-
Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
The Mandolin Cafe has posted the following news release:
Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Friends of David Grisman have gathered on this day to wish him a very happy 70th birthday, March 23, 2015!
http://www.mandolincafe.com/news/upl...anbirthday.jpg
---------------------------
NOTE: You may use your board membership to comment on news articles published by the Mandolin Cafe. Your comments will appear here and also will be appended to the end of the news article for public viewing. Standard board membership posting guidelines apply.
-
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Attachment 132105
Congrats DAWG! We, Brazilian fans, wish you many blessings and prosperity, with much health and happiness, and especially, want you to keep touching our hearts with your outstanding talent for more 70 years!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
I'd like to offer my birthday wishes to one of the most influential musicians in modern acoustic music history, particularly where the mandolin is concerned. It is absolutely essential that a musician with the talent, foresight, and innovative genius embodied by David Grisman should have been brought to life in this world and his creativity have been allowed to flourish. So many of us have benefited from his musical trailblazing there is no telling where we would have been if this had not come to pass.
My personal connections to the man other than through the music are rather limited. The last couple of holiday seasons I have been fortunate enough to have done some jamming and even shared a couple of gigs with Andy Reiner, who is a good friend and former roommate of Sam Grisman. A tenuous connection, to be sure, which pales in comparison to others, but I'm grateful for it. I did meet Dawg once, in the performers' area at Winterhawk (now Grey Fox), one year while I was there as a member of the press. One evening at dinner time a few musicians were jamming just to the side of the picnic tables, and I wandered over because it sounded pretty good. I was astonished t see David Grisman in the group, playing absolutely brilliantly (of course), but not overwhelming the other pickers. He was good-naturedly chopping while others took their turns, taking his turn when it came up, then going back to a supporting role, all the while beaming a mischievous grin. Typical jamming etiquette, practiced perfectly by someone who probably could have blown everyone away, but knew how best to proceed so everyone could enjoy themselves. A perfect example of how it's done. I wish I'd had my mandolin with me!
I have just one other story worth telling - not that mine is on the same level as those above, nor surely to follow, but it may be entertaining. I posted this recently on a thread about "Old And In The Way," and this is how I came to hear the first DGQ album. In the winter of 1977-1978 I was living in Berkeley, and went to see the Jerry Garcia Band for the first and only time at some small club. They took a long time to come out for the first set and then took a long break between sets. During the down time the sound guy played the first David Grisman Quintet album - just-released - and with all that time, I got to hear it all the way through nearly twice. I had never heard it before, though I must have read about it somewhere, because I knew what it was. I liked the JGB alright - some of it seemed a bit lopey and loopy, and overall not as adventurous as Grateful Dead - but that Dawg music took me for a ride and really stuck with me. I was well aware of Grisman from his two songs on "American Beauty" and the OAITW album, but this was a whole 'nuther sum'thin' that wasn't no part of nothin' else I'd ever heard before. It really opened my mind to the possibilities of the mandolin. :mandosmiley:
And I'll just add in closing I'm grateful for all Dawg has dome with and for the mandolin ever since. I still pay tribute to him nearly every time I play with my current band, The Love Lane Gang, as we do "Minor Swing," which I learned from him all those years ago. My first band, Tin Can Alley, started up just a year or so after that fateful night in Berkeley, did it too, and also "EMD" - though we certainly didn't do it with the savoir faire and panache of the DGQ. Well, really, whoever could? That was an extraordinary band, befitting the extraordinary talents of its leader.
Thank you, David Grisman. for your gifts of music and mandolin consciousness. Happy Birthday, and many, many more. :mandosmiley:
journeybear aka Steve Gibson
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
I had the amazing pleasure of enjoying Del & Dawg at ISIS in Asheville last night...it truly was a treat! They tore it up for 45 or so minutes then brought Bobby Hicks out for the remainder. What a night! I finally picked up the new Dawg books at the merch table, which he happily signed and personalized. What a mensch! An all around classy, yet hilarious, man. Happy birthday Dawg!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday David! I owe you a huge debt of gratitude for taking that small wooden instrument from being relagated to a novelty tunes, hillbilly back porches and drunken back woods campfire sing-alongs and making it what it is today, a decent living.
(apologies to Mel Brooks)
Seriously Dave, you've managed to unlock a whole new potential for this wonderful but often under rated instrument and expanded it's appeal across a much wider audience. That is some accomplishment.
Thanks for the wonderful music that has made all of our lives richer.
Oliver Apitius
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday from me. No-one has done more for the mandolin than Grisman (although Scott Tichenor certainly deserves a mention!) and I love his music.
I've been listening to The Living Room Sessions in the car a lot lately. Effortless playing, beautiful tone, great swinging music.
Have a great day and thanks for all you have done.
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy birthday David! Thank you for your incredible contribution to the mando-playing universe! May you have many healthy and happy years ahead!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
David, Happy Birthday and welcome to the 70s. Thank you for your gracious gesture of allowing me access to your Loar at Strawberry, and thanks to Larry Cummings for facilitating that.
