In a touching moment during Saturday’s Midnight North show at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, Grahame Lesh honored his late father Phil Lesh by addressing the audience to deliver a new version of his famous “donor rap.”
After receiving a liver transplant in 1998 at the age of 58, Phil Lesh recited his “donor rap” speech at most every performance for 25 years, whether to small crowds at his intimate Terrapin Crossroads club or to tens of thousands of fans at Soldier Field. Typically delivered just before the encore, the speech was in part a way of giving thanks to Cody, whose donation helped make Phil’s life-saving operation possible, and also a way to encourage fans to become organ donors.
On Saturday, Phil’s son continued his father’s tradition with a “donor rap” of his own: “This has been quite a tough month or so, and a tough year for Midnight North, for all of us, and definitely for me, and I know for all of us too because my dad passed away about a month ago. And I know you all loved him too and I love you all for that,” he began.
“I’ve done a couple of shows back East a few weeks ago—[Midnight North drummer] Nathan [Graham] and I—and I’ve been doing a thing my dad used to do, which is to ask all of you to become organ donors. He used to say, ‘It’s the simplest thing in the world. You can turn to someone that you love and that loves you and tell them if anything ever happens to me I want to be an organ donor.'”
He went on to say how grateful he was for Cody’s noble act. “I got 25 extra years with my dad because someone told someone they love they want to be an organ donor.”
Watch Grahame Lesh honor his dad with his “donor rap” speech below.
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