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.
Hunter has a distinctive, wordy writing style, full of allusions, aphorisms, and wordplay that will be familiar to any Deadhead.
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 result is a surprisingly well-organized and accessible collection that is the best album yet made by a
Grateful Dead spinoff band. This limited-edition version of the album, available through mail-order or as a digital download, includes another full disc containing a studio recording of "Passenger" and live takes of "St. Stephen," "Dark Star," and "The Eleven," all
Grateful Dead evergreens co-written by
Lesh. The playing on these tracks strongly echoes
the Grateful Dead; in fact, in places, even Deadheads might be fooled. Taken together, the recordings reflect
Lesh's willingness to take up his old band's standard, perhaps in hopes of regaining their massive following. ~ William Ruhlmann