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After transplant, life is sweeter for ex-Dead bassist Lesh By RACHEL MICOLI Nothing like an organ transplant to realign priorities, says Phil Lesh, former Grateful Dead bassist. "Every breath, every morning, every flower is a gift," says Lesh, who had a liver transplant in 1998. "It's very difficult now to have any patience with trivia - one realizes what the important things are in life." Lesh, who will visit Cricket Arena tonight, credits music with being the motivator behind his incredibly fast recovery (he contracted hepatitis C more than 30 years ago, which caused the liver failure). Four months after the operation, Lesh, 61, was back on the scene, crafting his collaborative, improvisational take on Grateful Dead music that he and his Friends are playing on tour. "I discovered some musicians I wanted to play with, and it just started up a whole adventure," he says during a phone interview from his California home. "I wanted to treat the Grateful Dead's music as a repertoire, open to interpretation, to get different results, a range of richness." The group of musicians Lesh has been working with since April 1999 is "alchemy way beyond chemistry," he says. "I haven't been this excited about playing since 1968 or '69. "The lineup includes guitarists Jimmy Herring (of Col. Bruce Hampton's Aquarium Rescue Unit) and Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule); drummer John Molo (Bruce Hornsby and the Range, The Other Ones); and keyboardist Rob Barraco (Zen Tricksters). "All of these folks had played together before, but in different combinations," he says. Inspired by his grandmother (with whom he listened to concerts on the radio in the late 1940s), Lesh's musical roots are in classical and jazz. He tried his hand at violin and trumpet (playing in a semipro orchestra) before studying "graduate level composition in '62, and after that, the rest is well-known," he says. The rest, as he modestly puts it, is a musical journey that started with meeting Jerry Garcia and joining the Warlocks (soon to be renamed the Grateful Dead).Until Garcia's death in 1995, Lesh was part of that seminal jam band - it wasn't unusual for a song to stretch 30 minutes or longer. In recent years, Lesh has fallen out with former Dead members Mickey Hart and Bob Weir (with whom he toured as the Other Ones after Garcia's death). They battled over access to the Dead's live-tape archive. "I'm doing what I want to do," Lesh says, dismissing the rift. "I am so excited about this band and the potential. Those guys too are doing what they want to do - I encourage that. "The Grateful Dead is over. It's important that everyone move on." He released "Love Will See You Through," a two-CD collection in 1999, and he's been working with a voice coach. "I don't cringe so often anymore when I hear my voice," he says. He's been working on new songs with longtime Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, a few of which fans can expect tonight or on the group's next pass through Charlotte in July. There are no immediate plans to record another album, Lesh says. "We don't want to compress the features of the band," he says. "When we open (songs) up and improvise, they need room to breathe." PHIL LESH & FRIENDS
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