Lets Go Down To The Daddy Longleg
VOL XLXV Troy, NEW YORK MARCH 2017 Daily, Two-Cents Sunday, Five Cents
The Lane Brothers Play Garcia/Grisman
I dont know if theres a point to this
storybut Im going to tell it again.
The Lane Brothers as people
have been brothers since birth.
However, the story of how The
Lane Brothers as a performing unit
came to be is quite a different story.
Lane brothers Christopher
and Benjamin came to be musicians
because of a vision they each had,
on the same evening, under
completely different circumstances.
What follows is an abbreviated
version of the tale.
After a particularly long
productive day of splitting firewood,
Christopher Lane came home to a
supper of red whiskey. He said his
prayers and went to bed.
While slumbering, he had a
vision of a man not too different
from Santa Claus who had with him
an acoustic guitar, a voice that could
make you cry, a snow white beard,
and a round belly. This man spoke
to Christopher in song, in this
vision. What was said exactly has
never been specifically disclosed.
This was the first catalyst.
After a particularly
unproductive day of eating pork
rinds, and watching re-runs of The
Brady Bunch and Leave It To Beaver,
Benjamin Lane made up his mind to
make a new start. He went to
California, with an aching in his
heart.
He was gone for months,
sleeping in his tent, traveling in a
1984 Plymouth Horizon. His friend
had painted peace symbols and
Grateful Dead bears all over the
exterior.
Ben met some folks, he
smoked his stuff and he drank all his
wine. In time, he missed the beauty
o f u p s t a t e N e w Yo r k , t h e
Adirondack forests and decided to
give up the beaches of sunny
California and so headed home.
On his way, he camped by
the side of the road near Burlington,
the source of the Hudson River, at
Wisconsin, in usual style. He had a
can of Heinz beans, and pitched his
tent, and crawled into his sleeping bag
before completing the journey home.
As he slept, he had a similar
vision to the one Christopher had. He
had a vision of a man not too different
than Santa Claus, who had with him a
mandolin, a beard that was graying,
but not snow white like the man who
came to Christopher in his dream. He
sang, but with a different style than
the other man, and he could sure pick
that mandolin, and spoke to
Benjamin. What was said exactly has
never been specifically disclosed. This
was the second catalyst.
The next day, Ben was
heading toward home; he was heading
up Old 22 (near Petersburgh) with
the sun high in the sky. The blue
spruce was his partner (and he was
probably getting high). He decided,
as he approached Old Route 7 and
made a left that he would speak of his
vision with Brother Christopher.
Christopher, meanwhile, had
also decided to share HIS vision with
Ben, when he returned.
They met. They played
Scrabble. They spoke. They parted
ways.
Christopher locked himself in
a room for an entire summer and
practiced the guitar.
Benjamin settled in, hiked to
Lake Tear Of The Clouds, in the
Adirondack mountains, with a
backpack full of supplies and a
mandolin on his back, and learned to
pick.
Its important to mention at
this juncture that there are two other
Lane Brothers: Brother Wayne and
Brother Nate. Both are honorary
members of the band. When Brother
Nate wasnt busy mowing out
abandoned campsites on Slide
Mountain, he would come around,
have a few beers, hang with the
brothers, and lend his guitar and
vocal talents to jam sessions. Brother
Wayne would come to town from time
to time; he would lend his
rudimentary rhythm guitar and vocal
skills to the jam sessions. It was good
fun, and family time. Sometimes
theyd hit a nearby Watering Hole
and sing to the locals.
Flash forward to the summer
of 1991...
Brothers Ben and Christopher
were in downtown Troy, hitting up a
record shop, trying to locate an album
by a very obscure, defunct band
named Red Sweatpants, as a gift for
Brother Wayne, as he was turning 18
that June, and graduating from
Tamarac High School.
They stumbled into a record
store, known in those days as
Positively 3rd Street, and like a beacon
of light in the world of flight, there it
was: The Garcia/Grisman album. It
was on display, as a new release on
the front counter. Both men froze in
their tracks when they saw it. On the
cover were the two men from their
visions and whom they had sculpted
their trade after.
It was a collaboration album
by Jerry Garcia and David Grisman.
It was newly released at that time and
was the first album by the two as a
duo.
(continued on reverse side)
Chris on Jerry
Truth is, Jerry didnt come to me in a
dream. But he didnt come to me via
The Dead, either. In hindsight, it would
have been easier if Id just heard and fell
in love with The Dead and their music in
middle school like so many others. In
eighth grade I wore my brothers Dead
t-shirt to school and received high fives
and bros! from older dudes, but I was
utterly clueless about the band and their
music. I guess it should have happened
in high school, but Phish.
