Dawgology

[jim simpson]

I've posted this shot before but not in this thread. It's from my first of many Dawg performances. Long live the Dawg!

[SternART]

I just noticed the bump.....hey Jon Sievert is in the Bay Area & will be visiting my studio in Benicia, CA tomorrow for the Will Patton / John Bird jam-party. July 3rd Noon - 6.

If anyone needs directions.......PM me.

[RSomers]

Arthur,
Don't need directions, just a car that gets me there and back. Can't believe this string is still alive.
All the best from 1,725 miles away...say hey to Dan.

[SternART]

We'll pick a Dawg tune for ya Richard....but I'm still workin' on Richochet......slacker that I am.
So many tunes to learn.......so little time, with trying to earn a living these days.

[Psyberbilly]

The Quintet performed regularly throughout 1977 but began to slow down as 1978 got underway. Lots of things were happening. In January, Tony went into the studio at 1750 Arch to start recording "Manzanita" with Sam Bush, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Dawg. Around the same time, Grisman accepted a commission from Dino De Laurentiis to write the score for "King of the Gypsies," a big budget film starring Sterling Hayden, Shelley Winters, Susan Sarandon, Brooke Shields, Judd Hirsch, Annette O'Toole and Eric Roberts. When De Laurentiis asked David who would like to hire to execute the score, he told him Stephane Grappelli. I believe Tony and Diz Disley were featured on guitar. Shortly thereafter, David also began work on "Hot Dawg," the second DGQ album.

The film faded pretty quickly after release, though it was not a stinko by any means. Roberts even drew a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Male Acting Debut. The score was terrific, and both Stephane and David appeared in the film as musicians. Famed San Francisco producer David Rubinson told me he thought it was the best film score since "The Third Man," a classic film noire starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles made in 1949. High praise indeed. A soundtrack recording was planned but scrapped when the film disappeared so quickly. However, at least two of the tunes, "Gypsy Swing" and "The Tipsy Gypsy" made it into the DGQ repertoire for a while. Unfortunately, the film has not been released on DVD but I just ordered a used VHS copy on Amazon. There are still at least 20 available.

In April, Stephane made his annual appearance at the Music Hall with his band, guitarists John Ethridge and Diz Disley, and bassist Brian Torff. David and Tony sat in on several tunes. Dawg's beard was just growing back from having been shaved for the movie. It was a great night, with Tiny Moore and Frank Wakefield showing up backstage to jam and meet Stephane.


L-R: Tony Rice, Stephane Grappelli, David Grisman, Diz Disley. Bassist Brian Torff is hidden. And, no, you are not hallucinating. Tony is playing an Ovation, whom he briefly had an endorsement deal with. Fortunately, free guitars and a couple of bucks were not enough, and he got over it quickly.

I was amazed to learn in Tony's book " Still Inside " that the album " Manzanita " was recorded with that Ovation guitar ! All of these decades listening to those tunes with a mental picture of Tony playing them on The Antique . I shouldn't be surprised , he could
probably pulled tone from a cigar box strung with baling twine ...

[JAFO]

Just wanted to give this a bump. I spent hours reading and enjoying this thread and hope there may be some other new folks that would also benefit from it. I met David last summer at Grey Fox when I arranged to bring him and his wife down to Bill Keith's tee pee for some private time. When the statute of limitations runs out I will share the whole story.
Tom

[SternART]

Bill Keith was just here in the SF Bay Area as part of a banjo extravaganza at the Freight & Salvage.......with Alan Munde & Bill Evans.
Great backup band too.......had John Reischman on mando, Jim Nunnally on guitar, Chad Manning on violin and Sharon Gilchrist on bass. I hadn't seen Bill Keith since he played with Grisman in the good ol' early DGQ days. He went on that tour of Japan where there was a BG set and a DGQ set.

