GARCIA/GRISMAN

Grateful Dead guitar legend Jerry Garcia originally met David Grisman in 1964, while picking banjo in the parking lot of a bluegrass festival in Sunset Park, Pennsylvania. In 1973 the pair formed “Old and In the Way,” a quirky semi bluegrass band with Garcia on banjo, Grisman on Mandolin, fiddler Vassar Clements, guitarist/vocalist Peter Rowan and John Kahn on bass. Old and In the Way imploded after nine months, leaving the live album “Old and In the Way” in its wake. When Grisman put together his seminal “Great American Music Band” in 1974, Garcia sat in on banjo on several occasions. Thereafter, their paths diverged.

The concept for Garcia/Grisman began in the winter of 1990 when the pair bumped into each other at a party. After a couple of jam sessions at Grisman’s cozy home studio in Mill Valley, California, they knew they had the makings of a record. According to Grisman, the tape machines started running the first day they got together. There was very little rehearsing per se, and no overdubbing: vocals and instruments all went down in one pass.

Over the course of Five years and dozens of sessions, the pair recorded close to 100 tunes.

“Jerry has got a sound of his own, which says a lot,” says Grisman, who has worked with many of the premier acoustic flatpickers over the past two decades. “I respect anybody who can produce an acoustic tone that sounds like them. He’s got a lot of chops. There are a lot of pyrotechnical rockers who play like machine guns, but he’s not into that. His understanding of music and where it comes from are his real chops. He’s a bonafide acoustic player. I told him he can have a job in my band any day.”