In 1962, a seventeen-year-old boy from Queens was sitting in the apartment of the Reverend Gary Davis — the blind Harlem gospel and blues guitarist whose two-thumbed fingerpicking had produced some of the most technically demanding acoustic guitar music in American history — taking guitar lessons. Davis had recently acquired a color television (won in a church raffle) and a “No Smoking” sign that was functionally decorative given the omnipresent White Owl cigar haze that filled his apartment. Stefan Grossman took out his tape recorder and recorded everything Davis played. He took out a pencil and notebook and began developing a form of tablature to capture Davis’s instructions — a notation system that would eventually form the basis of his teaching methodology and of the guitar instruction industry he would later build. He was fifteen or sixteen years old. He had already been studying with Davis for a year or two. He would continue studying with Davis for several more years, and the specific technical vocabulary Davis transmitted — the “drop thumb” technique, the extraordinary independence of the thumb and fingers, the Baptist gospel harmonics applied to blues material — became the foundation on which Grossman’s entire career was built.
Stefan Grossman was born on April 16, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Queens. His parents were leftist intellectuals who valued education and the arts; he described his upbringing as “lower middle-class” in a part of New York City where Washington Square’s folk music scene was a fifteen-cent subway ride away. He discovered that scene as a teenager and found in it the entire community of musicians, collectors, and scholars who were simultaneously re-discovering and documenting American country blues — the musicians from whose playing the folk revival had drawn its musical grammar. He studied with Davis. He met Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, and Mississippi Fred McDowell — not as historical figures but as living musicians who were willing to teach their techniques to serious young players. He formed the Even Dozen Jug Band with Steve Katz, John Sebastian, David Grisman, Maria Muldaur (then Maria D’Amato), and Joshua Rifkin. He traveled to England in 1967, where he encountered the British folk revival at first hand and began a creative relationship with British guitarists — particularly John Renbourn (Series 2 #119) — that would shape two decades of duet recording. He co-founded Kicking Mule Records. He built Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop into the world’s largest acoustic blues instructional resource. He is, simultaneously, one of the most skilled country blues guitarists alive, one of the most important guitar educators in American music, and one of the most important figures in the preservation and transmission of the country blues guitar tradition.
Background: Washington Square to Gary Davis’s Living Room, London’s Folk Clubs to Sparta, New Jersey
Grossman’s formation as a guitarist was simultaneous with his formation as a musicologist. The 78 rpm record collectors who surrounded Washington Square in the early 1960s — Bernie Klatzko, Nick Perls, Tom Hoskins, and crucially John Fahey (Series 2 #124) — were his intellectual community as much as the folk guitarists. These collectors were “very hip to turn you on to music,” Grossman recalled. “It would take six months, but they would gently lead you from the Memphis Jug Band to Charley Patton.” The collector network was also the network through which living blues musicians were tracked down and rediscovered: Grossman was personally involved in the rediscovery and study of Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and other major blues artists in the mid-1960s, meeting, befriending, and learning directly from players who had recorded in the 1920s and 1930s and been largely lost to the mainstream since then.
His lessons with Reverend Gary Davis were the most formative single influence on his playing. Davis was not an easy teacher — his technique was complex, his notation non-standard, and his patience for students who weren’t paying attention was limited. Grossman addressed these challenges with the same systematic rigor that characterized all his work: he recorded every lesson, developed a tablature system to capture what Davis was playing, and practiced obsessively. Davis described him as one of the most dedicated students he ever had. The specific technique Grossman developed from these lessons — the independence of thumb and fingers, the “drop thumb” bass technique, the specific way of voicing simultaneous bass and melody lines — became the technical foundation of his teaching as well as his playing.
His move to England in 1967 — originally the first step of a planned journey to India that was never completed — brought him into the British folk revival at its most creative moment. He played the folk clubs, encountered Davy Graham, Bert Jansch, and John Renbourn, and began a creative dialogue with British fingerpicking that shaped his subsequent work. His partnership with Renbourn — formalized in joint tours and duet albums, maintained “for the last 18 years” as of his British Fingerpicking Guitar compilation — was the most musically productive creative relationship of his career outside his own solo work. “John Renbourn and I are musical partners,” he wrote in his British Fingerpicking Guitar instructional book. “For the last 18 years we have toured around the world playing our solo as well as duet guitar arrangements.” The two guitarists — an American blues-trained fingerpicker and a British folk baroque specialist — found in each other the ideal foil: different enough to be interesting, technically equal enough to be mutually challenging.
