Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead

by Phil Lesh

Book Overview

The legendary bass player tells the full, true story of his years with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead in this "insightful and entertaining" (Austin Chronicle) memoir of life in the greatest improvisational band in American history. In a book "as graceful and sublime as a box of rain" (New York Times Book Review), the beloved bassist tells the stories behind the songs, tours, and jams in the Grateful Dead's long,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000NA22D0
• ISBN13: 9780316154499
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Arrived without a dust cover. Very disappointed.

I would have appreciated a disclaimer that there would be no dust cover on the book.

I found the sound.

"Look out of any window, any morning, any evening, any day." Box of Rain by The Grateful Dead Searching for the Sound tells the story of The Grateful Dead, America's original psychedelic improvisational rock and roll band, through the eyes of one of the found members - bassist, Phil Lesh. In the book, Lesh writes in a conversational, eloquent tone as he recalls all the good times and all the bad times. Lesh tells the story of how The Dead went from playing at Ken Kesey's Acid Tests to playing at sold-out stadiums thirty year later? A great factor of the book is the honesty in Lesh's writing. He doesn't sugarcoat the things that were going on - he tells the real story. He tells how drugs brought the band together and how they eventually tore the band apart. He recalls the death of three keyboardists and the beloved Jerry Garcia. Though drug abuse and death are recurring factors throughout the book, it is not all dark. Lesh also fondly remembers impromptu free shows in San Francisco, Woodstock, The Pyramids, and many other legendary events. In my opinion, the only bad part about the books is that the language gets a bit too technical when he is talking about musical composition and theory. Aside from that aspect, I loved the book and would recommend it to anyone, Deadhead or not.

Simply the best book on the Dead

I have been on the bus since the sixties in the bay area, when liking the Dead defined yourself to your peers as an uncool nerd and a bit of a weird-o. Nice to hear Phil's journey from the inside. He comes across as warm, human, honest and of course, brilliant. This dude can write...nearly as well as he can play. My wife, who isn't a head, loved reading it, just for the literate style and the anecdotes. The funniest part of it for me was when I caught Phil in two or three errors of chronology or fact, especially about the business side of the Dead, mostly in the seventies. But he explains how that could have happened, especially during that dark time. He reminds me a bit of John McCain...having been at death's door, he now has his priorities and values clearly defined and doesn't so much care what you or I (or Mickey, Bill and Bob) think. A great read, a spiritual quest. Warm-hearted and full of hope.

a spirit that blazed

I always identified with Phil Lesh, who was the most intellectual of the Dead, and the most adventurous musically. Learning years ago of Phil's involvement with avant-garde classical music planted the interest in my mind, which I finally pursued in recent years after a long (and continuing) sojourn in the land of free jazz and improvisation. SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND is a unique view of the Grateful Dead from the inside. It is not as thorough as some of the other books that have been written, but it doesn't aim at completeness, and if you don't expect it, you won't be disappointed. For more on the inimitably strange, visionary, inspiring and humorous thoughts of Phil, Jerry and the others, I recommend CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD. In this 40th anniversary memoir, Phil shares fascinating details about his avant-classical interest. I knew that Phil had studied composition with Luciano Berio at Mills College in the early '60s, but here we learn that Lesh was the Mills sound mixer, and participated in electronic performances of works by both Berio and Stockhausen. He also mixed the tape sections of Berio's "Differences" for chamber quintet and tape at the Ojai Festival near Santa Barbara prior to joining Jerry in a rock band. Phil claims that Charles Ives and Coltrane were huge influences -- Coltrane, sure, but Ives? It wouldn't have occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense that Ives, the American maverick, with his juxtopositions of high and low, melody and dissonance, would be a hidden influence on the Dead. Phil took the band to hear Ives's masterpiece, his Symphony No. 4, performed by the American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting, at Carnegie Hall in 1967, two years after its belated 1965 premiere. After marrying in the early '80s, Phil and his wife spent a week at Bayreuth in 1984 and took in the entire Ring cycle by Wagner! The following year, Phil took Jerry to hear part of the Ring in San Francisco. Phil has supported modern composers through the Rex Foundation, including a recording of the masterpiece "Concerto for Orchestra" by the great American composer Elliott Carter (on Virgin Records, 1992 -- see my review), and recordings by the late British composer Robert Simpson, perhaps the greatest symphonist of the late 20th century. Phil was invited to conduct a short Carter piece performed by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in March, 1994. I was quite happy to find that Phil shares my view of the Dead's most avant-garde recording: "I've always felt that as an artistic statement ANTHEM OF THE SUN was our most innovative and far-reaching achievement on record." Other than these avant-classical details, the thing that most impressed me about SEARCHING FOR THE SOUND is the utopian vision that still shines through, as in the following quotes: "It felt then as if we were an integral part of some cosmic plan to help transform human consciousness." (333) Of the 1965 music of the Acid Tests, and the formation

It's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago...

No one book can ever tell the entire tale of the Grateful Dead. Searching For The Sound by bassist and founding member Phil Lesh is the first book by a member of the band to focus on the band itself and Phil has a tale to tell and tells it well. The book starts with Lesh's birth and quickly moves on to his discovery of music. Then Lesh takes us through the embryonic San Francisco scene and on into the evolution of the Grateful Dead. The rest of the book focuses on Phil's intertwined life with the band, the band's extended family, and, ultimately, Phil's own family. It takes only the last dozen or so pages to cover the years since Jerry Garcia's death, but the subtitle of the book is My Life With The Grateful Dead and that name passed into history at the end of 1995. The drugs are there, but rather than glorifying them, a full reading of the book shows that, in the long run, the drugs took a heavy toll. Lesh's writing style is conversational and stream of consciousness and fits perfectly with the story he's narrating. Ultimately, it's a book about MUSIC, its creation, and its powers. In the spirit of the age of disclosure, I must admit to attending 27 Grateful Dead shows between Penn State '79 and Las Vegas '95 and have followed the band members in whatever incarnation since the death of Garcia. I don't think this makes me biased, but I thought you should know. I found the book to be an eye opener and it added context to a major part of my life during the last quarter of the 20th Century. A non-Deadhead should enjoy the book, especially anyone with a taste for biography and the history of rock. If you're looking for the description of one endless drug trip, stay away [or better yet, read the book with an open mind]. I enjoyed Searching For The Sound and would love to see Lesh give us another book sometime in the future.

The Best book so far on the Dead

Phil Lesh writes with an open and candid style that makes reading his account of the Dead's history an absolute pleasure for both Deadheads and other lovers of music. Phil's story starts off with the typical childhood stuff but rapidly moves to the music scene in Palo Alto and later San Francisco that ultimately coincided with the Summer Of Love and gave birth to the Grateful Dead. The Dead were certainly unique in all of rock in the way their music blended so many influences and Lesh's story clearly demonstrates how those strains of jazz, blues, country,and even classical influences came into play in the extended instrumental explorations the Dead were famous for. I was particularly intrigued by how he describes the influence of John Coltrane on his own muiscal development. Garcia emerges from this as the Jerry we all know and love. A true musical explorer of the first order. Anyone who loved the Dead will surely enjoy reading this. Anyone who didn't "get" the Dead should read it anyway because it will give you some insight into what the music was all about.