Digital Interviews: Where and when were you born?

David Grisman: I was born on March 23, 1945, in Hackensack, New Jersey, a town that had a tune named for it by Thelonious Monk ten years later.

DI: When did you first get interested in music?

DG: My dad had been a professional trombonist before I was born, and he kind of forced me to take piano lessons when I was seven years old. But I’d always loved music. I always remember liking music, liking good music. I’ve probably been influenced by everything I’ve ever heard. In the early 50s I heard the beginnings of rock 'n' roll. That was the first music that I really got excited about - pop music.

DI: When did you switch from piano to mandolin?

DG: My dad died when I was 10, and I drifted away from piano. I took it up again when I was about 13 or 14. But then I discovered folk music through the Kingston Trio. There were three friends in high school or junior high school, and we got interested in traditional folk music. We met a man named Ralph Rinzler. I was living in Passaic, New Jersey, at the time, and he lived there too. He was a genius - folk musician, folklorist, a world expert. Later went on to run the Newport Folk Festival. The last 20 years of his life he spent working for the Smithsonian Folklife. He was the head of it. He was also a bluegrass and folk mandolin player. He was a former art student of my mom’s, who was an art teacher in Passaic. I met him when I was 15 years old, and that turned everything around.

DI: Early in your career, you worked in a band called Red Allen and the Kentuckians. Was that the first time you recorded any music professionally?

DG: In 1963, I made my first record, both as a producer and artist. I was in a band called the Even Dozen Jug Band; made an album for Elektra in 1963, and also produced it. [I did] a Red Allen and Frank Wakefield session for Folkways in 1963, but didn’t play with Red Allen and the Kentuckians until 1966.

DI: In the late '60s, you continued to cultivate your unique sound. How would you characterize what you were playing at that time?

DG: Well, I was playing bluegrass in the '60s. In the late '60s I got into a rock band with Peter Rowan called Earth Opera. I don’t know what you’d call that -- folk-rock? I don’t like labels. I’ve always had a sound of everything I’ve done, and I think that’s the way most musicians look at it - I just hate to be typecast. But I got interested in listening to jazz in the late '60s, or the mid-to-late '60s.

DI: As we move into the 1970s, you were in The Great American Music Band.

DG: I was in Old and In The Way, I was in a lot of bands, but 1974 through '75 was The Great American Music Band. That’s the first band that was an instrumental band; utilized a lot of my original music.

DI: Then in 1976, you started the David Grisman Quintet.

DG: Actually, I started it in 1975, but we didn’t play our first gig until 1976.

DI: You’ve done solo shows with other guitarists, but you’ve played with the Quintet ever since, and you’ve had some good alumni come out of the group.

DG: For a little brief while it was a quartet, but basically I played with my own group -- because who else would? [laughs]

DI: Who are the members of the group now?

DG: Jim Kerwin plays bass -- he’s in his 14th year. Joe Craven plays percussion, violin and mandolin, and he’s in his tenth year, as is Matt Eakle, who plays flute and bass flute. Enrique Coria, from Argentina, has been in the band going on six years.

DI: In the early '90s, you started an independent record label, Acoustic Disc Records, and you maintain your own state-of-the-art studio.

DG: That’s right. It gives me a lot of freedom if I want to make a tape. Or put out a record. I’m free to do so.

DI: Or take a break...

DG: Yeah, right. Or not -- or refrain from doing that. That kind of came together about nine years ago through a series of coincidences. I was building a studio in my house because I was offered a studio’s worth of equipment for almost nothing. It came from a studio that I had made a lot of my earlier records in. It was very good sounding, so that was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. So, I was building a studio in my house. I didn’t have a recording contract, I was a free agent, and I was ready to make my next record. Two good friends of mine were moving to the Bay Area looking to start a business. These three separate events kind of collided, and we decided to form a record company. And basically, that record was the first Acoustic Disc release, ACD1, called Dawg 90.

DI: Your record company gives lesser-known players a chance to be heard. You’ve got the Acoustic Disc Archive Series.

DG: Right. We have an Archive Series, and I’ve also released several projects by obscure players from the past: Oscar Alemán, an incredible Argentinian swing guitarist; Jacob do Bandolim, the father of Brazilian choro music; Dave Apollon, a mandolin virtuoso; the late Jethro Burns, who was a great jazz mandolin player; and projects that I do with other musicians and my band, like Doc Watson, Martin Taylor, Tony Rice.

DI: And you also released some of the old tapes of Old and In The Way?