His founding of Kicking Mule Records in the early 1970s — with the label named after a kicking mule postmark from a stamp collection — provided an independent outlet for his own work and for the broader community of acoustic blues and folk guitarists he was documenting and promoting. Artists including Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Davy Graham, Happy Traum, Duck Baker, Dave Evans, and Ton Van Bergeyk appeared on Kicking Mule alongside Grossman’s own solo work. Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop — the instructional resource he eventually built into the world’s largest blues guitar school, operating from his home base in Sparta, New Jersey — extended this preservation and promotion work into pedagogy, making the specific techniques of country blues guitar accessible to players who could not travel to New York to study with Gary Davis.
The Rig: Stefan Grossman’s Guitars and Instruments
Guitars
1930 Martin OM-45 (Career-Defining Guitar, 1966–early 1970s): The most historically significant guitar in Stefan Grossman’s career — and one of the most historically significant guitars in the story of the modern OM revival — was a 1930 Martin OM-45 that he purchased in 1966 from instrument dealer Jon Lundberg for what was then considered a remarkable price. The Martin Orchestra Model, introduced in 1929 and discontinued in the mid-1930s after poor sales, was at this point a largely forgotten instrument — the acoustic guitar market had been dominated by dreadnoughts since the 1930s, and the smaller OM was not well understood as a distinct format with specific tonal advantages. Grossman’s OM-45 — the top of the original OM range, with Brazilian rosewood back and sides, Adirondack spruce top, herringbone trim, abalone snowflake inlays on the ebony fingerboard, and the signature “banjo” tuners of the original Martin OM design — was an instrument of extraordinary quality, built at the peak of Martin’s pre-war craftsmanship with materials and construction standards that have never been replicated in production volume.
Grossman played the guitar extensively throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, taking it with him during his years in England. There, he introduced the OM format to British players — and specifically to John Renbourn (Series 2 #119), who subsequently became one of the OM’s most important advocates. The Acoustic Guitar magazine history of the OM format credits Grossman specifically: “While he was there, he introduced British players like John Renbourn to the model.” This introduction had significant consequences: Renbourn’s advocacy of the OM format, and his eventual Martin OM signature model (2011), trace directly back to Grossman arriving in England in 1967 with a 1930 OM-45 in his case. In the early 1970s, Grossman sold the OM-45 for the then-remarkable price of $9,000 — a decision that reflected the commercial reality of an independent musician’s financial life, even if the guitar he sold would be worth many multiples of that today.
Franklin OM (Primary Working Guitar, Later Career): After selling the OM-45, Grossman experimented with various guitars before finding Nick Kukich’s Franklin Guitars in Michigan. Kukich’s Franklin OM — built closely in the tradition of the original Martin OM, with the specific “dry, woody Martin tone” that Acoustic Guitar Magazine describes — became Grossman’s primary working instrument. “John Renbourn, Stefan Grossman, to name a couple were huge fans and proponents of Franklin guitars,” as The Music Emporium’s documentation notes. The Franklin OM combined the specific tonal character of the vintage Martin OM — the balanced frequency response, the note separation, the warmth without muddiness that makes the OM format ideal for fingerpicking — with the construction quality of a modern hand-built instrument. Grossman’s endorsement of the Franklin was not commercial but musical: he played it because it was the best available instrument for his specific approach, and he recommended it to Renbourn for the same reason. Renbourn’s own Franklin OM collection — one made of koa, “something Martin never did” — traces back to Grossman’s introduction of both the OM format and the Franklin brand.
Martin HJ-38 Stefan Grossman Signature (Later Career Official Endorsement): Martin Guitar Company eventually produced an official Stefan Grossman signature model — the HJ-38, a jumbo body (Martin’s version of the jumbo format, larger than the OM or dreadnought) with Madagascar rosewood back and sides and Sitka spruce top. The forum documentation of the announcement notes that the first production run sold out before Grossman himself had seen or played the instrument. The signature model represented Martin’s recognition of Grossman’s importance in the acoustic guitar world — the player who had bought a 1930 OM-45 in 1966 and introduced the format to the British folk scene now had his name on a Martin production guitar.
