Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (2024)

Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (1)

Phil Lesh performs as Phil Lesh & Friends in 2023

Photo: Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images

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The legendary bassist and his bandmates in the Grateful Dead will be honored as 2025 MusiCares Persons Of The Year during a GRAMMY Week event on Jan. 31 in Los Angeles.

David McPherson

|GRAMMYs/Oct 26, 2024 - 01:48 am

And then there were two. Phil Lesh, co-founder and innovative bassist for the Grateful Dead, passed away peacefully on Oct. 25 at his California home surrounded by family. He was 84.

With Lesh’s death, Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzmann are the only remaining original members of the psychedelic rock band that formed in Palo Alto in 1965. Earlier this week, it was announced that the Grateful Dead had been named the 2025 MusiCares Persons Of The Year.

Lesh’s death was announced late in the day on Friday on his official Instagram. Margo Price, one of the first to comment on the news, simply said, "Thanks for the music." Just this past March, Lesh was joined on stage at The Capitol Theatre by friends and fellow artists to celebrate his 84th birthday. On Friday night on X, the New York venue said they already missed the musician "more than words can tell."

"The Recording Academy mourns the loss of Phil Lesh," Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason, jr said in a statement."For their outstanding contributions to the recording industry, he and his fellow Grateful Dead members were honored in 2007 with our Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award. Phil’s legacy is timeless and will live on for generations to come and we look forward to honoring him and the Grateful Dead at our MusiCares Person of the Year ceremony in January."

Phil Lesh left a lifetime's worth of music to be grateful for. The musician was born in Berkeley, California on March 15, 1940. He played trumpet and violin in high school and, during these formative years, fell in love with free jazz and experimental music. This penchant for improvisation that became his trademark for three decades as a member of the Grateful Dead — a band of musical brothers that left a lasting legacy on the world.

Lesh became a bassist by default. He was working a variety of jobs, including driving a mail truck and working at a radio station, when Jerry Garcia convinced him to join the new rock band he was forming (the Warlocks), who quickly morphed into the Grateful Dead.

The Dead defined an era. The band represented a subculture that influenced the mainstream for decades from lifestyle to fashion; from music to marketing. And Lesh, as a co-founder of these musical misfits, was a key cog in this long and strange trip.

"Phil Lesh changed my life," Dead drummer Mickey Hart wrote on X. "Phil was bigger than life, at the very center of the band and my ears, filling my brain with waves of bass…. Phil was a master of a style he invented, he was singular, an original, nobody sounded like him, nobody."

Read more: A Beginner’s Guide To The Grateful Dead: 5 Ways To Get Into The Legendary Jam Band

The bass does not often get the glory, but it is the backbone of many groups; it provides that steady beat and rhythm that guides the rest of the band. Sometimes, the bass lines are simple; other times complex. Lesh's dexterity with the instrument allowed him to wield it as an inspirational source and force — especially live — as a conduit to take the Grateful Dead and their fans to new realms.

Lesh played bass like it was the lead instrument of the band. Listen to the Grateful Dead’s vast catalog and the groove of his funky bass notes and improvisations often trump Garcia’s lead guitar playing. Rolling Stone cited Lesh as one of the "50 Greatest Bassists of All Time," noting that that "In the same way that the Grateful Dead reconfigured how a rock band should sound — looser and jammier, incorporating equal parts jazz and country — Phil Lesh made us hear the bass in a new way."

The Grateful Dead were innovators. No two shows were ever the same. The spirit of each night was unique and that spirit was fuelled by the band members (and just as often by the various drugs that they were under the influence of) and where they went on these spacey jams and explorations, Lesh was often the guide.

In 1994, Lesh and his jamband mates were enshrined into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame when Bruce Hornsby officially inducted the Grateful Dead. In his acceptance speech, Lesh thanked Deadheads worldwide, acknowledging that "without them, we wouldn’t be anywhere, much less right here, right now."

After Garcia passed away in 1995, Lesh and Weir both continued to play and perform, together and separately, but never again under the Grateful Dead moniker. Lesh founded Phil Lesh & Friends and, in later years, played often with his sons: Grahame and Brian; Weir fronted Dead and Company, who this past summer completed a 30-day residency dubbed Dead Forever in Las Vegas at the Sphere.

On X, as news of the musician’s passing spread, tributes poured in from celebrities, fellow musicians, legendary venues, and regular Deadheads. The Empire State Building even announced it would light up the New York City skyline for one hour on Friday night in homage to Lesh’ legacy.

Beyond its longtime care for its community of loyal fans (Deadheads), the band supported many causes over the years — from mental health to music education and social justice. In 1997, Lesh and his wife Jill founded the Unbroken Chain Foundation to raise money and give back to various charitable organizations.

