Dawgology

[mandocrucian]

Jon,

Got any photos of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks? Great west coast acoustic string swing, but overlooked/underappreciated by the grassy contingent because none of them came out of that genre, and, it predated the dawg stuff by at least 5+ years and the records (in the stores) were always filed in the "rock" bins.

Tim Ware, always sounded, to me, more like SF rock, but on acsoutics. (think: It's A Beautiful Day, Youngbloods, Dino Valenti-lineup up of QMS).

Hard to downplay the (UK) folk-jazz fusion of guitarist Davey Graham which inspired John#Renbourn & Bert Jansch both solo and with The Pentangle.

There was also Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, and the drumless John Mayall lineup with Jon Mark and Johnny Almond which produced The Turning Point and Empty Rooms.

NH

[Dagger Gordon]

Humblemex,
regarding the impact of Dawg music in Britain.

I first came across this sort of thing in Chapelhill, North Carolina in early 1981.
I went throught a spell of listening to a lot of it, buying a couple of Rice albums (I love Reischman's playing on Backwaters), Grisman's Quintet 80, and Markology by Mark O'Connor (his guitar album) and one or two others.

I've often pondered whether it had much influence over here, and I have to conclude that I don't really think it did. Niles is certainly right in highlighting Pentangle and Davey Graham etc, but that was surely well before Dawg.

One group I believe was influenced by this idea of 'New Acoustic Music' (isn't that what it's called?) is the Edinburgh based Easy Club. They put a sort of synchopated swing into fiddle tunes, and had a great writer in Jim Sutherland. The way they played songs was also very effective.

I always expected them to be more successful than they seemed to be, and their influence doesn't seem to have been long lasting.

However, Jim Sutherland himself has gone on to be quite an influential producer.

There has been quite a bit of adventurous trad related music come out of Scotland in the last 25 years or so, but it is difficult to say whether Dawg influenced it much. Shooglenifty have always been a very progressive but quite electric band, and their early albums were produced by Sutherland.

The Scottish jazz community have always shown an interest in the 'folk' scene.
Examples might include Hamish Moore and Dick Lee's wild bagpipe/sax combinations and The Cauld Blast Orchestra. More recently we've had The Unusual Suspects - a terrific big band made up of folkies and jazzers, and Salsa Celtica - a very successful salsa/Celtic/jazz band. A number of harp players like Savourna Stevenson have also done some things that could be considered 'new acoustic music', although I'm not sure she's necessarily directly influenced by Dawg. I wouldn't be surprised, however.

In Ireland, we've had Moving Hearts and Davy Spillane doing intersting things, plus a very original group called Deiseal, wth a line-up of whistle, bouzouki and double bass, who I suspect were influenced. They had an amazing version of the old harp tune 'Si beag, si mhor'.
I also think the Anglo/Irish band Flook could perhaps be included. They're really great.

Scandinavian influences have become quite strong in recent years. I'll let Niles handle that.

Cheers,

Dagger.

[glauber]

In Ireland, we've had Moving Hearts and Davy Spillane doing intersting things, plus a very original group called Deiseal, wth a line-up of whistle, bouzouki and double bass, who I suspect were influenced. They had an amazing version of the old harp tune 'Si beag, si mhor'.
I also think the Anglo/Irish band Flook could perhaps be included. They're really great.

Flook is terrific. So is Lunasa. I would think the whole Bothy Band lineage qualifies, all the high-energy Irish trad power bands.

The things i know by Spillane are more in the New Age vein.

[Dagger Gordon]

The Bothy Band's first album was 1975, I believe, predating any Dawg influence. I think the Irish high energy band was a different kind of thing from what I associate with Dawg/Rice etc.

Flook and Deiseal I would regard as altogether more jazzy based and more experimental in style than the likes of Altan, for example.

Spillane definitely made an effort to fuse Irish music with other styles, even having Albert Lee and Jerry Douglas on his first album.

[glauber]

Right, i meant similar in having taken a traditional music form and transformed it in creative ways without abandoning the music's traditional roots. But i see i was straying from the purpose of the thread.

There must be groups that did similar things in many countries, without being directly influenced by Dawg. I'm thinking of a Brazilian group called "Quinteto Violado". We probably won't ever know most of these groups.

