Grateful Dawg (2001)

Synopsis: GRATEFUL DAWG is an illuminating documentary that shows an entirely different side to Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia. In the early 1960s, Garcia met bluegrass mandolin musician David Grisman, and their mutual love of Bill Monroe's music led them to form Old & In the Way, which released its... GRATEFUL DAWG is an illuminating documentary that shows an entirely different side to Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia. In the early 1960s, Garcia met bluegrass mandolin musician David Grisman, and their mutual love of Bill Monroe's music led them to form Old & In the Way, which released its first album in 1973. Their collaboration loosened up Grisman and tightened up Garcia, resulting in excellent records and a lasting friendship that is revealed here in fascinating detail. (They even end up looking somewhat alike.) After spending thirteen years doing other projects, they reunited and eventually played a Christmas concert at Sweetwater on December 18, 1990. They also played together a year later, at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco on December 17. Never-before-seen footage from these two shows dominates the film, and includes full-length versions of the Jimmy Cliff song "Sittin' in Limbo," the sea shanty "Off to Sea Once More," their own "Dawg's Waltz," the Dead's "Friend of the Devil," and the classic seventeen-minute jam "Arabia." There is also footage of them in the studio recording the playful old children's ditty "Jenny Jenkins" for the NOT FOR KIDS ONLY album. But the true star of this documentary is the unseen Gillian Grisman, David's daughter, who set up a camera whenever Jerry would visit, capturing David and Jerry's wonderful interplay in the living room or in the studio, a relaxed and happy Jerry just enjoying himself, with none of the pressures of having to live up to being the much-worshiped Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. At the end of the film, when David, his family, and the other members of the band talk about Jerry's death, it is hard not to get choked up. [More]