Ripple

Today comes another of those birthdays that make you feel old – in fact, two of them. Phil Lesh, the Grateful Dead's incomparably brilliant bassist, is 79, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys is 78.
Lesh, a musician more interested in avant-garde classical music and free jazz than in rock, had never played bass before Jerry Garcia enrolled him in his proto-Dead band The Warlocks. Since he had no preconceptions about the role of bass guitar – traditionally little more than an extension of the rhythm section – Lesh developed along highly original lines, making the bass an equal musical partner with Garcia's guitar.
Lesh claimed his playing was more influenced by Bach counterpoint than by anything in rock or soul music. It could certainly be a thing of beauty, as here on Ripple (from the Dead's American Beauty album), a kind of secular 23rd Psalm, perhaps appropriate for this sad day...