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday, Dawg!!! It's truly been a dream come true to get to know you and spend some time with you over the past few years, thank you for being so open and generous. A big thank you also to Scott T. for putting this together, really well done! I was tearful at the end, just a wonderful collection of thoughts about Mr. Dawg in one place (nice Rolodex!). I'm nowhere near as eloquent as some of the masterful players (and writers!!!) above, so, just like in my playing... I'll steal some licks from Jethro:
This ol' mandolin's been good to me, it got me out of Tennessee (New Jersey?:) )
I've gone from rags to riches many times
Just a pickin' and a grinnin'... even done a little sinnin'
I've made big money, I've played for nickels and for dimes
And when I put it in the case, and head for my last resting place
Here's what I want my epitaph to say:
"Well, he wasn't funny, and he couldn't sing.
He didn't prove a doggone thing.
But, boy, that SOB could really play!"
Love you Dawg, all the best!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday David. Many thanks for all the wonderful music you've created ... you've encouraged .... and very importantly ... the music you're preserving.
All the best,
Ryk
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
It's around 1977 and the first DGQ album had just come out. A lot of us Chapel Hill musicians had gathered at the 'Pleasure Palace,' a kind of group home/crash pad for many of the area's hottest pickers. We all found seats with our stimulants of choice and settled back as Tony Williamson slowly and reverently placed the album on the turntable. From the first droning notes of "E.M.D." to the final celestial notes of "Dawg's Rag" we were spellbound in absolute silence. A mere clearing of the throat brought a dozen baleful glares down on the perpetrator. We were in Church, and the gospel of Dawg washed us clean, pointing out a new direction that many of us would follow for decades.
A few years later, when I was gigging full-time and looking for a top-quality mandolin, I ordered a new Monteleone partly because I wanted something different than a Gibson, but also because Grisman played one. I took Monteleone's letterhead to a t-shirt vendor friend and had a handful of t-shirts made with his logo on it, and sent one to Monteleone. When I visited John in his shop on Long Island, he said he had given the shirt away – to David Grisman.
Soon after, back in Chapel Hill, the DGQ were to play a double bill with the John Ethridge Trio, featuring Martin Taylor and Stephane Grappelli, and I wore my Monteleone t-shirt to the show. A roadie saw it and invited me backstage, where I got to hang with some of the greatest pickers on the planet: Grisman, Grappelli, Taylor, Marshall, Anger, O'Connor, Ethridge on a night I still vividly remember 30 years later.
From his many seminal recordings and unforgettable performances, to Mandolin World News – still the greatest mandolin resource ever published (charter subscriber here, got every issue), to his consistent championing of young talent and obscure old masters, is there anyone since Bill Monroe who has done more for the mandolin?
By now, I've gotten to know Darol Anger and Mike Marshall much better from their numerous appearances on staff at the Swannanoa Gathering, and I keep hoping that I could coax the Dawg east some summer, but even if it never happens, his influence continues to be felt in much of my musical life and in the Gathering's programming.
Thanks, David, for all you've done for me, for the world of acoustic music, and for the wonderful little instrument we all love.
Happy Birthday!!!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday Mr. Grisman! Your music sure means a lot to all of us and so many more.
Best wishes,
Bob
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday, David. You've given this pup loads of joy with your music.
How many dawg years is 70?
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday Dawg! Your music has been the sound track to my life, a style for every occasion.
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
happy birthday david! it was wonderful meeting you at the symposium!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday David! You are my mandolin hero. Thanks for all the great music
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
"Birthday "...a day marking the beginning of something...the beginning of a life that soon lead to the beginning of new mando sounds. As a best friend told me nearing the end of his life..."go play a Dawg tune"
Happy Birthday David!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
I was in college in the early 1970's at Middle Tennessee State and was watching PBS and expecting to see Bill Monroe, but this group filled in for the taping and it was the beginning of Mule Skinner. I was hooked and later got a VHS of the show. Happy Birthday Dawg.
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy birthday Dawg! Thanks for being the catalyst of this wonderful mandolin obsession that I have. :mandosmiley:
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday David! While we had not the pleasure of meeting & rapping, our paths did cross occasionally out at Dead nights at Nickie's on Haight St. I have come to appreciate the mandolin much more fully as a result of our long influence in GD music of course, and Old and In the Way, and I really loved your column in Guitar Player which was always informative, helpful in many ways other than just toward mandolin but also musicianship. So have a great one, many more, and please keep on pickin'!
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday Mr. David Grisman........ I hope you and Sam get to pick .... R/
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
Happy Birthday David Grisman! Thank you for all the music.
-
Re: Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman
In further thought, we should be giving you presents, because of all the presents you have given the world:
- the awareness of people like Oscar Aleman, Svend Asmussen, Dave Apollon, Tiny Moore. Speaking for myself, I never would have heard of these musicians without you
- 9th chords on the mandolin
- The tunes