David Grisman Bluegrass Band
Sweetwater, Mill Valley, Oct 2002
A Concert in Larry Carlin's Bluegrass Gold Series
 By Jean Brandon
Dawg & Son We have been to several Sweetwater events from Open Mics to serious concerts and tonight's was one of the latter. The line up was Sam Grisman (10 years old; stand up bass), David Thom (guitar/vocals), Joe Craven and Chad Manning (twin fiddles/vocals), Bill Evans (banjo/vocals), Jim Nunally (lead guitar/vocals), David Grisman (mandolin/vocals). David was fortunate to have a wealth of local talent to draw on. It was a great line-up that provided some real kick-ass Bluegrass! The twin fiddles of Chad Manning and Joe Craven sparked up the mix really well on real Bluegrass classics like Roll on Buddy Roll On, Big Spike Hammer and Clinch Mountain Backstep.
Chad Manning, Yee Haw! Whatever genre he plays in - swing, old-time, jazz, Bluegrass, folk (and probably Klezmer), you name it, he's right there on it. And young Sam Grisman did a solid job on the bass; it's certainly in the genes here! Veteran of the San Francisco music scene Joe Craven did a great job with Chad on twin fiddles. As a tribute to Jerry Garcia the band played White Dove, with a nice key change (so slick you couldn't see the capos move on the fiddles, even!) and there was a great guitar lead from David Thom. The Hobo's Song brought forth a great Mando break (well it should be?) from the Dawg himself. It was Bluegrass, Bluegrass, Bluegrass all evening. Wailing fiddles, punchy guitar breaks, rolling banjo and flying mando all pulled together by young Sam (on the Bass) who, considering that he was sick during the performance, coped really well. It went down a bomb! The whistles broke my eardrums but we really had to work for our encore.
All this and Sweetwater too! This historically famous venue supports and promotes all kinds of live music. Many famous bands got their lift-off at Sweetwater; we've played there ourselves, both open mics and in a serious gig (article) but we used it more like a diving board... <g> Many big names sometimes play for little or nothing just to keep the venue going. There you can really rub shoulders and elbows with your heroes because it's quite small and intimate, accommodating 150 (and an extra squeeze on accaison...) Booking is a must on a night like this and we were really lucky to have organiser Larry Carlin save us some prime seating. It was a quality evening - a great job; well done Larry and Bluegrass Gold!
Many people refer to the venue as "The Sweetwater",
but in fact it's just called "Sweetwater".
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David
Thom, who has his own Bluegrass band, gave us some great guitar breaks; he's
not flashy but has a real beefy solid sound, right in the pocket! I had never
seen Jim Nunnally perform before but Wow! Can he pick guitar? I'll say so.
They all took turns at lead vocal and the harmonies were spot on.