MusiCares also mourned the loss of Lesh. "As a legendary bassist and founding member of the Grateful Dead, Phil’s distinctive contributions to music, advocacy, and philanthropy leave an enduring impact," the organization said in a statement. "Phil will be reverently honored with his Grateful Dead bandmates as our 2025 Persons of the Year, commemorating their journey that transcends music and fosters a profound sense of unity and generosity. This tribute stands as a testament to Phil’s remarkable legacy, commitment to creating community, and unwavering dedication to causes close to his heart, including his Unbroken Chain Foundation and MusiCares."

Phil Lesh leaves behind his wife Jill and children, Grahame and Brian.

In memory of Phil Lesh, press play on five songs that feature bass lines that groove, melodies that linger long after the record is done, and showcase his musical legacy and influence.

"Box Of Rain"

This country-folk song is a Deadhead favorite and concert staple. The melody and instrumentation for "Box of Rain" (from American Beauty,1970), came to Lesh as something to sing to his dad, who, at the time of its writing, was dying of cancer; Lesh practiced it in his head during his drives to visit his ailing father at his nursing home.

"Truckin'"

One of the Dead’s most mainstream cuts and highest-charting songs, it’s hard to listen to this catchy number without getting hypnotized by the funky bass groove supplied by Lesh that keeps the song rollicking down the highway on this long strange trip.

"Cumberland Blues"

From 1970's Workingman’s Dead, this song is about the trials and tribulations of toiling in the Cumberland coal mines in Kentucky. In live shows, this is one where Lesh was let off his leash; listening to this track you can feel how much fun the bassist is having.

"St. Stephen"

This song was co-written by Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter. Appearing on the 1969 album Aoxomoxoa, this tune opens with Lesh playing single notes that resonate and then kicks into a romp that continues to build until the bridge that slows things down briefly before another explosion of sound that spirals the song to a climactic ending with the melodic bass lines of Lesh leading this psychedelic trip.

"Unbroken Chain"

Lesh co-wrote this complex melodic song, which is also the name of his charitable foundation, with longtime Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Appearing on 1974’s From the Mars Hotel, the band never performed the song in concert until 1995, likely due to its difficulty.

The phrase symbolizes (just like the classic 1907 gospel hymn "Will the Circle be Unbroken" the journey of the band and the fans that have followed them on their trips for nearly 60 years. Though yet one more member of the Grateful Dead is now gone, the songs remain to help family, friends and Deadheads grieve to make sure the links to their music never breaks or fades away.

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Bob Newhart speaks onstage at the GRAMMY Museum

Photo: Rebecca Sapp/WireImage

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The legendary comic, whose work onstage and on screen spanned multiple generations, passed away at age 94 on July 18.

Christopher Guly

|GRAMMYs/Jul 19, 2024 - 06:00 pm

Bob Newhart, one of the most celebrated comedians of his generation and renowned for his deadpan delivery died at his home in Los Angeles on July 18. He was 94.

Awarded the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2002, Newhart launched his career with a record-setting record. By the time he transitioned to television with two successful sitcoms, he had become a household name.

Newhart made his vinyl debut on April Fool’s Day in 1960, when Warner Brothers Records released his first comedy album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart. A year later, at the 3rd GRAMMY Awards, the former accountant-turned-comic took home three golden gramophones.

At the 1961 GRAMMYs, Newhart won Album Of The Year — beating out two classical albums as well as works by Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte. Newhart also won Best New Artist at that year's ceremony and, to this day, is the only comedian to win in both categories.

Recorded live on Feb. 10, 1960 at the Tidelands Motor Inn in Houston, Button Down Mind also became the first comedy audio album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The album is widely considered to be one of the most consequential comedy albums of the 20th century and, fittingly, features the subtitle The Most Celebrated New Comedian Since Attila (the Hun).

The album was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 1960. That year, The New York Times noted that Newhart was “the first comedian in history to come to prominence through a recording.” In 2007, the Recording Academy inducted The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame.

His second album, The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!, similarly topped the Billboard charts and earned Newhart his third GRAMMY Award, this time for Best Comedy Performance — Spoken Word.

Newhart received two additional GRAMMY nods during this illustrious career: His Button Down Concert album was nominated for Best Spoken Comedy Album at the 40th GRAMMY Awards, and nine years later his I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This! was nominated for Best Spoken Word Album.a

The success of Button-Down Mind led to the launch of Newhart's long TV career. His NBC variety show, "The Bob Newhart Shot" only lasted one season, but earned an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1962. Newhart found greater success through CBS, which broadcast a series of the same name. On the second "The Bob Newhart Show," which ran from 1972 to 1978, the comic actor played a psychologist,

Four years later, he followed up with another sitcom, "Newhart," which aired until 1990 and in which Newhart played a Vermont innkeeper.

Bob Newhart has continued to have a presence on the small screen. His recording debut has been referenced in a variety of contemporary period shows, including "Mad Men" and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."

During his decades-long television career, Newhart received nine EMMY nominations, including as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series over three consecutive years for "Newhart" and three for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearances on CBS’ "The Big Bang Theory."

