David Grisman Retrograss CD

All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.

RETROGRASS was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album.

Grisman, Hartford, and Seeger have a lot in common. They all have roots in traditional American music (folk, bluegrass, country, et al.), but coming to prominence as they did in the '60s, there was always something of the counterculture in their approach. Throughout their careers, all three men have pushed the borders of those traditions, creating new sounds that incorporated the old ways while venturing into exciting new realms. It's fitting then that the trio's collaboration should incorporate both the traditional and the unconventional.

On RETROGRASS, this supergroup takes songs from an extremely wide range of sources (from Bob Dylan to Chuck Berry to Otis Redding) and gives them an old-timey bluegrass feel. Listening to their treatment of Dylan's "Maggie's Farm," you'd think it was some public domain obscurity the boys had just unearthed, and the Beatles chestnut "When I'm Sixty-Four" sounds perfectly at home in this dusty-sounding back porch version, which recalls the creaky, good-natured sound of the Holy Modal Rounders. Bluegrass/folk traditionalists will shy away from RETROGRASS, but such staunch stiffs probably never bothered with the forward-looking work of these three individualists to begin with.

/John Hartford/Mike Seeger.

Recorded at Dawg Studios, San Rafael, California. Includes liner notes by David Grisman, John Hartford and Mike Seeger.

Personnel: David Grisman (vocals, guitar, guitar-banjo, mandolin, mandolin-banjo, mandola); John Hartford (vocals, guitar, banjo, fiddle); Mike Seeger (vocals, guitar, guitar-banjo, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, jews harp); Sam Grisman (bass).

Producers: David Grisman, John Hartford, Mike Seeger.CMJ (11/1/99, p.25) - "...a unique musical exploration that reminds us that truly classic music always begins with a strong musical idea."
Dirty Linen (2-3/00, p.91) - "...the songs are from the bluegrass repertoire, but the trio retrofits them with styles that predate the songs by a decade or two."