Prairie State Guitars (Workshop Discussion Reference): Grossman’s Work and Worry interview — published on his Guitar Workshop website — references Prairie State guitars in the context of a discussion about Tony Lundberg’s luthiery work: “I sent Tony my Prairie State guitar so that he could study the specs.” Prairie State Guitars were built in Chicago by the Larson Brothers in the early twentieth century — typically ladder-braced parlor-style instruments associated with various retail brands, now collectible as significant pre-war American acoustic guitars. Grossman’s possession and use of a Prairie State guitar reflects the same collector’s instinct and historical depth that characterized his acquisition of the Martin OM-45: a preference for historically significant instruments with specific tonal characters rooted in the pre-war acoustic guitar tradition he had spent his career studying.
National Resonator Guitars (Blues Material): While not extensively documented in Grossman’s official gear history, National resonator guitars — the metal-bodied, cone-equipped acoustic instruments associated with Delta blues and pre-war acoustic blues performance — appear in his instructional materials and are consistent with his country blues repertoire. The National’s specific loud, cutting, metallic tone was developed specifically for blues playing in an era before electric amplification, and its specific character is part of the authentic sound of the repertoire Grossman has spent his career teaching. Several of his instructional DVDs demonstrate techniques specifically on resonator instruments.
Open Tunings (Slide and Fingerpicking Contexts): Grossman’s use of alternate open tunings — open G, open D, open E for slide work; various alternate tunings for fingerpicking arrangements — is documented throughout his instructional materials and is part of the country blues tradition he learned directly from the original masters. Son House’s Delta blues used open G; Skip James used open D minor; Mississippi Fred McDowell played in various open tunings. Grossman’s academic study of these traditions and his personal study with these masters gave him a firsthand understanding of why specific open tunings produce specific sounds in the country blues tradition.
Amplification
Acoustic Performance (Primary Context): Like the British folk guitarists he worked alongside — John Renbourn, Martin Carthy, Davy Graham — Grossman performs primarily acoustic in folk clubs, concert halls, and workshop settings. His primary performance context does not involve electric amplification or effects processing; the guitar’s natural acoustic character, amplified minimally when necessary for larger venues, is the intended sound. This acoustic authenticity is consistent with his foundational commitment to the country blues tradition, which was an acoustic, unamplified music by nature.
Workshop and Recording Context: His instructional work — the Guitar Workshop DVDs, the online lessons, the instructional books — uses close microphone technique to capture the acoustic guitar’s natural sound without amplification, consistent with the acoustic blues tradition’s specific sound world. His recording career has similarly used acoustic recording rather than electric amplification, maintaining the tonal integrity of the country blues tradition he documents and teaches.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy
Stefan Grossman’s playing style is the most rigorously and historically documented approach to country blues guitar in the world — and the most directly transmitted from the original sources. Where most country blues practitioners learned from recordings and from later generations of teachers, Grossman learned directly from the original musicians: from Gary Davis’s apartment, from Mississippi John Hurt’s Avalon, Mississippi performances, from Son House’s Delta field recordings recreated in his presence. This direct transmission gives his playing a specific authority and a specific authenticity that cannot be faked or approximated through record study alone.
The Rev. Gary Davis technique — the foundation of Grossman’s approach — is among the most demanding in country blues guitar. Davis used a “drop thumb” technique in which the thumb, rather than maintaining a steady alternating bass pattern, could drop to bass strings in syncopated patterns independent of the fingers’ melodic activity. The result was not the predictable bass-melody interaction of Travis picking but a more complex, rhythmically unpredictable counterpoint between bass and treble voices. Davis was also capable of playing complete chord shapes while maintaining both bass and melody activity simultaneously — a three-voice arrangement from one guitarist that required exceptional independence of the right hand’s thumb and three fingers.
His tone philosophy centers on authenticity to the tradition rather than on personal sonic innovation. Where Michael Hedges (Series 2 #125) systematically invented new techniques to solve compositional problems he had created himself, Grossman systematically preserved and transmitted techniques that the original masters had developed in response to the specific musical demands of their traditions. This is not a lesser ambition — the preservation and transmission of a tradition requires as much intelligence and as much musical depth as the creation of a new one — but it is a different one. Grossman’s achievement is that the specific techniques of Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and their contemporaries are playable and learnable by guitarists who were not born until decades after the original masters died, because Grossman was in the room with those masters and brought their techniques back systematically.