[mandocrucian]

I've often pondered whether it had much influence over here, and I have to conclude that I don't really think it did. Niles is certainly right in highlighting Pentangle and Davey Graham etc, but that was surely well before Dawg.

Graham was mid 60's - the "inventor" of DADGAD (though I'm sure the tuning had been previously used somewhere, but he kicked off the whole "English guitar" thing. Which developed both the trad. folk (Carthy etc) and jazzier (Renbourn, Jansch, John Martyn, Nick Drake..) branches

The "dawg music" thing was largely a bluegrass-rooted phenomena. Grisman was definitely the introduction vector (for jazzier sounds) for many of the bluegrass persuasion. But there were plenty of other folks out there that were doing fusions, or had been (independently) influenced by Django, Slim & Slam, or Chico Hamilton Quintet of the late 50s, and others. There was the Paul Winter Consort, which spun off Oregon - this was fusion coming from the jazz end. #

So, I brought up Dan Hicks in this light - Dan was doing his thing 68-72 (at his height) with a great acoustic swing outfit (Sid Page!) but Hicks was reaching a vastly different audience than those who got into Grisman via Tony Rice/NGR/and the progressive BG of the 70s.

Trischka, Bottle Hill, Central Park Sheiks and the northeast BG contingent were doing some 'parallel' type stuff too.

Besides Graham, Pentangle, (in the UK) there was Diz Disley (who was so much a Djangophile, that supposedly he was visiting Django's widow and couldn't resist the temptation to grab Django's guitar and tried to runn-oft with it. RT told me this!), Nick Drake, Incredible String Band, Dandoshaft. #Later there was Whippersnapper (Swarbrick, Chris Leslie, and from Dandoshaft - Martin Jenkins and Kevin Dempsey) who would have really appealed to the "new acoustic" fans had they been aware of them.

Bothy Band had nothing to do with dawg at all, being a continuation of the Sweeney's Men > Planxty evolution.

I suppose one's musical worldview is contingent on what (and how much) you've been exposed to.

NH
* * * * * * * * *
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>Chico Hamilton - various recordings from 1955-65

Oregon - Into The Woods (1978)

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks (1968)

John Mayall - The Turning Point #(1969), Empty Rooms (1970)

Davey Graham - Folk, Blues & Beyond...

John Renbourn - Sir John Alot (1968)

Pentangle - Pentangle (1968), Sweet Child (1968), Basket of Light (1969), Light Flight: The Anthology

Nick Drake - #Five Leaves Left (1969), Bryter Layter # (1970)

Sweetwater - Sweetwater (1968)

Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks - Where's The Money? (1971), Striking It Rich (1972), Last Train To Hicksville (1973)
Dan Hicks - It Happened One Bite</span>

[SternART]

You know Niles.......I was a BIG Dan Hicks fan, went to numerous gigs, and in my previous life (as a rock & roll photographer) had even
put together a few "concept" photos for a possible record cover. I have some cool in camera multiple exposures shot with a Nikon F2 back in the day.
I know I have some large prints somewhere, and I suspect there are boxes of slides, but I haven't looked for any of that stuff in 25 years.

There was a "last concert" before several inevitable comeback attempts.....at a SF club in the basement of a Church, about 1972, where Dan greeted everyone and thanked them as they came in the front door.....he was drunk as a skunk! While Sid Page and John Girton were super musicians, that was primarily a vocal group with a hot band. There is a DGQ/Hicks connection though....Rob Wasserman who became the DGQ's 4th bass player was a Hicks alumni. I recall Naiomi Ruth Eisenberg, and Maryanne Price visiting him backstage at a Music Hall gig.....but I could be wrong on that. You should get that Hicks DVD where alumni all show up for his 60th birthday gig at the Warfield in SF. I don't think he ever revived his career to that 68-72 peak era you mentioned, but I'm pretty sure he still plays now & then out here. I can see where a band like the Diddy-Bops comes right out of that Eisenberg/Price mold. The two Lickettes have done some gigs out this way too.

[Paul Kotapish]

FWIW, I know from conversations with Kevin Burke and Mícháel Ó Domhnaill that they were not really aware of the whole Dawg phenomenon at the time the Bothy Band was performing, and that group was pretty much defunct before the the DGQ was out and touring.