Born George Robert Newhart on Sept. 5, 1929, in Oak Park, Illinois, Newhart graduated from Loyola University of Chicago in 1952 with a degree in accounting. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he returned to Loyola for law school, but dropped out and pursued office work.

Newhart worked as an accountant for United States Gypsum Corp., which manufactures construction materials, and later as a copywrighter for Fred Niles Films Company in Chicago. During that time, Newhart began recording "long, antic" phone calls with a friend as audition tapes for comedy jobs. They caught the attention of a Chicago disc jockey, who introduced Newhart to the head of talent at Warner Bros. Records and which led to a life-changing contract in 1959.

It was in the latter category that Newhart won his first and only Emmy in 2013, 20 years after the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences inducted him into its Hall of Fame.

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Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (13)

The Dead Forever residency at Sphere runs through Aug. 10.

Photo: Kevin Carter

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The 30-date Las Vegas residency is an unprecedented look at Dead & Co's live artistry. With stunning visuals and immersive technology, the Dead Forever residency takes attendees on an unpredictable, eye-popping vortex journey.

Rachel Narozniak

|GRAMMYs/Jul 18, 2024 - 01:34 pm

The scene on Saturday, July 13, was one mostly familiar to Dead & Company fans: Usual suspects Jeff Chimenti on keys, Oteil Burbridge on bass, Mickey Hart on drums, and John Mayer on guitar, a Silver Sky in hand. Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir dutifully approached the microphone to deliver one of the Dead’s best-known opening lyrics: "You tell me this town ain’t got no heart."

Throughout the evening, appreciative cheers and whistles sounded at the first notes of a classic, like this one, intermingling with the hints of marijuana in the air. The crowd of thousands, who’d traveled from both near and far for the occasion, swayed to the music. Largely clad in the tie-dye t-shirts customary to the Dead fandom, they comprised a vivid sea of color, visible even in the venue’s dimmest lighting.

Bathed in the glow of a key anomaly — a 160,000-square-foot curved LED canvas — a Deadhead sitting in the row ahead of me turns around and asks if I’m enjoying the show (I am). When I return the question, he is emphatic, his response succinct: "it’s transformative."

He’s not wrong in that the audiovisual spectacle — which wrapped its eighth of 10 weeks this past weekend — metamorphoses Dead & Company’s concert format. Since it debuted in May, the now 30-date Las Vegas residency, dubbed Dead Forever, has attracted old-school and new-generation Deadheads, as well as curious first-timers. From one-of-a-kind production tools, like its 16K LED display (the highest-resolution display in the world, per developers) and stereographic projection, Sphere has empowered Dead & Company to carry forth the legacy of one of the most fervently-loved bands in American music history, with unprecedented storytelling capacities and complete creative control.

Read on for four reasons why Dead & Company’s residency at Las Vegas’ most-talked-about venue is the rock outfit like they’ve never been seen before.

The Meeting Of Music & Visuals Allows For True Narration

For the nearly four hours that Dead & Company play each Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of a residency week, the domed venue adjacent to the Venetian transforms from Sphere to spaceship. Narratively, the show is stylized as a long, strange trip through space that issues nods to the Grateful Dead’s history.

It’s only fitting that this story begins in San Francisco, where the Dead’s townhouse in the heart of the Haight-Ashbury district becomes the focal point of the audiovisual journey’s intro. The 360-degree view of the Dead’s residence and the larger row of townhouses to which it belongs pans to a drone shot of the Bay Area at golden hour and soon thereafter, outer space.

Visually, attendees travel through time and space in an unpredictable, eye-popping vortex of fantasticality (and sometimes, reality). Take, for example, the segment that recreates the Dead’s performance at the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt. The scene is punctuated by black bats that flap swiftly through the desert landscape — a detail that comes as a surprise to those in the audience, and one ultimately added based on Weir’s recollection of this very phenomenon during the 1978 event, Mayer tells GQ.

Before Dead & Company bring Dead Forever full-circle by returning to 710 Ashbury Street at the show’s close, the show winds through a colorful, circuitous run of visuals: the Dead’s iconic technicolor dancing bears, Cornell University’s Barton Hall, and a wall made entirely of digital reproductions of Dead event posters and hard tickets. The show’s depth of reference is plunging, and Sphere’s technology allows the story to play like an abstract movie that blurs timelines, affording Dead & Company an unusual and nonpareil opportunity to leverage live storytelling in a way they’ve never before been able to.

While Dead Forever is accessible purely as a visual marvel, for the initiated, it is rife with Easter eggs. Its historical allusions are familiar touch points for the Deadheads who hopped on the metaphorical bandwagon back when Jerry Garcia was at its helm. Although some of its segments will evade those less fluent in the Dead’s storied past, they can nevertheless serve as educational gateways to it (and to greater, deeper fandom) for those who leave the show wanting to learn more.

