Celebrate the Bluegrass Journey of Jerry Garcia
Join us for a two-night celebration honoring the bluegrass legacy of Jerry Garcia, featuring an incredible lineup of artists paying tribute to one of music’s most beloved icons.
Your weekend ticket includes access to all festival events, including two nights of live music, exhibit tours, film screenings, panel discussions, and workshops exploring Jerry’s influence and connection to bluegrass. Full schedule to be announced soon.
Weekend Pass: $109
All ticket holders will enjoy the same reserved seat for both nights.
Plan your grateful weekend getaway in downtown Owensboro, with hotels, dining, and riverfront attractions just steps away from the Hall of Fame.
The Lineup
SAM GRISMAN PROJECT
Sam Grisman is a bass player, music appreciator, and bandleader who grew up in Mill Valley, California in a home where some of the great acoustic music of our time was being recorded on a regular basis. His father, legendary mandolinist, composer, and producer, David Grisman, was constantly having friends come over to his home studio for recording sessions and rehearsals. These friends, such as Doc Watson, Jerry Garcia, John Hartford, Mike Seeger, and Tony Rice all left an impression on the younger Grisman and inspired him to pursue a life making music with his many talented friends.
Sam Grisman Project was created to shed light on the music that Sam grew up around, and highlight that music’s influence on the members of the collective and in the greater music community. The band’s shows create a safe space where the band and audience can bask in the shared love and reverence for the great music and musicians who continue to inspire us all.
The friends who make up Sam Grisman Project are a rotating cadre of acousticians who are some of the brightest individual voices on their respective instruments. Members of this rotating cast of instrumental wizards include guitarists Max Flansburg, Logan Ledger, Sam Leslie, Henry Moser, Jesse Harper, and Jefferson Hamer, mandolinists Dominick Leslie, Joe K. Walsh, Matt Flinner, and Jesse Appelman, clawhammer banjo maestro Victor Furtado, fiddlers John Mailander, Alex Hargreaves, Nate Leath, Shad Cobb, and Phoebe Hunt, cellist Nat Smith, and Todd Livingston on the Dobro.
The band also frequently collaborates with legendary singer, songwriter, and bluegrass pioneer Peter Rowan, a deeply meaningful connection for Sam and the band tying directly back to his father David Grisman and the Old and In the Way legacy. Over the years Sam Grisman Project has been joined by a wide range of spontaneous and exciting guests including David Grisman, John Sebastian, Tim O’Brien, Billy Strings, Maria Muldaur, Margo Price, and many more.
This ever evolving collective of exceptional humans who happen to be incredible musicians is a testament to the abundance of joy, and wealth of experiences that growing up around this timeless music has brought into the younger Grisman’s life. Sam Grisman Project is committed to putting their love, gratitude, and individuality into the music that they share on stage each night, and to participating in the community effort of preserving, expanding, and appreciating great American acoustic music.
KELLER WILLIAMS' GRATEFUL GRASS
Growing up in Virginia, Keller Williams was given his first guitar at age 3, but didn’t actually start playing until he was in his teens. He first appeared on the scene in the early ‘90’s and his solo live shows, filled with quirky improvised tunes, quickly became the stuff of legends. While his live gigs have largely been solo affairs, Williams has nearly always used his albums as a forum for collaborations with fellow musicians, such as The String Cheese Incident, The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, banjo master Béla Fleck, American musician/poet Michael Franti, The Travelin’ McCourys, and many others. As years have gone by and Keller has continued to evolve he has created more and more unique projects and collaborations with fellow musicians.
After touring in 2010 with original Grateful Dead drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann as part of their powerhouse assemblage, The Rhythm Devils, Williams put together two Dead-inspired projects: Grateful Grass and Grateful Gospel.
Keller’s Grateful Grass delivers anything-but-traditional bluegrass versions of Grateful Dead favorites. Grateful Grass often times has a rotating lineup and so far, has included collaborations with The Keels, Keith Moseley (SCI), Jeff Austin (Yonder Mountain String Band), Michael Kang (SCI), Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green, Mark Benevento Trio) Bill Nershi (SCI), Allie Kral, Vince Herman (Leftover Salmon), Sam Grisman, Love Canon, the Hillbenders and The Infamous Stringdusters.
JERRY & DAWG REVISITED
Jerry & Dawg Revisited is a recreation of the sound and spirit of Jerry Garcia & David Grisman (1990-1994) with original members Joe Craven and Jim Kerwin.
In 1964, Jerry Garcia and David Grisman met in the parking lot of a bluegrass festival at Sunset Park in West Grove, Pennsylvania. That serendipitous meeting started a relationship that five years later found them as members of an all-star Bluegrass band, Old & In The Way. The group released a legendary live album in 1973 that introduced Bluegrass to a much broader audience. It was during that stint together that Garcia nicknamed Grisman “Dawg,” and sometime thereafter Grisman decided to name the style of music that he played “Dawg Music.”
Their individual careers took Garcia and Grisman down separate paths, but years later, they bumped into each other at a party in 1990 that rekindled their friendship with some casual get-togethers to play a variety of American roots music that they both loved. Grisman was launching his new record label Acoustic Disc, and Garcia suggested they record an album together to celebrate the new label and enjoy making all-acoustic music again. They decided to add a rhythm section of David Grisman Quintet members; percussionist / fiddler / rhythm mandolinist Joe Craven, and upright bassist Jim Kerwin. In August of 1991, Grisman released what was to be the first of a series of Acoustic Disc recordings under the name “Garcia Grisman.” That first release was nominated for a Grammy in Best Contemporary Folk Album of that year.
Garcia passed away in 1995, and Grisman rarely tours these days; but the music lives on with the original rhythm section of Joe Craven and Jim Kerwin, and Stu Allen on acoustic guitar and vocals, and either Ronnie McCoury or Andrew Collins on mandolin. Jerry & Dawg Revisited is reintroducing that original sound and songs to new and old generations alike, with guest artists who bring the passion and virtuosity of Jerry and Dawg to the live stage!