Phil Lesh & Friends
There And Back Again (2002)


Famed for his three-decade stint as the bassist with the Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh was born March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, CA; rooted in jazz and classical performance, he initially explored the violin and trumpet and, while attending Mills College, studied avant-garde composition and electronic music under the tutelage of Luciano Berio. In 1965, Lesh joined his friend Jerry Garcia's band the Warlocks, soon rechristened the Grateful Dead. He remained with the group for the remainder of its existence, becoming a fan favorite as much for his distinctive bass playing as for his single-minded devotion to the Dead's music (no long-term side projects) and custodianship of their recorded archives, overseeing the quality of each legitimate live release. After Garcia's 1995 death spelled the end of the Dead as a touring entity, Lesh reunited with bandmates Bob Weir and Mickey Hart in the Other Ones, which headlined the 1998 Further Festival. Later that year he learned he was in need of a liver transplant, successfully undergoing surgery in December. The Sunday before he went under, Deadheads across the globe joined in Five Minutes for Phil, a worldwide prayer circle he later credited as a major factor in his speedy recovery. Lesh hit the road in 1999 as headliner, issuing his solo debut, Love Will See You Through, in the autumn. The live album was a success, so after extensive touring he settled back into the studio for his first studio-recorded album since his days in the Dead. The results, There and Back Again, was released in the spring of 2002. Lesh has since toured as Phil Lesh & Friends. Several live albums were released in 2006, including Live at the Warfield from Image Records and a stop-by-stop series from Instant Live Records that covered his tour that year.

Channels:		2 (Stereo)
Sample Rate:		44.1 KHz
Sample Size:		16 bit
Audio Quality:		Very High (Lossy)
Encoder Settings:	Constant Bit Rate 320 kbps (Insane)
Contains:		Album Art, ID Tag [ID3v2.3 (ANSI) & ID3v1.1]
M3U Playlist:		Yes

Format:			Mp3
Genre:			Rock
Label:			Sony


After releasing Love Will See You Through, a live album featuring onetime guests like Jorma Kaukonen, Phil Lesh organized a permanent touring and recording band under the moniker Phil Lesh & Friends. This quintet, with an instrumentation that replicated the Grateful Dead's except for the inclusion of only one drummer, featured former Allman Brothers Band guitarists Warren Haynes and Jimmy Herring, former Zen Tricksters keyboardist Rob Barraco, and former Bruce Hornsby & the Range drummer John Molo. There and Back Again is this unit's first studio album and, not surprisingly, it sounds like a cross between the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band. Lesh has made one other crucial connection, bringing in Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter to write the words for six of the 11 songs. (One of them is "Liberty," a Jerry Garcia co-composition the Grateful Dead performed toward the end.) Hunter has a distinctive, wordy writing style, full of allusions, aphorisms, and wordplay that will be familiar to any Deadhead. The leadoff track, "Celebration," with music by Lesh, is very much the product of the team who wrote the Grateful Dead's "Box of Rain"; it is a statement of purpose, proclaiming a recommitment to a positive viewpoint despite "stolen elections, corruption, and hate." Haynes, who does most of the singing (though Lesh and Barraco get leads, too), was a careful student of Gregg Allman's throaty style, and his stinging slide guitar work recalls Duane Allman. For the most part, the bandmembers keep their natural tendency to jam in check, placing emphasis on the well-written songs. The tracks run four to six minutes each and usually fade out with the band still playing, so this material no doubt stretches out in concert. The result is a surprisingly well-organized and accessible collection that is the best album yet made by a Grateful Dead spinoff band. 


Track List:

01.Celebration
02.Night Of A Thousand Stars
03.The Real Thing
04.Again And Again
05.No More Do I
06.Patchwork Quilt
07.Liberty
08.Midnight Train
09.Leave Me Out Of This
10.Welcome To The Underground
11.Rock-N-Roll Blues




             


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