Read more: A Beginner’s Guide To The Grateful Dead: 5 Ways To Get Into The Legendary Jam Band

In A Way, Everything Is New

Whether one has seen Dead & Company once, five times, 20 times, or never before matters not, for Dead Forever is a brand-new show. Familiarity with the Grateful Dead’s legacy and its contemporary offshoot's genesis certainly enriches the overall experience, but it’s not a requisite to enjoy the show, making the residency a particularly good entry point for the Dead & Company-curious who may have missed them on The Final Tour in 2023.

Dead Forever levels the playing field for attendees in that, apart from the songs on the setlist, the residency represents net-new material. The marriage of music and visuals makes each of the 18 tunes new from the standpoint of an audiovisual experience, and the novelty of Dead Forever deepens for even the most experienced Deadhead.

"When I was growing up, ‘Drums’ was always my bathroom song, but now you don’t want to miss it," an attendee tells GRAMMY.com at the end of the first set (Dead & Company play one six- or seven-song set and take a 30-minute intermission before beginning the evening’s second and final set).

A customary part of the Dead’s sets, "Drums/Space" is an extended percussion segment that takes on new life in Dead Forever. Led by Mickey Hart, the set two standout is where sound evolves into physical feeling. As this portion of the show starts, the curved LED canvas swirls with images of different drums that move wildly as Hart and Jay Lane (who stands in for Grateful Dead co-founding member, Bill Kreutzmann) diligently drum, steadily increasing the pace and intensity with which they do so. The instruments that grace Sphere’s screen are Hart’s own, the drummer tells Variety. Following 3D-photographing that enables them to be displayed in this fashion, an ensemble of at least 10 different drums joins the visual jamboree.

The cinematic, multisensory nature of this segment grows increasingly climactic, with the percussion becoming so thunderous it becomes physical. No surprise, considering Sphere’s immersive, crystal-clear sound system, or the fact that 10,000 of the venue’s 17,385 seats are haptic seats that can vibrate in time with the mounting percussion. This technology transforms "Drums/Space" and allows a customary piece of the Dead’s traditional sets to be heard, seen, and felt anew.

The Environment Is Unusually Immersive —And Intimate

Upon mention of Sphere’s size — the globe measures 875,000 square feet and can accommodate up to 20,000 people — "intimate" is not the first word to come to mind. Still, the venue felt remarkably intimate during Dead & Company’s final performance of July.

This was owed in equal parts to its self-contained design and its immersive visual environment, in which Sphere’s LED screen wraps over and behind the audience. However uncannily, the latter contributes to a sense of closeness, creating the illusion that Sphere, its visual displays, and its audience are situated much more closely than they actually are.

Its 580,000-square-feet of LEDs, coupled with its 360-degree shape and structure, render Sphere the most immersive live music venue in the world. To that end, it’s not hyperbolic or unreasonable to call Dead Forever Dead & Company’s most immersive live venture yet.

Of course, the Dead Forever narrative — a trip through space undertaken together, as one community — only adds to the show’s combined sense of intimacy and immersion.

No Show Is The Same

It’s not out of character for Dead & Company to play no repeats across consecutive evenings (as they did at San Francisco’s Oracle Park, where they laid their touring career to rest last July), and Dead Forever is no exception. Apart from "Drums/Space" — the sole item on the setlist that recurs each night — the 17 other songs that the band will play and their visual accompaniments are left to Dead & Company’s whim.

"What’s become really interesting — and I would say it’s a challenge, but it’s a really fun one — is that not only do you have to make the songs work in some kind of a flow for the setlist, but every piece of content has maybe eight or 10 songs that can go with it," Mayer told Variety.

No show is the same, yielding similar but unique viewing experiences across a given residency weekend and, more broadly, the portfolio of Dead Forever shows performed to date. This aspect has enticed avid fans to return not once, not twice, but three times in a given weekend, to see a fuller scope of what Dead Forever has to offer across its many possible variations.

With the residency’s July run now in the rearview, Dead & Company will take a brief break before returning to Sphere Aug. 1-3 and 8-10 for the final Dead Forever trips — for now.

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David Bryan, Jon Bon Jovi and Tico Torres attend the UK Premiere of "Thank You and Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story"

Photo: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Disney+

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Ahead of the band's new album 'Forever,' out June 7, and a new Hulu documentary, "Thank you, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story," read on for 10 facts about the GRAMMY-winning group and its MusiCares Person Of The Year frontman.

Bryan Reesman

|GRAMMYs/Jun 6, 2024 - 06:55 pm

Bon Jovi have officially been in the cultural conversation for five decades — and it looks like we'll never say goodbye.

The band's self-titled debut album was unleashed upon the world in 1984, and lead single "Runaway" made some waves. Yet the New Jersey group didn't truly break through until their third album, the 12 million-selling Slippery When Wet. By the late 1980s, they were arguably the biggest rock band in the world, selling out massive shows in arenas and stadiums.

