Enrique Coria with The David Grisman Quintet – El Cumbanchero

I’ve been a giant fan of David Grisman and his music for many years and, I’ve always loved the virtuoso musicians he has surrounded himself with in his various bands he has assembled.

One of Grisman’s later bands features virtuoso guitarist Enrique Coria, whom I’m sure David wanted due to his versatile abilities with many different musical styles.

I’ve watched a bunch of Grisman videos and saw Enrique playing a classical guitar (in this vid) and then switching over to a dreadnought and playing legit bluegrass (no fair!).  Now I’m not up on the current Grisman configuration, but I would say that Enrique is the perfect fit for Grisman who is always looking to go past the boundaries in his music.

Enrique has recorded extensively (400 + recordings ) and is definitely worth checking out:

http://acousticdisc.com/acd_html/artists/coria.html

Enrique also has a duo with his wife Yolanda Aranda, who is a gifted vocalist.

Just on a personal note:
Turns out that Enrique and I have a few friends in common, mainly John Carlini whom I frequently work with. John was the guitarist with Grisman prior to Enrique joining the band, which also featured violinist and friend Matt Glaser. Just a little bit before that band with John and Matt formed, I did some recording with Grisman and Jimmy Kerwin (bass player in this video).  It was supposed to be a lot more but, it’s a long story with what ended up happening, as I ended up moving to Nashville and playing guitar for Vassar Clements. And that happened because Grisman introduced me to Vassar. Strange how things end up sometimes…