Happy 70th Birthday, David Grisman

[David Surette]

I will join with so many pickers in wishing the Dawg Happy Birthday. Like so many of us, DG was the reason I started to pick up the mandolin, and his music has remained inspirational over the years. I will pick a little Happy Birthday Bill Monroe today in his honor!

[Mark Levesque]

Happy Birthday! Thank you for all the beautiful recordings, historic reissues and for all the inspiration to play.

[Isaac Revard]

Thanks for all you've created Dawg! Happy birthday!

[roberto]

Feliz cumpleaños, señor Grisman. You're a living legend. Cheers from Spain.

[george cole]

Dear Dawg,
Getting to play music with you in the new David Grisman Sextet is the highest honor a guitar picker could ever have. Playing Dawg music whether on a stage, hotel room or around a dining room table is the most fun i have ever had playing music!
Sheila, Val and myself treasure our time with you and look forward to much more!
Happy Birthday with love from all of us,
George Cole

[Phil-D]

Dawg gone it, another birthday! Many more from one Jersey guy to another.

[Cheryl Watson]

Happy Birthday, David!

[domradave]

I remember standing outside the Bottom Line in New York City before one of your concerts. You signed my copy of Mandolin World News with your picture on the cover, you signed my book that went along with the Dawg Mandolin series from Homespun, and you signed my copy of Quintet '80 which already had the signature of John Monteleone. What else can I say?
Happy Birthday!

[mtm]

... I had to put some DGQ on after seeing it's Dawg's birthday... just like the first time (shakes head in awe)

[John Soper]

Happy Birthday to the man whose music really opened my eyes to what a mandolin could do for the first time, many years ago.

[Bob Andress]

Happy birthday, to the reason I pick. All my best, David.

[mountain dawg]

Happy birthday David and thank you so vary much for the great music you have shared with the world and inspired and help all the young musicians that have been influenced by you an set off on their own paths to great career in music that must be greatly rewarding for you. Thank you also for all the fantastic concerts that I have greatly enjoyed. James

[goose 2]

Happy Birthday David Grisman. I cannot begin to express my appreciation of your music. I am mesmerized by your picking. I'll often listen to a loop of one of your phrases completely captivated by the tone, the timing, texture, and coolness of it. You seem to do every time you strike a string. As a picker and a listener I want to tell you that you have made my life much richer! Thank you so very much.

[Skip Kelley]

Happy birthday! Dawg, thanks for the many years of wonderful music! You have made the mandolin world a better place! Thanks and God bless you!

[tree]

Happy birthday! My mom was born 22 years ahead of you and she says happy birthday too!

Thanks for inspiring me to keep working to get better - and for supplying me with so many ideas to mine, copy, and try to make my own! The end of your first pass through I Am A Pilgrim (from Tone Poems), Dawggy Mtn Breakdown, that little bit of Beethovan you did on an album from the 80s (makes an awesome intro to Raw Hide), and your last pass through Kentucky Waltz with Doc, or better yet, the entirety of Doc and Dawg. I wish you the best of health and continued pickin'!

[morganpiper]

Listening to Old and in the Way, was one of the turning points in my musical education, I no longer wanted to be a rock star, I just wanted to play the mandolin, thanks, and Happy Birthday!

[AlanN]

I like this, identifying the little dawg licks and snippets that caught our collective ears.

One was on your solo on Temperance Reel, Tony Rice Rounder LP. When it goes to the Em on the 2nd half of the B part, the move to a brief A note on the E string just killed me. Did then, does now.

Off the same record, the kick to Don't Fall In Love With Me, Darlin'...

And the solo on Kissimmee Kid off OAITW, also the solo to Knockin' On Your Door

And the passage before the Bb on Opus 57 on the first Quintet record.

And the solo after the head on Janice from Hot Dawg...and the twin on the head throughout.

And...

[Lorenzo LaRue]

It was in '78 that a 'friend', whom you know, played EMD, etc. for me my dog man!! I had always been an acoustic kinda guy but guitar oriented. OK, after that 90 degree turn, bought the first mando in '79. Still goin' with that energy and the inspiration from all the friends that joined with you to carve out a large niche in the music world.some of those folks I've had personal education from, in some of the coolest stuff! This is how you effected what I play (swing, Django). I am ever 'grateful' for you and the genre you've spawned. Happy 70th and thanx, man

[Tom Morse]

I was working for a rock 'n roll newspaper in Maine called "Sweet Potato" back in the late seventies. Albums (vinyl) arrived almost daily from record companies hoping for printed reviews. Nobody there seemed to be interested in the growing stack of "bluegrass" albums over in the corner, so I grabbed them. One record in that stack was "The David Grisman Quintet." Three weeks later I bought my first mandolin and have been thankful to Mr. Grisman every day since! (And additionally grateful for "Old & In The Way," a complete set of Mandolin World News editions, and the ever-inspirational "Back To Back" with Tiny Moore and Jethro Burns.) Thanks Dawg! Happy Birthday!

[mandroid]

I was in Eugene Doing my belated GI Bill funded University Time in the 70s when DG played there ..

[dmoretti]

I actually had the honor of attending Dawg's Birthday Bash in CA last week! It did not disappoint! To celebrate a lifetime of music with a true legend and pioneer of his own brand of music was nothing short of a dream come true. To call him a friend is the most important thing to me. I never would have thought the first time I listened to DGQ back in the 70's would get me to this point. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to design for David and his entire Acoustic Disc family. FM

[mandroid]

Eric Clapton's 70th birthday just happened Too, I Heard.

[Jozef]

Happy Birthday David!

[tukun]

My heartiest respect to Mandolin legend David Grisman.

[journeybear]

I do hope David Grisman has had the chance to read all of these testimonials and acknowledgments of what he and his music have done for us and so many others. I know he's busy making even more music for even more people to enjoy in many ways. And I'm sure he knows he has had this effect on a great many people, without being told so. But it would be nice for him to know how much he is appreciated, with guesswork eliminated. Artists, musicians, writers, all creative people do what they do for the sake of realizing their creativity, but there is also a desire to communicate involved, and part of the fulfillment of these creative impulses is the effect they have on others, how they resonate within others. This also helps them attune what they do, as feedback leads to understanding what works or doesn't work for others. I sincerely hope he's getting some idea of how he has affected so many people, even from these few posts.