One of the interesting things that came out of those conversations was the very different attitude toward improvisation that the Irish musicians held. The common ground between the European folk revivalists and the Dawg school is that the bands were able to pull off incrdibly tight, complicated arrangements. With Grisman and Co. those arrangements were launching pads for statospheric improvisation by the soloists. In the case of the Bothy Band et al, improvisation was not really part of the formula, except at the most micro level of when and how to ornament a phrase or turn. And in instances where the arrangements featured tight duet or trio melodies, even the placement of ornaments was worked out in unison.

There were also big differences in the way that harmonies, counterpoint, and such were employed, but I think that improvisation is the big difference.

[dzen]

I saw the Grisman quintet (?) in Omaha about 7 years ago. After falling completely in love with the Tony Rice era stuff 20 years earlier, it had been one of the goals of my life to see them live, and I finally got the opportunity. Somehow they never made it to Nebraska. I hadn't heard anything they'd done for many years and was a little apprehensive as to how they'd weathered the years, musically speaking. I mean, a flute player? Percussion? A Brazilian guitarist? It was one of the best shows I've ever seen. The guy doing percussion sounds with his mouth was great fun to watch and hear (forgive me, don't remember his name).

I saw "Grateful Dawg" a couple years later and it was interesting that the vocal percussionist was on it, but you could never see his mouth when he was doing his stuff. Was that intentional? What was the reason? Dale

[SternART]

Joe Craven would often immitate the cymbals of a drum kit vocally....with his mouth. When he started with the DGQ percussion was usually just his fiddle case, but over the years he added to his kit. I saw a solo on a styrofoam cup once that was extremely musical. Joe can use anything including his own head to create music. He certainly added a whimsical or comedic element to the show, as well as tasty fiddle & mando solos. He was always in the groove big time on percussion. Add flashy dresser, too.

[wsm]

Joe can use anything including his own head to create music.

Couple of months ago, I saw Joe lower his mic down to about floor level. #Untie his shoe and play an incredible solo on his shoelaces. #Wayne, I think I saw you hanging around in the back somewhere..

[humblemex]

Okay, now we're cooking. I was always vaguely aware of what the Brits were doing acoustically via bands like Fairport Convention and The Incredible String Band who made a small dent in the American market. Now I've got a list of a dozen more sources I need to check out. I'm not surprised that the DGQ didn't immediately bowl people over in Europe because there was such an established tradition already in place. Interesting, though, that one of David's primary influences were French and Belgian, Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhart.

I think the Japanese were right on top of it, though, because there was an active bluegrass community and they were building instruments.

Dan Hicks was definitely an anomaly in that whole San Francisco scene and they kicked butt. Hicks was a killer rhythm guitarist and singer who wrote great songs like "I Scare Myself," How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away," "Walkin' One and Only," and "Canned Music." He was actually a member of *the* seminal San Francisco band, The Charletons. I never photographed him during the day. It was 1984 during his "comeback before I got the chance." Ol' Dan was pretty drunk for a long time and got pretty mean to the audience during his shows. You couldn't watch his show with a thin skin. The good news is that he is sober and fully up and running, releasing new albums and performing. Check out his website at www.DanHicks.net.

Arthur, that picture of Carlini and T was from January 1977, well before the King of the Gypsys thing happened. That was actually before I saw the first full DGQ set at Family at another kind of hybrid band performance with Jerry Douglas and Carlini. John was an original member of the Great American String Band who had gone off to be the musical director of the Ice Capades. He worked very closely with David on the arrangements and notation. Somewhere around here, I've got an original transcription of E.M.D. in his hand. What I remember most from that evening was a gorgeous duet of Tony and John on "Norwegian Wood."

I've asked a couple of boys in the band to check this topic out and see if they have anything to add. Just heard from Mike Marshall, who says he all over it. Stay tuned.

[Dagger Gordon]

I think Flook, Deiseal and Davy Spillane have embraced improvisation in a way that earlier bands like the Bothies didn't, which is why I included them.