Since, Bon Jovi releases have consistently topped album charts (six of their studio albums hit No. 1). A big reason for their continued success is that, unlike a majority of their ‘80s peers, frontman Jon Bon Jovi made sure that they adapted to changing times while retaining the spirit of their music — from the anthemic stomp of 1986’s "Bad Medicine" to the Nashville crossover of 2005’s "Who Says You Can’t Go Home." It also doesn’t hurt that the 2024 MusiCares Person Of The Year has aged very gracefully; his winning smile and charismatic personality ever crush-worthy.

Their fifth decade rocking the planet has been marked by many other milestones: The release of a four-part Hulu documentary, "Thank you, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story"; Bon Jovi's 16th studio album Forever, and fan hopes for the return of original guitarist Richie Sambora who left unexpectedly in 2013.Despite all of these positive notes, there is an ominous cloud hanging over the group as their singer had to undergo vocal surgery following disappointing, consistently off-key performances on the group's 2022 U.S. tour. Even afterward, he remains unsure whether he’ll be able to tour again. But Bon Jovi remains popular and with Sambora expressing interest in a reunion, it's plausible that we could see them back on stage again somehow.

Jon Bon Jovi has also had quite a multifaceted career spun off of his success in music, as shown by the following collection of fascinating facts.

Jon Bon Jovi Sung With Bruce Springsteen When He Was 17

By the time he was in high school, Jon Bongiovi (his original, pre-fame last name) was already fronting his first serious group. The Atlantic City Expressway was a 10-piece with a horn section that performed well-known tunes from Jersey acts like Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.

They regularly played The Fast Lane, and one night Bruce Springsteen was in the audience. To Bon Jovi’s surprise, The Boss jumped onstage to join them. The two later became good friends — during his MusiCares performance, Bon Jovi introduced Springsteen as "my mentor, my friend, my brother, my hero."

Jon Recorded Bon Jovi’s First Hit Before The Band Formed

Although "Runaway" was the debut single and lone Top 40 hit from Bon Jovi's first two albums, it was recorded as a professional demo back in 1982.

Bon Jovi got a gig as a gopher at Power Station, the famed studio co-owned by his second cousin Tony Bongiovi where artists like the Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, and David Bowie recorded. (He watched even watched Bowie and Freddie Mercury record the vocals for "Under Pressure.")

The future rockstar cut "Runaway" (which was co-written mainly by George Karak) and other demos with session musicians — his friend, guitarist Aldo Nova, Rick Springfield/John Waite guitarist Tim Pierce, Springsteen keyboardist Roy Bittan, bassist Hugh McDonald (a future Bon Jovi member), and Scandal drummer Frankie LaRocca. The song first appeared on a WAPP compilation under his name, but then it was placed on Bon Jovi’s debut album. When the video for "Runway" was created nearly two years later, members of Bon Jovi were miming to other people’s performances.

Although it is a classic, original guitarist Richie Sambora hates it and never wants to play it again.

He Eloped With His High School Sweetheart In April 1989

During the band’s world tour in support of New Jersey, Bon Jovi and Dorothea Hurley spontaneously eloped in a quickie wedding in Vegas. His bandmates and management were shocked to find this out; the latter probably feared that his ineligible bachelor status would harm their popularity with their ardent female fans. But it simply played more into his more wholesome image that differed from other hard rockers of the time.

In May 2024, Bon Jovi’s son Jake secretly married "Stranger Things" actor Millie Bobby Brown. It was like history repeating itself, except this time family was involved.

Listen:

The Bongiovi Family Is Part Of The Bon Jovi Family

Back in the ‘80s, parents often didn’t like their kids’ music. However, Bon Jovi’s parents completely supported his. Mother Carol Bongiovi often chaperoned his early days when he was an underaged kid playing local clubs and bars in New Jersey. Father Jon Sr. was the group’s hair stylist until their third album, Slippery When Wet. He created his son's signature mane.

Jon’s brother Matthew started as a production assistant in the band’s organization, then worked for their management before becoming his brother’s head of security and now his tour manager. His other brother Anthony became the director of a few Bon Jovi concert films and promo clips. He’s also directed concert films for Slayer and the Goo Goo Dolls.

Bon Jovi Is A Regular In Television & Film

After writing songs for the Golden Globe-winning "Young Guns II soundtrack (released as the solo album Blaze Of Glory) and getting a cameo in the Western’s opening, Bon Jovi was bitten by the acting bug. He studied with acclaimed acting coach Harold Guskin in the early ‘90s, then appeared as the romantic interest of Elizabeth Perkins in 1995's Moonlight and Valentino.

In other movies, Bon Jovi played a bartender who’s a recovering alcoholic (Little City), an ex-con turning over a new leaf (Row Your Boat), a failed father figure (Pay It Forward), a suburban dad and pot smoker (Homegrown), and a Navy Lieutenant in WWII (U-571). The band’s revival in 2000 slowed his acting aspirations, but he appeared for 10 episodes of "Ally McBeal," playing her love interest in 2002.

