Editing Phish (section)

==Musical style and influences==
According to ''The New Rolling Stone Album Guide'', the music of Phish is "oriented around group improvisation and super-extended [[groove (music)|groove]]s".<ref name="nrsag1">{{cite web|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/artists/phish/biography|title=Phish|access-date=2008-05-11|work=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090414030730/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/phish/biography|archive-date=2009-04-14|url-status=dead}}</ref> Their songs draw on a range of rock-oriented influences, including [[funk]], [[jazz fusion]], [[progressive rock]], [[bluegrass (music)|bluegrass]], and [[psychedelic rock]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Adams |first1=Sean |title=Jam band Phish to perform two shows at Hershey's Giant Center |url=https://www.pennlive.com/entertainment/2020/01/jam-band-phish-to-perform-two-shows-at-hersheys-giant-center.html |website=The Patriot-News |access-date=3 August 2020 |date=23 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Plotnicki |first1=Gideon |title=Tracing The Evolution Of Jam: From Grateful Dead, To Phish, To The Disco Biscuits |url=https://liveforlivemusic.com/features/tracing-evolution-jam-grateful-dead-phish-disco-biscuits |website=Live for Live Music |access-date=3 August 2020 |date=4 October 2016}}</ref> Some Phish songs use different vocal approaches, such as [[a cappella]] (unaccompanied) sections of [[barbershop quartet]]-style vocal harmonies.<ref name="csmphish">{{cite web |last1=Knickerbocker |first1=Brad |title=Phish: a Rock Quartet That Dabbles in Barbershop |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1993/0423/23142.html |website=Christian Science Monitor |access-date=29 April 2020 |date=23 April 1993}}</ref> The band began to include barbershop segments in their concerts in 1993, when the four members began taking lessons from McConnell's landlord, who was a judge at barbershop competitions.<ref name="csmphish"/> In the 1997 official biography, ''The Phish Book'', Anastasio coined the term "cow-funk" to describe the band's late 1990s funk and [[jazz-funk]]-influenced playing style, observing that "What we're doing now is really more about groove than funk. Good funk, real funk, is not played by four white guys from Vermont."<ref>{{cite web |last1=O'Brien |first1=Andrew |title=Phish Displayed Their "Cow Funk" Mastery In Philadelphia, On This Day In 1997 [Full Video] |url=https://liveforlivemusic.com/features/phish-philadelphia-spectrum-1997/ |website=Live for Live Music |access-date=8 October 2018 |date=3 December 2017}}</ref>

Phish were often compared to the [[Grateful Dead]] during the 1990s, a comparison that the band members often resisted or distanced themselves from.<ref name="rabin1">{{cite magazine |last1=Rabin |first1=Nathan |title=Phish Has Come To Terms With Its Life After the Dead |url=https://time.com/3857031/grateful-dead-phish-legacy/ |magazine=Time |access-date=26 May 2020  }}</ref><ref name="bsun1"/> The two bands were compared due to their emphasis on live performances, improvisational jamming style, musical similarities, and traveling fanbase.<ref name="rabin1"/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Melamed |first1=Dave |title=Phish, The Grateful Dead, & The Joy Of Being In On The "Joke" |url=https://liveforlivemusic.com/features/phish-grateful-dead-insider/ |website=Live for Live Music |access-date=26 May 2020 |date=22 February 2018}}</ref> In November 1995, Anastasio told ''[[The Baltimore Sun]]'', "When we first came into the awareness of the media, it would always be the Dead or Zappa they'd compare us to. All of these bands I love, you know? But I got very sensitive about it."<ref name="bsun1">{{cite web |last1=Considine |first1=J. D. |title=Phish likes to be live, not Dead Similarities: The band has loyal followers and likes to improvise on stage, but it is not the next Grateful Dead. |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-11-22-1995326037-story.html |website=baltimoresun.com |date=22 November 1995 |access-date=1 April 2019}}</ref> Early in their career, Phish would occasionally cover Grateful Dead songs in concert, but the band stopped doing so by the late 1980s.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Simon |first1=Leslie |title=Phish's twenty most interesting covers |url=https://www.westword.com/music/phishs-twenty-most-interesting-covers-5690377 |website=Westword |access-date=22 October 2019 |date=26 September 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Russell |first1=Diane |title=Phish Tales: A Rock Legend on the Importance of Being Kind |url=https://www.mainecannabischronicle.com/arts-and-culture/2019/09/01/phish-tales-a-rock-legend-on-the-importance-of-being-kind/ |website=Maine Cannabis Chronicle |access-date=22 October 2019  }}</ref> In ''Phish: The Biography'', Parke Puterbaugh observed "The bottom line is while it's impossible to imagine Phish without the Grateful Dead as forebears, many other musicians figured as influences upon them. Some of them - such as [[Carlos Santana]] and [[Frank Zappa]] - were arguably at least as significant as the Grateful Dead. In reality, the media certainly overplayed the Grateful Dead connection and Phish probably underplayed it, at least in their first decade."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Puterbaugh |first1=Parke |title=Phish: The Biography |date=2010 |publisher=Hachette Books |isbn=9780306819209 |pages=136 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eXD8AgAAQBAJ&q=dead+underplayed&pg=PA136  }}</ref> Anastasio has also cited progressive rock artists such as [[King Crimson]] and [[Genesis (band)|Genesis]] as significant influences on Phish's early material. In a 2019 ''New York Times'' interview, he observed, "If you listen to the first couple of Phish albums, they don't sound anything like the Grateful Dead. I was more interested in [[Yes (band)|Yes]]."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Marchese |first1=David |title=Trey Anastasio on Phish, Jam Bands and Staying Together Forever |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/24/magazine/trey-anastasio-phish.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=30 June 2019 |date=24 June 2019}}</ref>

In his 2018 book ''Twilight of the Gods'', music critic Steven Hyden wrote that he found the Grateful Dead and Phish to have "significantly different reference points" in terms of influence and style.<ref name="hyden242">{{cite book |last1=Hyden |first1=Steven |title=Twilight of the gods : a journey to the end of classic rock |date=2018 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-265712-1 |page=242 |edition=First}}</ref> The Grateful Dead, Hyden explained, were "informed by the totality of American music from the first sixty years of the twentieth century: Blues, country, folk, jazz, and early rock 'n' roll," while Phish's music contains elements of "hopped-up bluegrass, jazzy disco, porno-movie funk, Broadway theatricality, and shockingly sincere barbershop harmonies. But it all stems from [[classic rock]]."<ref name="hyden242"/> Hyden observed that "If the Dead encompasses American music from roughly 1900 to 1967, Phish picks up the story right through the [[Album-oriented rock|AOR]] era, from '68 to around the time ''[[Stop Making Sense]]'' debuted in theaters in the mid-eighties."<ref name="hyden242"/>