David Grisman | |
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Background information | |
Also known as | "Dawg" |
Born |
Hackensack, New Jersey, US |
March 23, 1945
Genres | Bluegrass, Dawg, newgrass, new acoustic, folk, jazz, americana |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, producer, session musician |
Instruments | Mandolin, mandola, mandocello, banjo, piano, saxophone, keyboards |
Labels | Electra, Sugar Hill, Pastel Records, A&M, Warner Bros., Acoustic Disc |
Associated acts | Even Dozen Jug Band, Old and in the Way, David Grisman Quintet, Jerry Garcia, Earth Opera, Peter Rowan, Muleskinner, Andy Statman, Martin Taylor, DGBX |
Website | www.dawgnet.com |
Acoustic Disc | |
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Founded | 1990 |
Founder | David Grisman |
Genre | Jazz, folk, bluegrass |
Country of origin | U.S. |
Location | San Rafael, California |
Official website | www |
David Grisman (born March 23, 1945, in Hackensack, New Jersey) is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label to help spread acoustic and instrumental music.
Grisman grew up in a Conservative Jewish household in Passaic, New Jersey. He started his musical career in 1963, as a member of Even Dozen Jug Band. His nickname "Dawg" was affectionately assigned by his close friend Jerry Garcia in 1973 (the two met in 1964 at a Bill Monroe show at Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania). "Dawg Music" is what he calls his mixture of bluegrass and Django Reinhardt/Stéphane Grappelli-influenced jazz, as highlighted on his album Hot Dawg (recorded Oct. 1978, released 1979). Stephane Grappelli played on a couple of tracks on Hot Dawg, and then the 1981 recording Stephane Grappelli and David Grisman Live. It was Grisman's combination of Reinhardt-era Jazz, bluegrass, folk, Old World Mediterranean string band music, as well as modern Jazz fusion that came to embody "Dawg" music.
Grisman's father had been a professional trombonist at one time and had young David begin piano lessons at the age of seven. In the early 1950s, Grisman heard the beginnings of rock 'n' roll and was influenced by pop music and everything he heard. Grisman drifted away from the piano following his father's death, when David was 10. He took it up again when he was about 13 or 14, soon discovering folk music through the Kingston Trio, a group that became popular during the American folk music revival.