Searching for the Sound, Phil Lesh
Searching for the Sound, Phil Lesh
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Searching for the Sound
My Life in the Grateful Dead

Author: Phil Lesh

Narrator: Phil Lesh

Abridged: 5 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/19/2005


Synopsis

Phil Lesh first met Jerry Garcia in 1959 in the clubs of Palo Alto, California. At Garcia's suggestion, Lesh learned to play the electric bass and joined him in a new group that blended R & B, country, and rock 'n' roll with an experimental fervor never before heard.
In time for the Grateful Dead's fortieth anniversary, Phil Lesh offers the first behind-the-scenes history of the Dead. Lesh chronicles how the Dead's signature sound emerged, flowed, and swelled to reach millions of devoted fans, from their first gigs at Frenchy's Bikini-A-Go-Go for an audience of three, to the legendary Acid Tests, to packed stadiums around the world.
In San Francisco during the Summer of Love, at Woodstock, Altamont, and the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Grateful Dead have been at the center of some of rock's defining moments. Phil Lesh recounts what it's been like to live at the heart of this whirlwind--impressing Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, sharing the stage with Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and the Rolling Stones. Lesh describes what it was like to storm heaven night after night--and the price he and others have paid. Bad management, drug addictions, depression, and insecurities persistently plagued the band members and would culminate with the most tragic blow of all--the death of Jerry Garcia.
Searching for the Sound is a ruthlessly honest look inside one of the greatest American bands. It includes a bonus live recording of Box of Rain performed on March 19, 1990 at the Hartford Civic Center, Hartford Connecticut.
Look for The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics 1965-1995 available in hardcover October, 2005 from Free Press.

About Phil Lesh

Philip Chapman Lesh is a musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lee on November 25, 2024

Phil is so Phil-ly throughout. An oddball goober with a sarcastic sense of humor, backbone of a renegade, a committed techie audacity streaked with psychedelic mysticism ("consciousness" often comes up), all of which made him such a uniquely note-y contrapuntal bassist -- a major reason why the Dead......more

Goodreads review by Duffy on January 03, 2016

My college roommate flew back to Connecticut from Texas in 1978, and because of some mix-up, they bumped her for free into first class. She sat next to a tall, blonde guy, who started a conversation with her and was very interested in everything she was doing, a great listener, and insightful. He di......more

Goodreads review by Sandy on August 18, 2011

An old maxim states that if you can remember the 1960s, then you probably weren't there; a sentiment that suggests, I suppose, that if you really were an active participant in that frenzied decade, with its recreational and psychedelic drug use, then your brainpan should be too sizzled to recall any......more

Goodreads review by Jon on March 21, 2012

As a biography of sorts, it's a wonderfully written and quite expository book. As a story it's a complete tragedy. Despite how good it was, I couldn't help but be heartbroken when it ended. There was a band that had so much talent, so much potential, and their story arc only ever curved down from th......more

Goodreads review by Barbikat60 on October 23, 2009

Wow, Phil Lesh is a great writer!!!!! I'm not that electronically savvy so a lot of the sound parts baffled me but his music history and the relationship of the Grateful Dead family was powerful. I especially admired his intelligence, wry sense of humor and honesty.......more