Dave Giegerich, a revered dobro and steel guitar player and beloved local musician, died on Wednesday, December 29, 2010 from complications connected to aplastic anemia.  He had successfully beaten neck cancer in 2007 but the blood disease was discovered a year later.  Dave was 57. He lived in Ellicott City and worked at the University of Maryland at Baltimore School of Social Work.

Dave was a giant in the DC music scene, and he was loved for his wit, intelligence, easygoing and accepting manner, and generous heart. His main instrument was the dobro or resophonic guitar, but he also excelled at pedal steel, lap steel, electric mandolin, and, as he used to say, "other pieces of wood with strings."  In 1988, Dave founded the multiple-Wammie award winning band The Hula Monsters, which plays many styles including swing, country, jazz standards and Hawaiian tunes.  He also performed and recorded with many bands and artists including  Bill Harrell and the Virginians, Eva Cassidy,  Bill Kirchen and  Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer.   He was a band leader but he was also the quintessential sideman, tastefully accompanying other musicians, but absolutely taking the stage during his solos.

Dave was born on March 15, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois and moved with his family to South Haven, Michigan in 1962.  He came from a musical family and started playing guitar in the early 1970s.  A year or two later, he made his first slide guitar by sticking  a pencil between his guitar's nut and its strings.   Dave went to Michigan State University for a few years before dropping out because of music (He went back to school later to get his bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore Campus).  In the late 1970s, Dave moved to Fredericksburg, VA, where his brother Steve was a reporter.  Steve, who was Dave's bone marrow and blood donor, said, "He immediately became immersed in the bluegrass scene.  I was a reporter writing high profile stores and a column, but within six months I became Dave Giegerich's brother."  Dave met his wife Pam in Fredericksburg and they lived in  Chapel Hill, NC  and Florida before moving the  DC area in the early 1980s.

With two children, Dave was a stay-at-home dad , and he spent every free minute practicing. His brother said, "He would play gigs at night and he would practice hours a day.  That was his whole life; you never saw Dave without a guitar or dobro in his hand.  That was the background music to his life, literally, and he got better and better.  He got to the point where everyone knew him and he was giving lessons and playing with everyone in town… He lived to play music  and he played music until the very end.  He and (his son) Carter were jamming on Christmas day."

Hula Monsters band mate Mark Noone met Dave in the late 1980s and in 1991 started playing with him in the country band Out Behind the Barn.  He said,  "He was the funniest guy I ever played with.  And he was amazing in that every time I played with him he was a little bit better than the last time.  That's all he wanted to do – was play.  We'd be on the road in some hotel and he'd get out his dobro and tell me to get out my guitar and play.  He was a true musician in every sense of the word, and then some.  For him it was all about music and playing."  Mark said that  a few moths ago, when Dave was in the hospital,  "I told him, you have a lot of people who love you and are worried about you and he said, 'I don't want anyone to worry about me…I've had a great life and look what I got to do – I got to play music with my friends and my heroes.'  He was very comfortable with himself and very happy with what he had."

Guitarist, singer and songwriter Bill Kirchen, who knew Dave for close to 20 years, said, "I lost my wonderful pal Dave…and it has caused me to double my resolve to cherish the living…He was a great combination of one of my favorite guys to see – to talk to – and he was just a fantastic player.  I used to marvel at how did he get that good.  And he was real supportive of other people's playing.  We did 13 years of  Hank Williams tribute shows at the Birchmere…and we were expecting him to make this 14^th.

Hula Monsters band mate Moe Nelson said, "Dave would surely have a dry one-liner to capture what we cannot say. He fought the good fight, and I really thought he would pull through this, especially with the incredible support from family and friends. But - the human body is as fragile as the human spirit is resilient. Mahalo nui loa, and Aloha 'oe, Dave."

Asked why Dave started the Hula Monsters, his brother said, "He thought that Hawaiian music was the purest form of music.  One time we were on a long car trip and he had this Hawaiian music in the car and that's when he said Hawaiian music was the purest form of music.  I said, 'Are you telling me that this is purer than Bach, or other classical composers?' And he said, 'Yeah, they had outside influences, but how could you influence anyone who lived on an island?' And I had to agree."

Dave's family plans to hold a celebration of Dave's life and music on January 15 at the Maryland State Boychoir Center for the Arts (3400 Norman Avenue, Baltimore, MD) at 2pm followed by a huge jam session.   He is survived by  his wife  Pam and two children, Axel (22)  and Carter (20); his father,  Raymond Giegerich of South Haven, Michigan; two brothers and a sister.