[JAFO]

Yes, Art Bill was out last week and I haven't talked to him since he got back. I missed his regular gig last night. Bill has decided to only do gigs and dates that are fun for him these days and it seems to be working out well and he is quite busy. Unfortunately, when Bill was out by you guys, Jim Kweskin was playing a small club here and had asked Bill to come play with him. That would have been neat, but Bill had to decline because of the west coast gigs. I caught the Kweskin gig and Jim had gotten two other local guys to come fill out the stage. They received no prior billing and nobody knew until they came up on the 'stage'. The two fill-ins were Happy Traum and John Sebastain. Needless to say, it was quite an evening. I'm very sorry Bill missed that.
Tom

[johnbaxter]

My exposure to Dawg music was through the Tony Rice album ("Tony Rice"). I had heard Tony's name from a friend but had never heard him play, and came across his album at Tower Records. I was impressed with the opening tune (Banks of the Ohio), but didn't pay much attention to the mando intro by Grisman. I didn't know anything about mandolins, and was more focused on the guitar, the reason I bought the album. But, when the second cut, Rattlesnake, started I was blown away. I had never heard music like that, and was unfamiliar with the mandolin. This led to me searching out Grisman's Quintet album, and because I lived in the Bay Area, I had many opportunities to see the Quintet at the Great American Music Hall. I became a huge New Acoustic Music fan and bought a Kentucky mandolin. The thing that continues to amaze me about Grisman is his composing skill. A lot of attention is on his playing, and rightly so, but it is as a composer that I think he really had an influence on New Acoustic Music.

[SternART]

I agree John.......There are a lot of hot pickers who write tunes with lots of notes.........but I don't walk out of the shows humming the tune, like I might after a Grisman show. The Grisman legacy has a foundation in the great body of of music he has written, then add the recorded output, his record label putting out numerous new & old recordings of note.......his skill at being a bandleader and arranger of his compositions for the band.......or how about as a talent scout, just look at the young cats he keeps finding for his band over the years.....and he also happens to be one of the most expressive and talented players to ever play the mandolin.

Adds up to a heck of a special musician.......a very talented fella.

[ralph johansson]

I was amazed to learn in Tony's book " Still Inside " that the album " Manzanita " was recorded with that Ovation guitar ! All of these decades listening to those tunes with a mental picture of Tony playing them on The Antique . I shouldn't be surprised , he could
probably pulled tone from a cigar box strung with baling twine ...

According to my copy of the book the song Manzanita, not the whole album, was recorded on the Ovation. So what? Ovations and dreads are different. As I remember them from the 70's Ovations were very clinical-sounding, with few overtones and very even response; they also happened to record very well. Rice probably found it suitable for this type of song.

Listen to the album River Suite; it's been a long time since I heard it but as I recall about the 3rd or 4th number I took notice, THAT'S got to be the D28. So I inferred that he was playing a Cruz or Ovation on the first few cuts. Hard to tell, because the sound is pretty soggy on Rice's Rounder records, probably too much reverb. And besides I'm not crazy about the recorded sound of his D28.

"Pull tone" is a cute myth. We like to believe that our heroes are capable of endowing an instrument with properties that simply aren't there. What we perceive as "tone" is usually something else. Let's say we would recognize Rice on a Washburn, by his timing, his phrasing, his dynamics and phraseology, but I don't think he'd be very happy with it.

[AlanN]

Need to re-read that book, but I thought the LP recorded with the Ovation was Backwaters (all but the opening track Common Ground).

[Spruce]

Need to re-read that book, but I thought the LP recorded with the Ovation was Backwaters (all but the opening track Common Ground).

I finally played an Ovation the other day that indeed was recordable, and thought of those Tony tales...
So I guess they do exist...

[WaveRay]

Cool thread. Thanks, everyone.

[ETKearney]

As Arthur says, there were several variations of the Great American String Band. Somewhere around here I've got a cassette with seven tunes on it from a gig with Richard Greene, John Carlini, and a woman named Ellen Kearney on rhythm guitar. I remember Arthur and I spent an afternoon listening to tapes of many DGQ gigs and I dubbed a few down to cassette with Dawg's permission.

