Garcia/Grisman Get "Old And In The Way" One More Time

(NEW YORK) - One of the year's most fascinating records is coming from a group that was together for only nine months, disbanded more than two decades ago, and never released a recording while together. Breakdown, by Old & In The Way, to be released on David Grisman's Acoustic Disc label Nov. 18|, is the third album in the past 22 years garnered from live shows that the band recorded on two consecutive nights in 1973 at San Francisco's Boarding House.

The group, which included Grisman, the late Jerry Garcia, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements and John Kahn and was the first progressive and populist bluegrass group, has had an influence far beyond its modest recorded output, especially in exposing bluegrass -- and the possibilities offered by bluegrass -- to a much wider audience.

Grisman says this latest album came about from talks he had with Garcia about six months before the latter's death in 1995. "We had talked often about doing another one," he tells Billboard. "Jerry said, 'Let's go back and see what's there.' He got goose bumps when we were playing it. This may be the best of the albums."

Ironically, says Grisman, the group recorded one live studio album while still together that was never released, but the tapes have long since disappeared. "I looked all through the Dead's archives, but I couldn't find a trace of it," he says. The group disbanded, he says, "because it was just a fun thing. Nobody wanted to make a career of it."