The David Grisman Rounder Album was released by Rounder in 1976 as an LP (Rounder 0069). It was recorded on 9 January 1976 at Grisman’s home in Marin County, California. Grisman plays mandolin, mandola and mandocello, and is joined by Tony Rice on guitar and lead vocals, Ricky Skaggs on second fiddle and vocals, Vassar Clements on fiddle and violectra, Bill Keith on banjo, Jerry Douglas on Dobro and Todd Phillips on bass, with Buck White on second mandolin on two tracks. Grisman produced and arranged the record, and Sundance and Dana Thomas recorded it.
The eleven full tracks bracket two short vocal snippets, “Hello” and “So Long,” sung by Rice, Skaggs and Grisman. The songs include Bill Monroe’s “On and On,” with Rice on lead and Skaggs on tenor, the traditional “Hold to God’s Unchanging Hands,” “Sawing on the Strings,” and “I Ain’t Broke but I’m Badly Bent,” on which Skaggs sings lead. Grisman himself sings lead on “Till the End of the World Rolls ’Round.” The instrumentals are Monroe’s “Cheyenne,” the traditional “Boston Boy,” “You’ll Find Her Name Written There,” and three Grisman originals: “Waiting on Vassar,” “Opus 38” and “Bob’s Brewin’,” the last written with Rice and Bruen.
Grisman had played in Red Allen’s Kentuckians in the 1960s, and the David Grisman Quintet, with Rice and Phillips, released its first album on Kaleidoscope in 1977.
Tracklist
- 1 Hello 0:22
- 2 Sawing on the Strings alt version 3:25
- 3 Waiting on Vassar Source Recording 5:09
- 4 I Ain’t Broke But I’m Badly Bent alt version 2:01
- 5 Opus 38 Source Recording 3:24
- 6 Hold to God’s Unchanging Hands alt version 3:38
- 7 Boston Boy alt version 2:28
- 8 Cheyenne alt version 3:30
- 9 Till the End of the World Rolls Round alt version 3:01
- 10 You’ll Find Her Name Written There (Instrumental) alt version 2:57
- 11 On and On alt version 2:46
- 12 Bob's Brewin' 5:00
- 13 So Long 0:20