How to Sound Like Stefan Grossman
Guitar: An OM-size acoustic (orchestra model body, 14-fret join) with the balanced frequency response that suits fingerpicking is the primary instrument. The Martin OM-28 (rosewood, spruce top) is the most authentic contemporary equivalent of the OM-45 Grossman played. The Franklin OM — now available used — provides the “dry, woody Martin tone” he favored for years. For slide work, a National resonator (Style 0 or Style 1 nickel-plated) provides the specific loud, metallic character of Delta blues slide.
Approach: The Rev. Gary Davis technique — “drop thumb” bass independence, thumb and finger simultaneous activity, the ability to maintain bass line, melody, and harmony simultaneously — is the foundational skill. Grossman’s own instructional materials (the Stefan Grossman Guitar Workshop DVD series and books) are the most direct available access to this technique, representing forty years of systematic pedagogy built on direct study with the original master.
Amp Settings (When Amplified — Acoustic Reinforcement):
| Control | Setting (0–10) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | 3–5 | Minimal — acoustic authenticity requires natural projection |
| Bass | 4–5 | Natural — don’t boost; OM body has balanced bass response |
| Mid | 5–6 | Present — country blues lives in the midrange |
| Treble | 5 | Natural — clear but not harsh |
| Reverb | 1–3 | Minimal — country blues was performed in living rooms, not concert halls |
Influence & Legacy
Stefan Grossman’s legacy is unique in the history of guitar: he is simultaneously a first-rate performing guitarist in his own right and the most important single figure in the preservation and transmission of country blues guitar technique. Both dimensions of this legacy are significant, and neither should be reduced to the other.
His role in the history of the Martin OM format is documented and direct. His 1966 purchase and extended use of the 1930 OM-45 — and his introduction of the format to British players including John Renbourn (Series 2 #119) during his English stay — helped revive commercial and critical interest in a guitar format that had been largely forgotten since its discontinuation in the mid-1930s. Renbourn’s subsequent advocacy of the OM, his Franklin OM collection, and his eventual Martin OM signature model all trace back to Grossman arriving in England with that 1930 OM-45 in his case.
His Guitar Workshop instructional empire — the books, DVDs, video lessons, and online courses — represents the most comprehensive single educational project in country blues guitar history. The technique of Rev. Gary Davis, transmitted to Grossman in person and from there to thousands of guitarists worldwide through his instructional materials, is perhaps the most successfully preserved and transmitted body of guitar technique in the acoustic blues tradition. Without Grossman’s systematic documentation of Davis’s playing, and his subsequent decades of teaching from that documentation, much of what makes Davis’s technique specifically and reproducibly knowable would have been lost.
His duet work with John Renbourn — maintained for eighteen years of touring and recording — produced a body of duo guitar music that stands among the finest in the acoustic guitar tradition: two equal, distinct musical personalities in genuine dialogue, neither subordinating their character to the other. His Even Dozen Jug Band membership, alongside John Sebastian, David Grisman, Maria Muldaur, and Joshua Rifkin, places him at the center of the early-1960s Greenwich Village scene that was simultaneously the origin of the Lovin’ Spoonful, the modern bluegrass revival, and the country blues rediscovery movement that continues to this day.
His connection to John Fahey (Series 2 #124) — both were part of the 78 rpm record collector community that was simultaneously researching and rediscovering country blues in the early 1960s — places him in the generation that collectively invented the serious study of American acoustic blues, creating the intellectual and musical infrastructure that made the modern country blues revival possible.
Internal Links:
- John Renbourn, Grossman’s 18-year duet partner whom he introduced to the Martin OM format at #119
- John Fahey, Grossman’s fellow 78 rpm collector and country blues researcher from the early 1960s at #124
- Davy Graham, one of the British guitarists Grossman encountered during his English years at #118
- Big Bill Broonzy, one of Grossman’s foundational influences absorbed from 78 rpm recordings at Series 2 #103
Frequently Asked Questions: Stefan Grossman Guitars & Gear
What guitar does Stefan Grossman play?