[humblemex]

Correction: The shot of T and Carlini actually dates to May 27, 1977, which does indeed put it in the early window of work on King of the Gypsies. That would definitely account for John's presence, since he lived on the east coast. For some reason, every time I was around David my mind would get fuzzy, I'd laugh a lot, and forget things. Must have been something in the air that still effects my memory. Their opening act for this show was the incredible Ricky Jay, and astounding magician and arguably the greatest slight-of-hand artist anywhere. His card-throwing tricks defied the imagination. He even wrote a book about it called "Cards As Weapons," unfortunately long out of print. I remember being in Los Angeles 15 or 20 years ago and I came across a theater that was advertising Ricky for a two-week run. I immediately tried to buy tickets but the guy just laughed at me; all shows had long since been sold out.

This shot of the band is from August 19, 1977. It was actually used as a promo shot for a while. They were smokin' and on top of their game. Yogive you an idea of what they were playing those days, here's a set list from May 28, 1977.

14 Miles to Barstow
Janice
Opus 57
Opus 38
Old Gray Coat
Groovin' High
Japan
Dawgology
16-16
Swing '51
Norwegian Wood
Swing '42
Spain
Ricochet
Fish Scale
Opus 12
Minor Swing

(sigh) Those were the days. And thanks Phillippe for the newspaper clipping from the Japanese tour.

[bush-man]

This is such fantastic stuff. I am enjoying reading every post. As for me, I had highly eclectic musical tastes, and listened to most of the bands that have been mentioned here, back in the day. I was also a huge Hicks fan and saw him in the early 70's at a bowling alley in Pa somewhere. hehehe I also saw him years later when he was doing gigs in NY at the Lone Star Cafe.

The Central Park Shieks! Man did I love those guys. I wish I still had their album. Great swinging music. As for Dawg, I was right on the first DGQ release. I was coming from Trishka, and Barrenburg and Keith and all those bg/ng cats. I was also heavily into all the ECM jazz releases, like Pat Methany, Jan Gabberreck, Kenny Wheeler, Ralph Towner, et all.

The only time I got to see Dawg was at a bg festival in Virgina in the early 70's [culpepper?], where he performed with Old and In the Way. Great times, great music, great memories. Keep it coming!

a gratefull russell

[humblemex]

"You mean the italian newspaper clipping from the European tour?"

Yes, of course. Funny thing is I didn't even know about a European tour that year. Is there a date anywhere on that clipping?

[humblemex]

When I started hanging around David, it wasn't long before I got the urge to buy a mandolin. I'd plunked out a few chords on the guitar by then but I really loved the mandolin tremolo and the logic of the fingerboard. So I worked out a deal for a cool Ibanez two-point with Charlie Cowles, who then owned Tree Frog Music in my San Francisco Richmond neighborhood. If I recall correctly, there was no cash involved; I swapped him photos and copies of Guitar Player magazine he could sell in the store. The Ibanez was actually quite good but, of course, I stupidly sold it in the early '90s in the music store I co-owned. I mean, who needs more than one mandolin? Many of you Bay Area people know that Charlie now owns Tall Toad Music in Petaluma.

When I told David, he immediately gave me a copy of his little self- published "Ten Tunes in Nine Keys" and turned me on to the Mandolin World News. What a revelation. David and Darol published the first issue in Spring 1976. Remember, these were the days before computers, so every thing was done by conventional offset printing methods: the copy was typeset and photos were screened. The music, and there was lots of it, was beautifully handwritten (mostly by Darol, I think) in both notation and tab. The copy was then pasted up, photographed with a copy camera, and printing plates were burned. Only then was the magazine printed. It wasn't easy and it wasn't cheap, but it *was* a labor of great love and a gift to mandolinists everywhere.

The first issue was 24 pages, measured 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, and cost a buck. It included a list of source material for mandolin music publications and recordings, transcriptions of Byron Berline's "Snowball" and Beethoven's "Sonatine C-Dur, a tiny blurb on the DGQ, some basic mechanical exercises by Dawg, and an article on bridge placement and string compensation by Todd Phillips. The second issue was dated Summer 1976 and opened with appreciative letters from Jethro Burns and other mandolinists throughout the country. Bob Bruen did a short interview with Rudy Cipolla and Rudy contributed a study for two mandolins. Darol contributed a transcription of Jethro's "Back Up and Push, Dawg did a piece on voicing chords, and Todd wrote about mandolin set-up. The staff consisted of Dawg, Todd, Darol, Janice Bain (*the* "Janice) and Bob Bruen. As time passed, others began contributing articles and transcriptions. Niles Hokkanen was onboard by the fifth issue with a transcription of Mick Moloney's "Reel for Mandolin," classical great Marilyn Mair did a piece on studying with Vinzenz Hladky, and Jethro debuted his column, "Jethro Speaks."