Elsewhere on the silver screen, the singer has also portrayed a vampire hunter (Vampiros: Los Muertos), a duplicitous professor (Cry Wolf), the owner of a women’s hockey team (Pucked), and a rock star willing to cancel a tour for the woman he loves (New Year’s Eve). He hasn’t acted since 2011, but who knows when he might make a guest appearance?

In 2004, Bon Jovi became one of the co-founders and co-majority owner of the Philadelphia Soul, which were part of the Arena Football League (AFL). (Sambora was a minority shareholder.) The team name emerged in a satirical scene from "It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia" during which Danny DeVito’s character tries to buy the team for a paltry sum and twice butchers the singer’s name.

Jon stuck with the team until 2009, a year after they won Arena Bowl XXII, defeating the San Jose SaberCats. He then set his eyes on a bigger prize, the Buffalo Bills, aligning himself with a group of Toronto investors in 2011. One of his biggest competitors? Donald Trump, who ran a smear campaign alleging that the famed singer would move the team to Toronto.

In the end, neither man purchased the team as they were outbid by Terry and Kim Pegula, who still own the Bills today.

Jon & Richie Sambora Wrote Songs For Other Artists

Having cranked out massive hits with songwriter Desmond Child, Bon Jovi and Sambora decided to write or co-write songs for and with other artists.

In 1987, they co-wrote and produced the Top 20 hit "We All Sleep Alone" with Child for Cher, and also co-wrote the Top 40 hit "Notorious" with members of Loverboy. In 1989, the duo paired up again Loverboy guitarist Paul Dean for his solo rocker "Under The Gun" and bequeathed the New Jersey outtake "Does Anybody Really Fall in Love Anymore?" (co-written with Child and Diane Warren) to Cher.

The Bon Jovi/Sambora song "Peace In Our Time" was recorded by Russian rockers Gorky Park. In 1990, Paul Young snagged the New Jersey leftover "Now and Forever," while the duo penned "If You Were in My Shoes" with Young, though neither song was released. In 2009, Bon Jovi and Sambora were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame for their contributions to music.

Jon Bon Jovi Once Ran His Own Record Label

For a brief time in 1991, he ran his own record label, Jambco, which was distributed through Bon Jovi’s label PolyGram Records. The only two artists he signed were Aldo Nova and Billy Falcon, a veteran singer/songwriter who became Bon Jovi's songwriting partner in the 2000s. Neither of their albums (Aldo Nova’s Blood On The Bricks and Billy Falcon’s Pretty Blue World) were big sellers, and the label folded quickly when they began losing money.

Still, the experience gave Bon Jovi the chance to learn about the music business. That experience helped after he fired original manager Doc McGhee in 1991 and took over his band’s managerial reins until 2015.

Bon Jovi's Vocal Issues Aren't New

Although Jon Bon Jovi's vocal problems have become a major issue recently, they stem back to the late 1980s. It's doubtful as to whether Jon had proper vocal training for a rock band at the start.

The group did 15-month tours to support both the Slippery When Wet and New Jersey albums. Near the end of the grueling Slippery tour, Bon Jovi was getting steroid injections because his voice was suffering.

While his voice held up into the 2000s, it has become apparent over the last decade that his singing is rougher than it used to be. As shown in the Hulu new documentary, the singer has been struggling to maintain his voice. It’s natural for older rock singers to lose some range — it’s been very rare to hear him sing any of the high notes in "Livin’ On A Prayer" over the last 20 years — but he admitshe is unsure whether he can ever tour again, even with recent surgery.

Bon Jovi Has Been A Philanthropist For Over Three Decades

Back in the 1980s, the upbeat Bon Jovi made it clear that they were not going to be a toned-down political band. But in the ‘90s, he and the band toned down their look, evolved their sound, and offered a more mature outlook on life.

Reflecting this evolved viewpoint, the band started an annual tradition of playing a December concert in New Jersey to raise money for various charitable causes; the concert series began in 1991 and continued with the band or Jon solo through at least 2015. The group have played various charitable concert events over the years including the Twin Towers Relief Benefit, Live 8 in Philadelphia, and The Concert For Sandy Relief.

By the late 2000s, Jon and Dorothea founded the JBJ Soul Kitchen to serve meals at lower costs to people who cannot afford them. COVID-19 related food shortages led the couple to found the JBJ Soul Kitchen Food Bank. Their JBJ Soul Foundation supports affordable housing and has rebuilt and refurbished homes through organizations like Project H.O.M.E., Habitat For Humanity, and Rebuilding Together.

While he may be a superstar, Jon Bon Jovi still believes in helping others. For his considerable efforts, he was honored as the 2024 MusiCares Person Of The Year during 2024 GRAMMY Week.

Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (20)

Mickey Hart

Photo: Nick Spanos

interview

Dead & Company are currently embarking a residency at Las Vegas' sphere, which features drummer Mickey Hart's eye-popping, unconventional art. Hart spoke to GRAMMY.com about how it came to be, and how the Grateful Dead's legacy continues to ripple forth.

