After listening to Eric Burdon and War earlier in the day, Celia pointed to a two disc compilation by The Animals for tonight’s rips. And I grabbed my Jerry Garcia and David Grisman discs.

When the Grisman / Garcia discs came out, it seemed like they were released just for me. At the end of high school and the beginning of college, after growing up with the Grateful Dead and finally getting into David Grisman after getting over my fear of the cover of ‘Hot Dawg’, the collaboration of these two (and really, the whole group on these recordings) opened my eyes up in many ways to what making music can be. These are recordings made by two guys that were getting together just for the love of getting together to play, and they had the means to record it as well. These were put out by Grisman’s label ‘Acoustic Disc’ and were a great combination of styles and influences. Bluegrass, country, jazz and Dawg and Dead all seeped in together. A great example is the song ‘Grateful Dawg’ on the first Grisman / Garcia disc, in which both musicians seem to trade solos in the other musician’s styles.  Part of the joke seemed to be that they were really making fun of each others cliches while also building up a set of trading choruses in good old jazz fashion. Each seems to out do the other with each chorus, and while you can’t hear any chuckles in the recording I can only imagine how much they were laughing at each other during playbacks. If you ever get a chance to hear ‘The Pizza Tapes’ (also featuring Tony Rice) you actually get to hear some of this joking around and playful ribbing between everyone. To me, this confirms that these projects were lots of fun for all involved, and the music on these recordings really seems to capture that spirit. Some of the music also comes from old folk traditions, some from when the two played together in different projects in the early ‘70s, but it all reflects a great love of music and being musicians.

After Jerry Garcia died, David Grisman went through the tapes he had and put together a number of discs that reflected the days the two spent together recordings. In one set of liner notes, Grisman noted how special these sessions were, and how much he would miss having them. Luckily, they captured quite a bit. And one thing that I learned from these discs is how much better music is when the players are having a good time.