DG: Right, two volumes of that.

DI: One of the latest big releases on your label was the Quintet’s DGQ20 collection.

DG: Right. It’s 3 discs. It was the 20th anniversary of my band, and I thought, I’ll put out a CD, a 20 year retrospective. I started going through my tape archives, which I’ve got, you know, a lot of stuff. I had started dubbing off stuff that I thought would be worth considering, and I had about six hours and I hadn’t gotten past 1978. [laughs] It kind of became, you know, probably more stuff than one CD’s worth. Even if I did a cut per year, it’d still be more than could fit on a CD. Then I settled on three CDs, 38 tracks. A lot of people got the mistaken impression that it’s a retrospective and it’s a compilation of things that have already been released, which it isn’t. It was all never released before.

DI: If somebody was just becoming aware of Acoustic Disc Records, what releases would you point them to? If there’s a couple of CDs they could get, what suggestions would you make?

DG: It depends really on what they like. I think they’d probably enjoy almost any of them. There’s Songs of our Fathers, a beautiful record of traditional Jewish music. There’s the Tone Poems records that are kind of documents of the sounds of vintage acoustic instruments, and they both have period music with guitar and mandolin duets. One was with Tony Rice -- a lot of people like that for the folk/bluegrass instruments. The other is with Martin Taylor, the great Scottish jazz guitarist, and that’s with jazz instruments. They might like the record I did with Doc Watson, Doc & Dawg. If they like the DGQ, they can get DGQ20 or Dawganova. Enrique Coria has two really beautiful albums - Latin guitar music that I say no bedroom should be without. [laughs] Matt Eakle has Flute Jazz. Then there are these several double-CD compilations - one of Oscar Alemán - that’s fantastic music. The same with Dave Apollon. There are two volumes of Jacob do Bandolim. They should check out dawgnet.com, because they can sample a cut from each record.

DI: Where did the nickname "Dawg" come from?

DG: It came from Jerry Garcia. He gave me that nickname in 1973. In Old and In The Way we all had nicknames, and that became mine.

DI: You’ve played with Tony Rice in the past...

DG: He was my original guitarist.

DI: Then he left to go on his own, but yet you still do projects with him. You still work with people on and off throughout the years.

DG: That’s right.

DI: It seems like you have a great relationship with your old bandmates.

DG: Well, most of them. [laughs] I try to remain friends with most of my musical associates.

DI: You’ve gathered quite a collection of instruments over the years. Tell us about some of the rarer instruments that you have, for the audiophile who may be reading this.

DG: Well, I’ve got quite a few rare instruments. They used to call them used instruments when I started, but now they’ve become vintage collectibles. The kind of mandolin that I use is kind of the Stradivarius of the contemporary mandolin. They’re made by the Gibson Company -- they’re called Lloyd Loar Model F-5s. I’ve got a few of those. I have a Lloyd Loar cello, Lloyd Loar viola, Lloyd Loar guitar, and a lot of unique mandolins and related instruments. Only mandolin maniacs would probably relate to a lot of this stuff. I have some interesting guitars, too.

DI: What does the future hold?

DG: Tenor banjos. [laughs] The whole world is going to adopt the tenor banjo. It’s a combination entertainment/weapon.

DI: What’s on the horizon for the Quintet, and Acoustic Disc Records? Do you have some Garcia sessions that you want to release?

DG: Well, we did over 40 sessions the last five years of Jerry’s life. I’ve been kind of taking my time putting it out, but I think there’s maybe a couple more CDs worth of really good stuff. Perhaps a CD of what you’d call alternate tracks, you know. There may be one out in 2000. It won’t be this year.

DI: What other releases are you contemplating?

DG: I just recorded three more projects this winter, and we’re about to release our most ambitious project, a double-CD called the Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza, which features eight great bluegrass mandolin players - Jesse McReynolds, Bobby Osborne, Ricky Skaggs, Sam Bush, Buck White, Frank Wakefield, Ronnie McCoury, whose idea it was…

DI: You’ve also been touring with Doc Watson.

DG: We play a certain amount of dates every year for, you know, the past couple of years.

DI: And the Quintet is still going to be playing into the millennium?

DG: [to band members] Well, I was going to let them know that, actually, after these five days... [laughs] No, no, the Quintet, long live the Quintet! The Quintet is the greatest! [laughs] No...

DI: That’s been your house band through the years...

DG: [continuing]...yeah, I can go to the union. I’ll call up the musician’s union... [to band member] What’s your name again? [laughs]