Morgan Enos

|GRAMMYs/May 23, 2024 - 09:06 pm

Living Legends is a series that spotlights icons in music who are still going strong today. This week, we interviewed Mickey Hart, one of two drummers — along with Bill Kreutzmann — of the Grateful Dead and its contemporary offshoot, Dead & Company.

His first-ever solo art exhibition, Art at the Edge of Magic, will run through July 13 at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, as part of the Dead Forever Experience. His work is also incorporated into their current residency at Las Vegas' Sphere.

After decades behind a drum kit with the Grateful Dead, and now in the same role in , Mickey Hart has learned a truly cosmic lesson: "The basis of all of creation is vibratory."

For years, in parallel with his legacy as a music maker, he's made visual art using a sui generis method, which has plenty in common with his techniques as a drummer. Check out his visual art, which he's been creating for years in parallel with his music making; some of it may look like paintings, but that doesn't quite describe what it is.

Rather, Hart employs vibrations — much like he's done behind the kit for decades — to bring out hitherto-invisible dimensions in paint. The results are captivating to the eye — at times, otherworldly.

The strength of Hart's visual art has added another layer to the Grateful Dead cosmos. If you're in or near Las Vegas, you can check out these works as part of the Dead Forever Experience, in an exhibition at the Venetian running until mid-July.

Additionally, if you catch Dead & Company during their Sphere residency (which runs through July 13), you can immerse yourself in it during the famous "Drums/Space" portion of the set — a percussive, celestial section stretching way back in Dead setlist history.

"I just love to do it. Sometimes, your hobbies overtake you and become a necessary ingredient in your life," Hart cheerily tells GRAMMY.com. "And that's what happened with this visual medium, that it kind of grew on me and made me want to go back over and over and over again to learn the craft."

Whether or not you'll be heading to Vegas, read on for an interview with Hart about how he makes these sumptuous textures and hues truly pop — as well as his gratitude for the potency and longevity of the Dead's afterlife. (No pun intended.)

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Your visual work is beautiful. What can you tell readers about how you make it — the brass tacks?

Well, I wouldn't say I paint. I don't use brushes — sometimes, once in a while — but really it's more of a pouring medium, and a spinning medium, and so forth. But I use vibrations in the painting process, and I think that's why people call it vibrational expressionism.

I use a subwoofer and the Pythagorean monochord — a stringed instrument — drives the subwoofer. Pythagoras, of course, invented it, and it goes down very low to 15 cycles, sometimes 10 cycles. And that vibrates the paint. I mix multiple colors, and the colors come up within each other, and it reveals these details that you cannot get in any other way.

And I just kind of fell on it. In the beginning, I was drumming them — beating underneath them and so forth. But now, I've progressed to using a Meyer subwoofer, and it works just fine. And that's how the paintings are born. They're vibrated into existence.

Once I apply my mumbo jumbo to it, and using additives that create unique features — shapes, people, animals, mountain ranges, glaciers — you see all kinds of things within the paintings if you look at them, and let yourself go, and become part of the paintings.

Everybody has their own interpretation of [what they reveal], which is really important. These are not, like, a rose, or a vase, or a car. It's not that kind of art form. So, it raises your consciousness. And if you can connect with it, you get high. And that's what these things are all about. That's what art's all about. No matter what it is, audio or visual, it's consciousness raising at its best.

I take it you've been developing this ability in parallel with your work in the Dead universe for some time.

Well, of course. I work with vibrations. The vibratory world is where I live, and I make my art there. It's always been like that. I'm a lover of low end; low frequencies are my specialty. And because I'm a percussionist and many of my drums are very large and they speak to the range, the frequency, which is not normally accessed.

So, I create these works using these low-frequency creations. And that was something that I fell on years ago, but as a hobby; this was nothing more than an escape to another virtual headspace. Now, I share it with others.

I feel like this sound-based approach to visual art is a fairly unexplored space.

For sure. I mean, you can look it up. I've looked it up. And when you look up vibrational expressionism, I'm the only one that's there. Someone coined that term years ago, and it's kind of fitting.

I might be unique in that particular way, but that's the only way I know how to bring the colors up within themselves and reveal the super details.

Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (21)

Photo: Emily Frost

And I'm sure this process is fluid and mutable; you don't apply the same technique for every piece.

Yes, I apply different frequencies and different rhythms to different paintings. They're not the same. Every time I approach it — whether it be a canvas, or wood, or plexiglass, or glass, or whatever the surface is — it's always different. I never repeat. Every one of them is unique.

It's about the mixing of the paints, and the ingredients I put in the paint. And then you have to let it go and you jam. That's what these works are — they're jams. Sometimes, I have a thought on how I want it to be, and then sometimes it'll completely change once I put paint to canvas.

You learn over years. I've been doing this for about 25 years as a hobby, so I've got hundreds of these. And some of them never see the light of day. That's the luck of the draw, but luck favors the prepared mind, and I prepare that before I go in. I focus and concentrate on not concentrating. I just try to be there now and let the flow happen.

