My favorite early David Grisman video

[bingoccc]

For the newer guys - Meet Muleskinner (30 minutes) (Clarence White and Peter Rowan on guitar)

[DataNick]

I loved it so much I went ahead and purchased the DVD last year...is that a 30s Gibson F5 that Dawg is playing here?

[lflngpicker]

This performance took place the year I graduated from high school and registered for the draft. Amazing playing! I will await someone's expert reply about the mandolin, Nick. I am curious about it, too!

[Jeff Mando]

Bill Keith looks like he's wearing a "Billy Jack" hat..................

[AlanN]

I always thought it was a '27, the one he used back then on a lot of things, but seems it's a '25. That's the one lent to Skaggs for use on the Sugar Hill Skaggs & Rice recording, 1980.

And if that ain't right, maybe Dawg hisownself will come on here and tell it like it is...

[DataNick]

Bill Keith looks like he's wearing a "Billy Jack" hat..................

"I'm going to take my right foot and plant it on the left side of your face and there's not a ...."

[DataNick]

I always thought it was a '27, the one he used back then on a lot of things, but seems it's a '25. That's the one lent to Skaggs for use on the Sugar Hill Skaggs & Rice recording, 1980.

And if that ain't right, maybe Dawg hisownself will come on here and tell it like it is...

Alan,

When did he get "Crusher"?

[AlanN]

I think much later.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

According to the liner notes of the "Tone Poems" album, Crusher (#71635) was acquired by David in 1989 from relatives of its original owner Willa E. Duhl. In 1973 David's post-Loar Fern (#81408) still had the '30s finger board on it, which was replaced a couple years later by an original Loar-period finger board, a gift from relatives of Dave Apollon.

[Denny Gies]

Thanks, bingoccc, 30 minutes well spent here.

[AlanN]

Straight from Dawg (MWN, 1977)...here, he states it as 'made around 1927.'

[AlanN]

That historical video is so very great. Apparently, Monroe was scheduled to perform there that day but had bus trouble, so Muleskinner filled in. Some notables:

- The opening track is Wakefield's NCR. Dawg kicks it and does it slightly differently, with the Gm rake done only once on his first break. On Richard Greene's solo, he plays it 'normal', with the A part repeated. When Grisman comes in again, he goes right to the Gm (no repeat A part).
- Opus 57 in G Minor is performed, patterned after the first of at least 3 recorded versions. There's a brief bass solo, and Dawg and Bill Keith split lines at the end. Notice Rowan urge the crowd for applause.
- Clarence was killed a few months after this performance.
- Show was 43 years ago.

[Hendrik Ahrend]

Thanks, Alan. As a side note, prior to Darryl Wolfe's "F5 Journal" and more recently "Joe Spann's Guide to Gibson" there was a lot of speculation about the building and shipping dates and the significance of Gibson ser. numbers and FONs. Some 1925 F5s - possibly all, but not all 1925 FONs are known - were made from Loar-era parts, placing David's Fern right in the neighborhood of those "unsigned Loars".

[AlanN]

Yes, Henry, those immediately-after-Loar mandolins are murky. In David's recent Book of Dawg Jazz (excellent tome, btw), he refers to it now as a '25.

[Nashville]

Wow! Thanks for posting this. I had forgotten all about Muleskinner and certainly had never seen any footage of them perform. What a lineup for this band and watching early Dawg is great.

[BrianWilliam]

Did blackberry blossom seem notably loose to anyone else?

Thanks for posting! Hadn't seen it before.

[AlanN]

Good ear. It slowed down considerably.

[BrianWilliam]

I know all about loose playing. It's my forte you see

[Grommet]

Wow, that is a great clip!

Scott

[tmsweeney]

I just happen to find a CD of this the other day in my stack and was playing it in the car - great stuff, Clarence plays electric on a few tunes.

[JH Murray]

Groovy. I think the world would be a much better place if groovy made a come back. Everyone would be a lot less stressed and a lot more happy. We need more groovy music like this.