Grossman’s most important historical guitar was a 1930 Martin OM-45, purchased in 1966 from instrument dealer Jon Lundberg and sold in the early 1970s for $9,000. After selling the OM-45, he moved to Franklin OM guitars built by Nick Kukich — instruments he and John Renbourn were both enthusiastic advocates of. He has a Martin signature model, the HJ-38 Stefan Grossman (jumbo body, Madagascar rosewood back and sides, Sitka spruce top). He also uses Prairie State guitars (pre-war Larson Brothers instruments) and, for slide and Delta blues work, National resonator guitars.
Who were Stefan Grossman’s main guitar teachers?
Grossman’s primary guitar teacher was the Reverend Gary Davis — the blind Harlem gospel and blues guitarist whose two-thumbed “drop thumb” fingerpicking is the foundation of Grossman’s technique. He studied with Davis for several years, recording every lesson and developing a tablature system to capture Davis’s instructions. He also took lessons directly from Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Skip James, and Mississippi Fred McDowell during the 1960s — meeting them in person as part of the country blues rediscovery movement and learning specific techniques directly from the original masters.
Why was the 1930 Martin OM-45 so important to Grossman’s career?
The 1930 OM-45 Grossman purchased in 1966 was historically important in two ways. First, it was the instrument he used extensively during his most formative years as a performer, and its specific tonal character — the balanced OM frequency response, the rosewood brightness, the pre-war Adirondack spruce top’s responsiveness — shaped his understanding of what an acoustic guitar should sound like. Second, by taking the guitar to England in the late 1960s, he introduced British players including John Renbourn to the Martin OM format, helping to revive commercial and critical interest in a guitar format that had been largely forgotten since the 1930s. Renbourn’s subsequent OM advocacy traces directly to Grossman’s introduction.
What is the Rev. Gary Davis technique and how did Grossman learn it?
The Reverend Gary Davis (1896-1972) was a blind Harlem street preacher, gospel singer, and blues guitarist whose “drop thumb” fingerpicking technique was among the most demanding in acoustic blues. Rather than the steady alternating bass of Travis picking, Davis dropped his thumb to bass strings in complex syncopated patterns independent of the fingers’ melodic activity. He could play complete chord shapes while maintaining both bass and melody simultaneously. Grossman studied with Davis for several years, recording every lesson and developing a tablature system to capture his instructions. Davis described Grossman as one of his most dedicated students.
What is Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop?
Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop is the world’s largest instructional resource for acoustic blues guitar — operating from Grossman’s home base in Sparta, New Jersey, and distributing instructional DVDs, books, and online lessons globally. The Workshop has produced hundreds of instructional titles covering country blues, ragtime, folk, fingerpicking techniques, and biographical/instructional features on major acoustic guitarists. The Workshop’s preservation of specific country blues techniques — particularly the Rev. Gary Davis tradition — represents one of the most significant single educational projects in acoustic blues guitar history.
What is Even Dozen Jug Band and why is it historically significant?
The Even Dozen Jug Band was a loosely organized Greenwich Village folk ensemble that Grossman co-founded in 1963 with, at various times, Steve Katz (later of Blood, Sweat & Tears), John Sebastian (later of the Lovin’ Spoonful), David Grisman (later the defining figure in modern acoustic string music), Joshua Rifkin (ragtime revival figure), and Maria Muldaur (singer). The group recorded one LP for Elektra Records. Its historical significance is partly in Grossman’s role as organizer and partly in the extraordinary subsequent careers of its members — the group brought together virtually the entire leadership of the 1960s acoustic music revival in a single ensemble before any of them were famous.
What is Stefan Grossman’s relationship with John Renbourn?
Grossman and Renbourn maintained an 18-year creative partnership that included joint tours and duet albums — documented in Grossman’s own words as “we have toured around the world playing our solo as well as duet guitar arrangements.” Grossman introduced Renbourn to the Martin OM format during his English stay in the late 1960s, influencing Renbourn’s subsequent guitar choices. Their musical relationship brought together the American country blues tradition (Grossman) and the British folk baroque tradition (Renbourn) in a genuinely equal creative dialogue that produced some of the finest duo acoustic guitar recordings of the 1970s and 1980s.
