Jerry Garcia and David Grisman

They first met in 1964 at Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania, where both had come to hear Bill Monroe. The following summer Grisman visited California, where Garcia’s group was still called the Warlocks. In 1973 both were in Old & In the Way, formed that year with Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements and John Kahn, a band that played about fifty shows, nearly all of them in 1973. After it broke up the two lost touch for years.

They reconnected at a recording session. Garcia then came by the studio Grisman had built at his home and suggested making a record as an excuse to get together. Beginning in August 1990 they recorded songs over a period of five years, and their first live performance together came in December 1990.

The first album, Jerry Garcia / David Grisman (Acoustic Disc, 1991), was recorded at Dawg Studios in spring 1991 with Jim Kerwin on bass and Joe Craven on percussion and fiddle. Alongside “The Thrill Is Gone” and “Friend of the Devil” it had Irving Berlin’s “Russian Lullaby,” Grisman’s “Dawg’s Waltz” and “Grateful Dawg,” which the two wrote together. It was nominated for a Grammy Award and sold more than 100,000 copies. Not for Kids Only (Acoustic Disc, 1993) turned to children’s songs and traditional songs, among them “Jenny Jenkins,” “Freight Train” and “Arkansas Traveler”; most were songs both men had played in the early 1960s, and many were in the repertoire of the New Lost City Ramblers. Grisman produced it, with Hal Blaine, Jody Stecher and Joe Craven among the guests.

On 4 and 5 February 1993 the two spent a pair of evenings jamming at Grisman’s studio with Tony Rice on guitar. A cassette copy of those sessions circulated among tape traders for years before Grisman released the studio masters as The Pizza Tapes (Acoustic Disc, 2000).

Garcia died on 9 August 1995. A year later Acoustic Disc issued Shady Grove (1996), which concentrates on traditional songs, including “Shady Grove,” “Fair Ellender,” “Off to Sea Once More” and “Jackaroo,” recorded between August 1990 and June 1993. So What (Acoustic Disc, 1998) turned to the duo’s jazz repertoire, with Miles Davis’s “So What” and “Milestones,” Milt Jackson’s “Bag’s Groove” and Grisman’s “16/16,” played with Kerwin, Craven and Matt Eakle on flute. Been All Around This World (Acoustic Disc, 2004) was announced as the label’s last Garcia/Grisman release. The documentary Grateful Dawg, directed by Grisman’s daughter Gillian, is built largely on home-video footage of the two playing in Grisman’s living room and studio.