I improvise. That's my love. That's the only thing I really know how to do. Memorizing things and repeating is not who I am. I don't paint by the numbers. You don't need me for that.

Much like what you do on stage!

The Grateful Dead never did memorize many things. It was mostly a seat-of-the-pants kind of art form, but you learn how to become a seat-of-the-pants artist, if you will. There's adventure, there's failure, there's success, there's luck, there's chaos, there's order, and back and forth.

The duality of all of that reflects life. It gets you high too. You can look at it and all of a sudden you're in a different, virtual space. That's what art does — good art, anyway. It puts you in a place of great wonder and awe.

Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (22)

Photo: Emily Frost

Can you talk about using the Sphere as a canvas for your work?

That's how I look at it — as a blank canvas. When I hit the stage, I'm not thinking of anything. I prepared, I have my skill, I'm ready to go, but I'm not really thinking in the normal sense of the word. I throw that away and I just feel muscle memory, you might call it.

When you're playing music in a band, you become a groupist. You learn to be able to interrelate between six people each having their own consciousness, making something larger than the parts. Music is great at that. But in painting, it's a singular thing.

Music is just the moving of air. That's the delivery system. It's the movement of air. And in this case, it's light. It's what the light does to you. The eye is more powerful than the ear as an organ. So people really react to the visual. Hopefully in the Sphere, there's a combination of both that come together and form something much larger.

I appreciate that you view a drum as far more than simply a drum.

It's not something that just played to keep time. It's something that is an integral part of the orchestra, right up there with melody and harmony. The primacy of rhythm is something that has come into music in this century. If you listen to the radio, it's rhythmic-driven, mostly. Of course, there's the melodies, but the basis of it all is rhythmic.

Visual art is the same thing. It's all about rhythm and flow. If you don't have that, you don't really have anything. You have to have a groove.

The basis of all of creation is vibratory. These arts are just miniatures of what's happening in the cosmos. I mean, we are in the wash of these vibrations that were created 13.8 billion years ago from the singularity, the big bang, and that's still washing over us. And that's where art comes in. It connects you to the infinite universe at its best.

You guys seemed to realize early on that you could transcend simply playing rock songs in a band.

When we were younger, we were all ingesting psychoactive drugs. They certainly freed our perspective, and created a different kind of perspective when we all played together. Some of it was drug-related, you might say. We took what we could from those experiences and created a new kind of music.

That was an important part of our exploratory nature as we were falling on Grateful Dead music. We were exploring realms of consciousness that were not accessible to us normally in a normal waking state. These chemicals certainly helped in that respect, used correctly and professionally. They were an enormous, enormous help.

And now we're finding out that LSD is being used in therapeutic and medicinal and diagnostics and all of that. These are very helpful in many ways.

Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (23)

Photo: Emily Frost

How has it felt watching the Grateful Dead turn into a franchise, a universe? This visual element at the Sphere adds a whole new layer to it.

Well, it's very interesting to see all the corners and of the universe that the Grateful Dead spirit has reached and all the people and all the bands that copy our music. It's very rewarding and complimentary, I think.

We knew it was special. First time I ever heard it, I knew it was special. How special? You never know, but you have to keep at it being special. And eventually, it skips generations, which is what we've done — generation, after generation, after generation. The parents share with their kids, their kids, their kids.

It's something that's very friendly — hanging out with your parents at a concert like that, and having a great time together, and sharing something that they shared when they were younger.

It's fantastic. It's unbelievable that it has that power. I was just talking to someone the other night and they asked me to explain it. You can't explain it in words. You have to hear it. You have to be there. You have to feel it. You have to feel the community that it spawns, and this feeling that you get in the music. It's very seductive, if you allow yourself that moment.

I was just reading this morning that Diplo — the electronic musician, a very good musician — just became a Deadhead the other night.

Really!

Oh, yeah. It transformed him completely. You never can tell who gets touched by our music. It's something that's not explainable, but it keeps going on. The people will not let it go.

As long as people are interested in our kind of music and our kind of scene, we'll keep playing. There's no end to it until we don't have the facility to play, or the rhythm stops. I plan to do this till the day I die. There's no question about it. I've always thought that. There's no secret.

I think Bob and I both agree on that, and all of the Grateful Dead, Bill, Phil, certainly Jerry, we're all in the same boat when it comes to Grateful Dead music, the passion that we bring to it. And it's very rewarding that people enjoy it as deeply as they do.

I tell you, I can't express the gratitude that I have just being part of it. We all feel that same way. It's very humbling, to be honest with you, that it's grown to be this. It was just a little cub. Now it's a roaring lion. It's just a gigantic monster that is always meant for the good, and that's very rewarding. It's a good life to lead. We work very hard at it.

A Beginner's Guide To The Grateful Dead: 5 Ways To Get Into The Legendary Jam Band

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Remembering Phil Lesh, Grateful Dead Co-Founder And Bassist With An Unbreakable Chain | GRAMMY.com (2024)

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