Eventually the staff and the magazine expanded with more authors contributing. A random selection I looked at included Don Stiernberg, John McGann, Tim Ware, Mike Marshall, Joe Carr, Tony Williamson, Scott Hambly, Hugo D'Alton, Bob Alekno, and Rich Del Grosso This was truly a magazine written by mandolin players for mandolin players. By the end of the third year, Dix Bruce took over as editor and the fun just kept on coming. Dix and the others held out until Vol 7, #3 in Autumn 1983 when it became clear there really wasn't any advertising to support the publication. By then it had expanded to 54 pages. After suspending publication for a year, Don Stiernberg and his brother John took over and produced four more issues before tossing in the towel at the end of 1984. MWN produced a total of 31 issues, and it's remarkable how fresh and relevant just about everything in every issue still is today, although the classifieds are a hoot. Issue. Once I started looking through my back issues, I spent almost six hours and marked at least 20 pieces I want to return to. Though Michael HolmesI briefly published "Mandolin Notebook" through six issues in 1977-78, it was 1987 before anything remotely equal to MWN existed when Niles started "Mandocrucian Digest."

Fortunately, photo copies of all 31 issues are still available from Dix at his web site, www.musixnow.com. You owe it to yourselves to experience this wonderful publication.

[humblemex]

Jethro Speaks

[humblemex]

Jethro Speak Part 2

[humblemex]

CORRECTION: MWN did not suspend publication for a year after Dix gave it up. The last issue from Dix was Vol 7, #3 in Autumn, 1983, with Mike Marshall on the cover. When the Stiernbergs took over they decided to make a clean break and skipped Vol 7, #4 and all of Vol 8. They started in March 1984 with Vol. 9, #1. The four issues they produced looked and read really good.

"It all worked out pretty well despite the bumps," says Dix. "I loved that little magazine and if we'd had computers in those days, I bet I'd still be doing it."

[Peter Hackman]

Jon,

Got any photos of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks? Great west coast acoustic string swing, but overlooked/underappreciated by the grassy contingent because none of them came out of that genre, and, it predated the dawg stuff by at least 5+ years and the records (in the stores) were always filed in the "rock" bins.

Tim Ware, always sounded, to me, more like SF rock, but on acsoutics. (think: It's A Beautiful Day, Youngbloods, Dino Valenti-lineup up of QMS).

Hard to downplay the (UK) folk-jazz fusion of guitarist Davey Graham which inspired John#Renbourn & Bert Jansch both solo and with The Pentangle.

There was also Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, and the drumless John Mayall lineup with Jon Mark and Johnny Almond which produced The Turning Point and Empty Rooms.

NH

I've been trying to understand your point. Are you telling us there was music
before the DGQ? I'm shocked to hear that.

[mandopete]

So You Want To Be A Mandolin Player? - words to live by!

[AlanN]

I just met Grisman 20 minutes ago, for the first time. He is here for a student discourse on jazz/bg hybrids. He remembered my mandolin, and knew me from, you guessed it, this here website.

So he does read it, be careful what you say

Cool MWN montage, Jon. I have memorized all those issues...

[glauber]

So he does read it, be careful what you say

David, you dog!

Ooops, i really blew it now... now i'll never be invited into the DGQ, even though i play mandolin and flute!

[mandocrucian]

I've been trying to understand your point. Are you telling us there was music
before the DGQ? I'm shocked to hear that.

Really amazing ain't it? And "acoustic" as well!

<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>"Menu" (1977 Nyon Folk Festival)
Artistes: Amanite, Aristide Padygros, Bill Keith Band, Bluegrass Long Distance, Claude et Alex, Connection, Corrugated Mercury, Country Joe McDonald, Country Ramblers, David Bromberg Band, Derroll Adams, François Béranger, Gentiane, Guedou, Hedhe Hog Pie, Jacques Aylestock, Julie Felix, Kolinda, La Kinkerne, Le Grand Rouge, Malicorne, Marcel Dadi, Pierre Bensusan, Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra, Tarot, Yvan et Daniel Haefliger</span>

Malicorne - one of the best folk-rock bands of all time.

Niles H