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Fare Thee Well: Peter Shapiro’s Unique Bond With The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh
The deep personal and professional bond that existed between Phil Lesh, the late great bassist for the Grateful Dead who passed on Oct. 25, and Peter Shapiro, the colorful New York City-based independent promoter, who together collaborated on hundreds of performances for more than twenty years, is something rarely if ever seen in this business. Their relationship hit another level in 2012, when they collaborated on a groundbreaking 45-show deal for Phil & Friends at Shapiro’s Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY. That relationship grew and flourished over the years at the Cap and other venues, the Lockn’ Festival and The Grateful Dead’s historic 2015 “Fare The Well” 50th anniversary shows, all of which Shapiro promoted or co-promoted.
“We did the Jammy Awards with Phil at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in 2005,” Shaprio says of first meeting Lesh at the annual Jammys awards, another of Shapiro’s platforms. “It was one of my most fun collaborations. We paired him up with Ryan Adams on ‘Wharf Rat’ and with Questlove, John Mayer and Buddy Guy on Muddy Waters’ ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’”.
Since then, Shapiro says, he’s done close to 200 shows with Lesh. “I think it’s about 105 that Phil and I did since I reopened The Cap in 2012 and about 100 at places like Lockn’, Brooklyn Bowls in Brooklyn, Vegas, Nashville and London, Central Park SummerStage, Forest Hills, Brooklyn Academy of Music and others.”
Lesh, a classically trained musician who studied violin and trumpet, had a penchant for jazz and blew his bandmate Bob Weir’s young seventeen-year-old mind when he turned him onto the John Coltrane Quartet with pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and the drummer Elvin Jones. Lesh’s “bass bombs” on so much of the Dead catalog were foundational as was his songwriting which included writing or co-writing such Dead classics as “Box of Rain,” “Truckin’,” “St. Stephen,” “Unbroken Chain,” “The Golden Road (to Unlimited Devotion),” “Dark Star,” “Cumberland Blues,” “The Eleven” and more.
For Shapiro, The Dead are his north star, which he chronicled in his 2022 book: “The Music Never Stops: What Putting On 10,000 Shows Has Taught Me About Life, Liberty and The Pursuit Of Magic” co-written with Dean Budnick, (Hachettte). It was an unexpected epiphany for him seeing The Dead at Chicago’s Rosemont Horizon on March 11, 1993 when a rendition of the band’s freeform jam “Space” with spoken word artist Ken Nordine that blew his young mind and propelled him out of the arena and into a drum circle and the surrounding “Shakedown Street” scene. That moment changed his life.
Shapiro would subsequently document the Dead’s live scene in his compelling 1993 documentary “And Miles to Go Before I Sleep.” That would directly lead to him running NYC’s Wetlands, a nexus for the post-Dead jamband scene, at age 23 and eventually opening Brooklyn Bowl venues and The Capitol Theatre. Dating back to the 1920s, The Cap was one of the Grateful Dead’s favorite venues. “They played there 18 times over an 11-month period between 1970-71,” Shapiro says.
Lesh, throughout his post-Dead career, had the chops, knowledge and musical adventurism to play with virtually anyone, but was wary of touring by the aughts. Enter Shapiro, who worked with Lesh and his wife and manager Jill, to create a long-term Cap residency which was used for his ever-changing Phil & Friends performances
“We did Phil & Friends shows which we would collaborate on and he would let me kind of lead the process of putting bands together for him,” Shapiro says. “I got to take a lot of the bands from the younger emerging jam band scene: Eric Krasno from Soulive, Robert Randolph, Jackie Green, Luther Dickinson from North Mississippi Allstars, Karl Denson. Benmont Tench from the Heartbreakers. We did Jimmy Herring (Widespread Panic, Aquarium Rescue Unit), Warren Haynes, John Scofield, John Medeski, Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes, Gary Clark, Jr., Derek and Sue from Tedeschi Trucks. I worked closely with his son Grahame (a guitarist ) in the latter years who was particularly helpful because he knew better than anyone where his father wanted to explore musically. We also did Preservation Hall Jazz Band. We did JRAD with Joe Russo which we called PHILRAD. We did Rick Mitarotonda from Goose, Daniel Donato, Marcus King, Duane Betts and Mike Gordon from Phish.”
Peter thinks like a musician. He understands the spirit of the music I’m trying to make because he wants to create situations for that music that enhance the experience on many levels.”
– Phil Lesh, 2022
The photo from Pollstar’s Aug. 2019 cover (above) with Lesh, Shapiro and Weir was shot by Jay Blakesberg backstage at Lockn’ in Arrington, Va. in 2018. “They were getting ready to play a rare performance as a duo,” Shapiro says. “They were talking backstage about what they were going to do.”
Having promoted post-Grateful Dead shows with Lesh, Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann (the “core four”), Shapiro in 2015 was uniquely situated to lead the charge on the Grateful Dead’s 2015 “Fare The Well” anniversary shows at Chicago’s Soldier Field and Levi’s Stadium Santa Clara, Calif., which helped reinvigorate Dead fandom.
“Phil was kind of the last of the members to agree to Fare Thee Well and I was in unique postion to encourage him to do the show get on board because I had this relationship with him,” Shapiro says. “Once we had the residency, I used the right moment at the Capitol to talk to Phil and Jill about why I felt it would be the right thing to bring the core four back again. Fortunately they agreed. And that became Fare Thee Well. I know how happy he was at the end that he did it.” It was the last time they played together,
That five-date run, co-produced by AEG’s Madison House Presents, also featured Phish’s Trey Anastasio, Jeff Chimenti and Bruce Hornsby. It grossed more than $52 million from 361,933 tickets, according to Pollstar Boxoffice Reports, setting venue attendance records twice. Shapiro calls it the highlight of his career.
Losing Lesh is clearly a heavy blow to Shapiro, the Dead community and others touched by the Grateful Dead. But for the promoter, who got to spend years working directly with Lesh, he sees the cup as half-full. “I feel more lucky than sad,” he says, thankful for the time he had with Lesh. While Shapiro declines to say what might lay ahead for Dead 60 in 2025, he does enticingly say, “We’ll see where this long strange trip lands.”
