I have chills, I believe mostly from reliving 1995 a bit. I was young, and had lots of plans. This is very sad, his music was just starting to reach a fourth (fifth? third?) generation of heads. Maybe now he’s with Jerry, Hunter, and Barlow, Kieth, Brent, and Pigpen, and all the others.
I’ve had the opening bass slide down that kicks off Scarlet Begonias/Cornell 1977 (I was a child lol) stuck in my head for days, my god what that must have felt like to see live. Rattled the bones, like a crack of thunder. I am sad.
The Lesh bass line that sticks in my head is in "Me and Bobby McGee" from a show in Fresno in the summer of 1974 [1]. It's a simple three-chord country song, and the usual bass backing would be a straight oom-pah on the beat. But Phil was all over the place with syncopated counterpoint. I've listened to that recording dozens of times.