Around 2000 I went to see The
David Grisman Quartet at Troy Savings
Bank Music Hall. Shortly before, I d
realized I wanted to be an acoustic
musician because Id seen Doc Watson
and Norman Blake and Tony Rice and
Doug Perkins and they all just made
sense to me. Dawg ended his show that
night with a few great stories about
Jerry, including the famous tale of the
swiped Garcia/Grisman/Rice bootleg by
a pizza delivery boy, a story which was
all the more sweet when I learned
Grisman was plugging The Pizza Tapes
legitimate release. I remember the day I
bought that CD in vivid detail, right
down to the face of the guy who sold it
to me. And then I GOT Jerry. Here
was a guy playing like Coltrane on an
acoustic guitar. And here was his
personality and his distinct musical voice
and his amazing, soulful signing and his
pure joy.
Within the next few years I
spent a lot of time listening to and
learning Jerry. Id learned composed
guitar solos by ear prior to Garcia, but
he was the first guitarist whose
improvised solo I decided to learn note-
(Continued from front side) And In The Way, which was recorded in
Garcia and Grisman had
performed together in the past.
Grisman played mandolin on the
classic studio version of Friend Of The
Devil, from the American Beauty album,
which was recorded and released in
1970. Garcia and Grisman also
collaborated on the most popular
selling bluegrass album of all time, Old
for-note (it was the rip he takes on Deep
Elem Blues on Almost Acoustic). I spent a
summer learning all the tunes he used to
play solo and in a duo with Kahn. The
Oregon State Prison tape is in my
musical DNA every bit as much as The
White Album.
Im so pleased I get to pay
tribute to Jerry tonight while Ben
simultaneously does the same for Dawg.
Its difficult to imagine The Lane
Brothers without Garcia & Grisman.
Ben on Dawg
For many, the inspiration to become a
mandolinist comes from great pickers
like Sam Bush, Frank Wakefield, Jethro
Burns, and of course, the Father of
Bluegrass, Mr. Bill Monroe. For me
however, it was Grisman. It's always
been Grisman. So when was I first bit by
"The Dawg"? Well, like so much of the
music that would influence me, I
suppose that bite came while sitting in
the passenger seat of a Chevy Cavalier.
You see, when I was about ten
years old it became quite routine for my
oldest brother Wayne to do his laundry
at my parents house on Sundays. It was
during these laundry sessions that
Wayne felt a responsibility to educate his
younger brothers with the thing he knew
best: music. So while his laundry would
dry we would take a ride in his car and
listen to tunes. We'd cruise the back
roads of Pittstown, windows down, sun
shinning bright, the overwhelming
stench of a Vanillorama air freshener
overlaid with a hint of second-hand
smoke and the radio cranked. It was in
this setting that I was first introduced to
David "Dawg" Grisman. The album:
Garcia/Grismans Not For Kids Only.
1973. (Ironically, the year that Brother
Wayne was born.) They continued to
perform as a duo, until Garcia
tragically passed away in the summer
of 1995.
They each bought a copy
immediately, and took it home and
learned it. (They never did find that
elusive Red Sweatpants album for
When David plays his mandolin,
his melodies have a voice like no other.
They deliver an emotion that can't be
duplicated by simply learning the notes.
Grisman's soul comes out in his playing
and when you hear it, you just know:
"That's the Dawg. That voice is as
individual and iconic as hearing Hendrix
on guitar, Coltrane or tenor or Aretha
sing "Respect!" It's his own music:
Dawg Music.
As time went by I would be
introduced to more of Grisman's music
in the Cavalier. Later I would hear other
albums like The Pizza Tapes and Shady
Grove, only this time it would be in a
Nissan Sentra and with another brother,
Brother Chris.
The first time I saw Grisman live
was with his quintet at The Egg in
Albany. The band opened their
performance by bringing each member
out on the stage one at a time. First, a
lone upright bass followed by
percussion, flute, guitar and finally
culminating in Dawg himself. When
Grisman stepped out on that stage, his
opening solo was one of the filthiest
things I've ever heard come out of a
mandolin. It was at this moment that I
decided I wanted to be a mandolin
player.
I cannot overstate how excited I
am to learn and perform tonight's album
and pay homage to one of the all time
great duos in acoustic music. I'll take a
lesson from Grisman and perform these
songs in a style that has become my own
voice on the mandolin. A voice that
might never have been heard without
David Grisman.
Brother Wayne.) It shaped them. It
molded them. It made The Lane
Brothers the duo that they are today.
Tonight, you are in for a special
treat, as The Brothers will perform that
album, in its entirely. Note for note. Its
bound to be an amazing, spiritual
evening. Romp around! Have fun. Im
sure Jerry is looking down. Smiling.
-Wayne Lane, Jr.