The David Nelson Band, from left, Wally Ingram, Barry Sless, David Nelson, Mookie Siegel and Pete Sears, will perform June 16 at HopMonk Tavern in Novato. (Photo by Bob Minkin) David Nelson performs at the opening of the Jerry Garcia exhibit at the Bluegrass Hall of Fame & Museum in March. (Photo by Emma McCoury/Courtesy of Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum) A performance by the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band with Jerry Garcia, right, and David Nelson, center.
(Courtesy of Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum) David Nelson, second from left, and Jerry Garcia, second from right, were members of the New Riders of the Purple Sage. (Courtesy of Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum) Jerry Garcia, left, and David Nelson, right, jam. (Courtesy of Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum) At the opening of the new Jerry Garcia exhibit at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum, David Nelson was showered with some long-overdue recognition as one of Garcia’s earliest bandmates in the years leading up to the founding of the Grateful Dead.
Located on the Ohio River in Owensboro, Kentucky, the museum shines a light on Garcia’s starring role in the seminal California bluegrass scene in the early 1960s, when he and Nelson were both young bluegrass aficionados who played together in two of the first Bay Area bluegrass groups, the Wildwood Boys and the Black Mountain Boys. In those bands, Garcia picked a five-string banjo and Nelson strummed a vintage Martin guitar that Garcia gave him.
