Exceptional Genius - R.I.P. Phil Lesh

His classical training defined the complexity and variety of their sound. As there will be thousands of articles and posts about him, my tribute is just this story about a song he contributed to - writing and playing. 

                                           The Song 

 We sat around a campfire on a bluff high above the river that followed the edge of a small northwest town only a few miles from Canada. Wilderness. Things were changing, though we didn't notice then, only felt it like an approaching earthquake, subtly shifting tectonic plates.

          Rich was staring into the river that refused to ever freeze up, and Jenny studied the stars. Joe was playing his guitar, singing a tune new to me. Reach out your hand if your cup is empty… I watched his jacket move in the wind while he sang and a few stray curls blow onto his cheek.

         We worried, those of us not returning to college or home, how we would survive winter this far north -- and what we'd do for work now that harvest had ended. Still, that night, the air wasn’t as harsh, the chill not penetrating bones as usual.

           Later, at midnight when coyotes howled in the hills and mountains surrounding us, the temperature would dip, even in the orchards where some of us slept because it was warmer beneath the trees. All night those coyotes prowled, guardians of this territory. Anyone awake could easily glimpse the sudden flash of amber eyes, but we weren't afraid.     

         The haunting song continued, and Andy came from the shadows where he was trying to light a joint against the wind. Tossing the match into the fire, he hunched, bending jeaned knees, and quietly mouthed the words.

                                 

                            There is a road, no simple highway

                            Between the dawn and the dark of night

 

        Jenny, as if oblivious, was still looking up. "Think of it,” she said. “When we're separated from someone we love, we're all together under the same stars."

         Generally Rich would snicker at something like this, but tonight he was silent. Cynical as I was, right there and then, what she said seemed true.

         The stars did seem different - thunderingly silent, arcing a brilliant ferris wheel, pointing to China on one hand, Nova Scotia the other, and all the people already vanished from our lives.

         The campfire flamed. The serenade continued, the song and the wilderness flowed into one powerful sound that filled our mountain refuge. Could it matter less that it would be so cold that night, after the fire had faded and the flash of eyes in the hills increased? 

        I inhaled the scent of wood smoke. The moon was turning everything phosphorescent. We listened there enveloped in the night – wind, water, music.

       “What is that song?” I finally asked.

        "Ripple," someone said. And in that moment, nothing else mattered.