Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh passed away Friday at the age of 84. His death was announced in a statement on his official Instagram page.
“Phil Lesh, bassist and founding member of The Grateful Dead, passed peacefully this morning,” read the post. “He was surrounded by his family and full of love.”
“Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love,” it continued. “We request that you respect the Lesh family’s privacy at this time.”
Lesh co-founded the iconic jam band with Jerry Garcia, Bobby Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bill Kreutzmann in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965, with drummer Mickey Hart and lyricist Robert Hunter joining the group in 1967. He co-wrote several of their iconic tunes, including “Truckin'” and “Box of Rain.”
The band, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, was best known for their live shows, with fans aka “Deadheads” known to follow them around on tour.
Following Garcia’s 1995 death, Grateful Dead disbanded, but Lesh continued to play in offshoots of the group, including The Other Ones with members Weir and Hart; they eventually changed their name to The Dead. He also toured with Weir under the band name Further, which disbanded in 2014.
Lesh also released three albums under the name Phil Lesh and Friends and toured extensively with that band. He celebrated his 84th birthday onstage at the Capitol Theatre in New York in March and played his last live show on July 21 in San Rafael, California.
No cause of death has been released for Lesh, although he has had health issues in the past. In 2006 he announced that he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and in 2015 he revealed he’d been diagnosed with bladder cancer.
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