jerrry Garcia's death six years ago.

But don't read too much into it. ''We speak, we hug, we play music together, but we don't do business,'' Lesh says of Weir. ''I thought it best if I could keep my relationship with Bobby on that level for a while. But it's ridiculous that we weren't making music together.''

Lesh has been resolute in doing his own thing, turning down offers from Weir to rejoin the Other Ones, the post-Grateful Dead band that anchored the Furthur Festival a few years ago (with Lesh in the fold).

''We tried to bring along some interesting jam band combinations all along this tour, because we are part of the jam band universe,'' Lesh says. ''And looking at the artists who are out there now doing interesting jam band work, Bobby and Ratdog are right up there at the top of the list.''

Lesh also has reconnected with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. ''I was working on a song earlier this year and I changed the groove on it and, all of a sudden it sat right up and said to me, 'I am a Robert Hunter song.' So I called him and said, 'Bob, this music is saying, 'This is a Robert Hunter song,' so Iwant to come over and play it for you.''

The song was ''Rock 'n' Roll Blues.'' Lesh took two more unfinished tracks (''Night of 1000 Stars'' and ''Celebration'') to Hunter's house - and Hunter wrote the lyrics in two days.

Lesh is busy trying to add more archival Dead tunes to his nearly three-hour shows. ''I even thought I had a way to rewrite 'Clementine,' but I couldn't find the lyrics. I'm still digging around. ... After Jerry's death, I thought I'd try to find closure with Grateful Dead music and move on by codifying my own interpretations of them in an orchestral piece. It wasn't going to be just orchestrating the songs, but using that material to form new musical structures and ideas. I worked on that for two years. But when I started to play the music again with musicians other than the Grateful Dead guys, I realized there is no closure. And there is not meant to be closure with this music. It needs to be performed. That's why it was created.''

To further enhance the music, Lesh has been taking voice lessons. He's never been known as a great singer, but as the Denver Post wrote recently: ''Though no Van Morrison, his vocals have improved tremendously.''

''Well, I'm glad they noticed that. I take voice lessons and do a specific warm-up every day before I sing. And every so often I keep making these breakthroughs.''

He then tells a story about the only previous time he took a voice lesson - back in the early days of the Grateful Dead when the four singers went together. ''Pigpen and me and Bob and Jerry all went to see this voice coach in San Franciso and she looked at us and said, 'Breathe!' It was a very rudimentary scene. And I don't think anybody sang correctly. She must have been tearing her hair out, thinking, what am I going to do with these people? But it was the first and only lesson. We decided it was too much like work.''

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