Guitarist Del McCoury and mandolin player David “Dawg” Grisman — bluegrass elders who’ll perform together at College Street Music Hall in New Haven on Thursday, Feb. 25 — first met at a gig in Greenwich Village in 1963, but McCoury doesn’t remember much about it.
Who could blame him? McCoury was in his early 20s, on his first trip to New York, playing his first-ever gig with bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. When McCoury and Grisman finally played a proper gig together — at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute in Troy, N.Y., in 1966 — he found in the younger musician a kindred spirit and lifelong friend.
McCoury, a seminal influence on the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia (among others), speaks about the early days of his career and the music he now makes with Grisman.
Q: I understand that you and Grisman first met in 1963 in Greenwich Village. Can you paint the picture of that meeting for me?
A: I met a lot of people that night, and it’s actually pretty vague. I went up there with Bill Monroe to play banjo on a date. Monroe stopped in Baltimore, when I was playing banjo at a club there with an ex-Bluegrass Boy, Jack Cook. Jack knew [Monroe] was going to stop in at the club where we were playing, which I didn’t know ahead of time. Jack was going to go with him to New York to play this date, because Jack knew all of his material. He’d been with Bill Monroe for about three years in the late 1950s. They didn’t have a banjo player, and that’s what I was doing at the time.
I went with them to New York City, and that was my first trip there. I met David then, and I met Peter White, who was in college at that time. A lot of times you meet people backstage after a show and you’re kind of confused as to who you did meet.
Q: And also, it was your first gig with Monroe, which I imagine was a big deal.
A: Exactly. I figured I’d go up there and we’ll rehearse the show, and to my surprise, we just tuned up our instruments and walked out onstage. I hadn’t had one rehearsal with him.
Q: How did bluegrass go over in Greenwich Village in 1963? Was it well-received?
A: It was, because it was a new thing for the city. I was playing in Baltimore a lot at the time, and there was a band that I knew there, Earl Taylor and the Stoney Mountain Boys, who were playing a little club in Baltimore. They were the first bluegrass band to play Carnegie Hall [in April 1959]. They opened up some doors there in that city for bluegrass. But we were well-received, man. I’m sure we did encores, but I’m not sure how many.
Q: It was a college campus, and this was young person’s music, along with other types of folk music.
A: It really was. I accepted a job with Bill, but he wanted me to play guitar and sing lead, which was the craziest thing. It’s funny how your life works out. I had no intention of ever playing the guitar and singing lead. I was a tenor singer and a banjo player, which is kind of unusual to start with.
Q: You only stayed with Monroe for a year. Were you looking to do your own thing?
A: Well, not really. I learned to play the guitar first, when I was only 9 years old, because my brother played, and he taught me the chords. Then I heard [banjo player and former Bluegrass Boy] Earl Scruggs, and I thought, “Man, this is what I have to do. If I’m going to play music, I’ve got to learn what he’s doing.” It took me awhile, but then I played it for 10 years. In my mind, I got pretty good.
On my trips to California with Bill Monroe, I got to know a lot of musicians out there. This bluegrass band called the Golden State Boys had a television show, and they wanted me to come out and play with them. … The fiddle player [Baker] said, “Let’s quit Bill Monroe and go out to California. That’s where we need to be.” You know how kids are.
I wouldn’t have quit Bill Monroe. I was just starting to get comfortable in my job. But Billy talked me into it.
Q: Once you began singing and playing the guitar, I imagine that was just something you were going to keep doing from there.
A: Yeah, me and Billy Baker broke up eventually. I was offered a record contract with Arhoolie in Berkeley, Calif. … I said, “Man, that’s what I’ve been wanting to do for several years.” I recorded this record, and I thought, “Well, if I’m going to have a band, and I’m going to be emceeing and most of the singing, I might as well stick with the guitar.” I knew if I played guitar, I could keep the rhythm of the whole band together better. I went with it, and just kept on doing it.
Q: When you started playing with David Grisman, did you just know it was going to work?
A: When I was in New York City, some of us stayed at David’s parents’ house … .
and David was there. Someone must have been staying with him. I got to know him, and he became a great mandolin player. He was playing with a band called Red Allen and the Kentuckians. My younger brother, Jerry, was playing bass in that band. One day, Jerry said, “David wants us to go to Troy, New York, the college there.” We picked up David and a banjo player, Winnie Winston. We rehearsed a bit and went out and did a whole show. This was 1966, I believe. I really liked David’s playing, and I could play really well along with him, but we never actually played in a band together.
Later, he moved to California and got his own record label. When I played in California with my band, he’d call me up and say, “You guys stop down to the house, and we’ll put some stuff down on tape.” So we did that. But we clicked from the start. He’s an unusual guy.
Q: Since you began playing shows together, with so much music that you both know, is it difficult to decide what to play?
A: Not really, but there’s only so much you can do. We could probably do 100 songs at the drop of a hat, but we only have so much time. Some are songs we don’t normally do, so we’ll put a music stand up there in case we forget a line. Some are from the beginnings of bluegrass. David wrote a couple of instrumentals to play. I don’t play that much lead guitar, but he wrote some things we can do together on guitar and mandolin. We have a lot of fun doing it.
David always ran his singing down, but I told him, “No, man, you can sing.” He used to have a vocal range that you wouldn’t believe. He mostly sang high baritone on everything. One time, he had a great band with Vince Gill and Herb Peterson, guys from the West Coast. David sang high baritone on choruses, and he could really go up in the clouds.
DEL MCCOURY and DAVID GRISMAN perform at College Street Music Hall in New Haven at 8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 25. $37.50 to $67.50. Information: collegestreetmusichall.com
