Restrictions to Access

Access to audio or moving image materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

This collection contains digital listening or viewing copies that are accessible only on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Access to streaming audio or moving image materials is limited to the UNC Chapel Hill campus. For further information about access to audio and moving image materials contact Research and Instructional Services staff at Wilsonlibrary@unc.edu

Permission from donor required for obtaining personal copies. Contact David Grisman at gmang@centurylink.net.  

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the David Grisman Collection #70145, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Recieved from David Grisman in March 2022 (Acc. 20221212.2).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

This summary description was created in April 2023 to provide information about unprocessed materials in Wilson Special Collections Library.

Encoded by: Laura Smith, April 2023

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

David Grisman is a white mandolinist and founder of Acoustic Disc Records, which features recordings by Grisman with musicians Del McCoury, Doc Watson, Tony Rice, Andy Statman, and Jerry Garcia. Both Grisman and musical collaborator Andy Statman are Jewish (Grisman conservative, Statman Orthodox Baal teshuvah) which greatly informs their work. Grisman is known for combining elements of jazz and bluegrass with international flavors to create his own distinctive idiom — “Dawg” music -- the nickname given him by Jerry Garcia. Grisman discovered the mandolin as a teenager growing up in New Jersey, where he met and became a disciple of bluegrass mandolinist/folklorist Ralph Rinzler. He took it to Greenwich Village where he studied English at New York University, while immersed in the proliferating folk music scene of the early 1960s. In 1963, Grisman made his first recordings both as an artist (Even Dozen Jug Band) and producer (Red Allen, Frank Wakefield and the Kentuckians). In 1966, Red Allen offered David his first job with a Southern bluegrass band, the Kentuckians. Grisman began composing original tunes and playing with other urban bluegrass contemporaries like Peter Rowan and Jerry Garcia, with whom he would later form Old & in the Way. David's interests spread to jazz in 1967, while playing in a folk-rock group, Earth Opera. A failed attempt at learning to play alto sax turned him into a student of jazz musicianship and theory. His career as a session musician gave him experience playing many types of music and opportunities to stretch the boundaries of the mandolin. His discography is filled with notables including Jerry Garcia, Stephane Grappelli, the Grateful Dead, John Hartford, Del McCoury, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Earl Scruggs, James Taylor and Doc Watson. Dawg's instrumental style found a home in 1974 when he formed the Great American Music Band with fiddler Richard Greene. Within a year, David met bluegrass guitar virtuoso Tony Rice, who moved to California where they started rehearsing a new group, the David Grisman Quintet. After recording for major and independent labels, David founded Acoustic Disc in 1990 and entered the most prolific period of his career, producing 67 critically acclaimed CDs (five of which were Grammy-nominated). In 2010, he launched AcousticOasis.com, the first download website devoted to acoustic music. Both Grisman and musical collaborator Andy Statman are Jewish (Grisman conservative, Statman Orthodox Baal teshuvah) which greatly informs their work. The Baal teshuvah movement is a return of secular Jews to religious Judaism. The collection includes several projects by Grisman and Statman of sacred and secular Jewish music as well as original compositions in bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz.

The collection contains studio master recordings by Grisman and others for Acoustic Disc Records; Grisman’s personal tape collection; and a 35mm film documentary relating to French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli. The collection includes several projects by Grisman and Andy Statman of sacred and secular Jewish music, as well as original compositions in bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz.