David Todd Rawlings is an American guitarist, singer, and record producer. He is known for his partnership with singer and songwriter Gillian Welch.
Rawlings attended the Berklee College of Music and studied with Lauren Passarelli.He produced albums by Gillian Welch, Willie Watson and Old Crow Medicine Show. He leads the Dave Rawlings Machine with Gillian Welch, Willie Watson, Paul Kowert, and Brittany Haas. John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin has been known to play mandolin with the band occasionally. He contributed to the albums Cassadaga by Bright Eyes, Spooked by Robyn Hitchcock, and Heartbreaker by Ryan Adams, with whom he wrote two songs, "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)" and "Touch, Feel and Lose".His vocal style has often been compared to that of Bob Dylan.
Recordings
A Friend of a Friend (2009)
Nashville Obsolete (2015)
Poor David's Almanack (2017)
Instrument
Rawlings achieves his signature guitar sound flatpicking a small archtop guitar. The 1935 Epiphone Olympic that has been his primary instrument was a mid-priced guitar for its time, with a carved arched solid sprucewood top, carved arched solid mahogany back and mahogany sides. It sold for about $35 in 1935.The guitar's lower bout measures 13 5/8 inches wide, and it has three piece f-holes.
Rawlings "scavenged" the guitar from a friend's attic and is now hardly seen playing anything else. As he states, "I just picked it up. It was filthy, and it didn't have strings. You could just see the shape of it under the sawdust." Rawlings tuned it and brought it to a recording session for the Welch's first record. "As soon as I heard it through the microphone and through the speakers I was like, 'I love this guitar.'" he says.