Good Morning,
I am the "woman named Ellen Kearney" you referred to in this 2006 posting, so I suppose this is a long shot so many years later...A friend was wandering around mando cafe and came across this thread.
I never had any recordings of the band in the configuration you mention, and I'd love to get a digital copy of the recorded 7 tunes you made, if possible. My time with the band was short-lived but oh so interesting. If you need it, you have my permission to contact David Grisman and ask his permission to release it to me. I'd be so appreciative....

[MikeEdgerton]

Hi Ellen. You might get lucky as this poster's last activity on the Cafe was Aug-09-2017. You could try sending them a Private Message. Hover your mouse over the original posters name and you'll see an option. That will be delivered to the last e-mail address that this person set up on their profile. Good luck.

[jefflester]

And Art Stern is very active here and might have those recordings as well.

[SternART]

Back in the day I was Grisman's archivist & had access to his tapes, they were stored in my studio. I don't have a copy, but David probably does somewhere in his archives.

[AlanN]

my bad, wrong cat (or should I say dawg, ha)...carry on...

[Charlieshafer]

Darol Anger also has a ton of old recordings and photos. I can't say they're from the old Quintet days, but there's a lot of stuff he keeps digging up. This is kind of a fun thread to revive, in it's original spirit. Certainly Mike Marshall, Darol Anger and Edgar Meyer (who isn't a DGQ alumni, but still critical) have continued to influence a huge number of musicians of all ages. When Darol left DGQ and helped found the Turtle Island String Quartet, her was very instrumental in fusing classical into that mix as well.

I wish I could post a short video of Mike and Darol jamming away post-show with a couple of our fiddle club leaders. One is particularly poignant for me, as she was a kid just taking classical lessons as a middle-schooler, and her parents put her in one of our summer bluegrass camps for kids, and she went on to study at Ithaca, and now takes some private lessons from Darol and another Berklee prof, Sara Caswell. These guys do have an effect on many generations, not just the old folks who remember way back when...

[Drew Egerton]

I'm not typically a fan of reviving old threads, but this one is such a treasure and may be of interest to other Dawg fans. I stumbled across it at the bottom of a long internet worm hole.
I'll just add that the music of this era is still drawing people in and influencing them 45+ years later. The more I have learned about mandolin and music in general, the more I come to love it.

I have been playing mandolin since 2004 or so, but only became interested in Dawg/New Acoustic within the last 5 years or so. Starting with the more bluegrass-y tunes like Cedar Hill, Dawg's Bull, Emd and then growing into the rest. I have also been lucky enough to study with Mike Marshall via ArtistWorks and have learned a great deal in that time including working on some of these tunes. I had the honor to meet Richard Somers a couple of years ago and he gave me a Dawg pick which I treasure for the connection.
I've also started a LP collection consisting of primarily mandolin content featuring Dawg, Mike, Jethro, etc.

I am also greatly looking forward to my first ever trip to California coming up in two weeks to Benicia for Mike's mandolin retreat. I will have to stop by the GAHM to see the place where so much of this amazing music was made. Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread over the years! Quick edit to add that I just found the thread of Arthur Stern's passing, sad to hear after reading all his amazing contributions here.

[mandolin breeze]

I'm not typically a fan of reviving old threads, but this one is such a treasure and may be of interest to other Dawg fans.

Greatest thread in the history of threads . . . it can never end!

[Que-sera]

Thank you for the revival, i didn't know this thread existed

[Paul Cowham]

I just listened to the latest episode (#15) of the excellent David Grisman "acoustic encounters" podcast with Danny Barnes. In this edition, Dawg talks about early DGQ and also talks about Arthur Stern towards the end.

It reminded me of this excellent thread...

https://acousticdisc.com/podcast/

[Nashville]

Fascinating!