David Grisman

David Grisman took the mandolin far beyond bluegrass. His "dawg music" mixes bluegrass with the swing jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, and his recordings with Jerry Garcia brought acoustic music to a huge audience.

Career

Grisman grew up in Passaic, New Jersey, and in the early 1960s played in the New York folk scene with the Even Dozen Jug Band and the bluegrass band of Red Allen. After moving to California he met Jerry Garcia, played on the Grateful Dead's American Beauty, and joined Garcia, Peter Rowan and Vassar Clements in the bluegrass band Old & In the Way.

In the 1970s he formed the David Grisman Quintet, an all-acoustic string band that played his own instrumental compositions. In 1990 he founded the Acoustic Disc label, and his long friendship with Garcia was the subject of the 2001 documentary Grateful Dawg. He was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2023.

Dawg music

Grisman's own name for his style is "dawg music": bluegrass mandolin technique combined with the gypsy jazz of the 1930s Hot Club of France. Many listeners know it without realising: his "Dawggy Mountain Breakdown" was the theme tune of NPR's Car Talk.

Selected albums

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