On December 4, Grahame Lesh will release a new studio album. Grahame Lesh & Friends’ Vol. 2 – Juno is the follow-up to his 2024 recording, Vol. 1 – Let The Mountain Be My Home. The first single from the record is “Jupiter,” which represents Lesh’s new take on some previously unused Robert Hunter lyrics.
Lesh is joined on Vol. 2 – Juno by a number of his longtime collaborators, including his core GLAF members Adam Minkoff, Damian Calcagne, Justin Mazer and Nathan Graham, as well as Brian Rashap, Elliott Peck, Gabby Sherba and Jennifer Hartswick.
He says of the new album:
Juno is part of a continuation of 2024’s Vol. 1 – Let The Mountain Be My Home and continues my exploration of unfinished musical ideas and overlooked songs connected to my family’s musical history and the broader Grateful Dead community.
The album title references NASA’s Juno spacecraft, the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, as this is the second time I have recorded the song “Jupiter,” which I wrote to previously unused Robert Hunter lyrics many years ago. To kick off Side A, “Jupiter” comes out of “Juno,” a new instrumental introduction, while the standalone single presents “Jupiter” on its own. I first recorded “Jupiter” with Midnight North for our 2023 album Diamonds in the Zodiac, featuring my dad, Phil Lesh, on bass.
The title track for Vol. 1 - Let The Mountain Be My Home is a beautiful composition called “The Mountain Song”, a song whose writing began in 1971 by David Crosby & Jerry Garcia during the famous PERRO sessions and which was only completed by my brother Brian & my dad Phil in 2010 for Furthur to perform. Now, on Juno, we again connect the PERRO sessions to modern times with GLAF keyboard player Damian Calcagne’s song “Mountain’s Other Side”, written by taking inspiration from another unused PERRO jam, this one by the great Jorma Kaukonen. “Mountain’s Other Side” closes out Side A and features me on bass with Damian singing a beautiful lead vocal, plus we get a special appearance from the great Jennifer Hartswick on trumpet!
Side B again connects to my dad’s great friend David Crosby, with our take on his composition “The Wall Song”. The original recording of “The Wall Song” was featured on 1972’s Graham Nash David Crosby album, and features my dad along with Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann backing up David and Graham. I’ve always loved this song, and my dad would always tell me about how they would jam the Wall Song endlessly in rehearsals and jam sessions. I’m so honored to have the legendary Graham Nash contribute vocals to our version, further linking our project to the tremendous work that he and his copatriots did all those years ago.
The album finishes with another song that epitomizes an aspect of what this ongoing Grahame Lesh & Friends recording project is about, the great “Wave to the Wind”. Writing about Vol. 1 and the previously unplayed Grateful Dead song “Equinox” that we resurrected on that album, I said “I wanted to highlight and resurface some of the more forgotten music that my family had been involved in - music by my dad, songs by my brother Brian, my own compositions, and things we'd all written together.” Written by my dad and Robert Hunter and only performed a few times by the Grateful Dead in the 1990s, “Wave to the Wind” is the perfect song to be updated and completed with the benefit of time. GLAF bassist Adam Minkoff, who sings the beautiful lead vocal on this version, was the driving force in pushing us to learn and record this tune, and I’m so proud of the recording and the song.
Grahame Lesh & Friends will take to the road next week and perform a series of dates over the weeks to come through New Year’s Eve.
Vol. 2 – Juno Tracklist
- Juno
- Jupiter
- Mountain’s Other Side
- The Wall Song
- Wave to the Wind
Grahame Lesh & Friends Tour
October 29 – Boston, MA Paradise Rock Club
October 30 – Nantucket, MA The Muse
October 31 – Nantucket, MA The Muse
November 12 – Los Angeles, CA Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever
November 13 – Los Angeles, CA Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever
November 14 – Los Angeles, CA Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever
December 18 – Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
December 19 – Nashville, TN Brooklyn Bowl Nashville
December 30 – Fort Lauderdale, FL The Parker
December 31 – Fort Lauderdale, FL The Parker
