Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
In 1971 the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (NGDB) was riding high on the success of the album "Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy" - which included the smash hit version of the Jerry Jeff Walker song "Mr. Bojangles." Still, the band was seeking to add depth to the authenticity of its pioneering country-rock sound. Then, just two months after the conception of a side project that would pair them with their bluegrass and country heroes, NGDB found itself in Nashville recording what would become the nextyear's landmark album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
Three decades later the platinum album - recently released in an expanded, remastered 30th-anniversaryedition by Capitol Records - stands as a testament to the group's place in history, and its continuing ability to successfully bridge the gap between contemporary and traditional music. 2001 marked the return of co-founder John McEuen to the fold after several years of solo pursuits, rejoining Jeff Hanna, Jimmy Ibbotson, Jimmie Fadden, and Bob Carpenter, all of whom are vocalist/instrumentalists contributing to the band's well-rounded sound. "With Johnny back, we feel as if the band’s really come full-circle," Ibbotson says. The re-established lineup is currently booking summer and fall dates throughout North America for its Reunion Tour 2002 and will be returning to thestudio in the near future.
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band grew from jams at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Long Beach, Calif., in the mid-1960s, with the group's sound shaped by its members' influences - from the '50s rock'n'roll of Eddie Cochran, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis, to the popular folk music of the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, and the Dillards.
"Working backwards from them, we discovered the harder stuff," Fadden says, referring to the roots music of Doc Watson, Flatt & Scruggs, the Carter Family, Mississippi John Hurt, and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. "We were all sort of hardcore folk fans. And when we got together to play, we were drawing from ragtime, bluegrass, country blues, and music from the '30s… That combination was a lot of fun for us."
"We started as a roots American band and evolved into what was a new form of popular music, country-rock," McEuen says of the movement that also produced such notable bands as Poco and the Flying Burrito Brothers in California, and the Band on the East Coast. "I think our contribution to that music was that we brought more of a bluegrass and mountain feel to it," McEuen adds. "And that musical thread has remained the significant core of our music." As with any institution, time and circumstances have continually changed the face and sound of the group. Continued expansion and contraction of the band has created a storied list of NGDB alumni that includes Jackson Browne (in an early start-up incarnation of the band), noted folk multi-instrumentalist Chris Darrow, and Eagles/Flying Burrito Brothers member Bernie Leadon, among others.
Throughout its career, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has placed 21 albums on Billboard's albums charts, and some 30 songs on the magazine's singles tallies, many of them penned by the band's members. A shift to a more pop friendly sound scored the band the 1980 mainstream hits "American Dream" (with Linda Ronstadt) and "Make a Little Magic" (with Nicolette Larson). In 1982, after a few years of being known as simply "the Dirt Band," the group's name was restored to its full length, and its focus to country music.
Throughout the '80s, NGDB put song after song on country radio – starting with their breakthrough hit “Dance Little Jean” and including the No. 1 hits "Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper's Dream)" (1984), "Modern Day Romance" (1985), and "Fishin' in the Dark" (1987). During this successful time, the band was among such still revered artists of the contemporary country/Americana movement as Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Rodney Crowell, and Steve Earle on the airwaves.
The 2002 Capitol reissue of Will the Circle Be Unbroken comes on the heels of renewed mainstream interest in roots music thanks to the success of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. While Hanna acknowledges that it's something that will serve the band well, he considers the resurgence as a natural part of the popular musical cycle.
"I think Americans have a real sense of history and looking at music in that context is great," he says. "And if people can become acquainted with the roots of all forms of American music, I think we, as a whole, can only benefit from it."
For Will the Circle Be Unbroken, then-manager/producer Bill McEuen (brother of group co-founder John) had the idea to take the band to record in Nashville with some of their musical idols. Armed with an obvious respect for traditional music, NGDB won over an elite cast of Music City's greatest. With the help of noted banjo/guitar virtuoso Earl Scruggs (whose sons were Dirt Band fans), such veterans as Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, and Vassar Clements, were enlisted for the sessions.
"It was a terrific time that was too brief," Hanna says of those six days spent recording in Nashville. "But it was great... Every day was like Christmas." The group revisited the concept on 1989's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 2. The heralded set once again featured Acuff, Scruggs, and Martin, along with a new cast that included Johnny Cash, the Carter Family, John Denver, Bruce Hornsby, John Hiatt, the Byrds' Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn, and Chet Atkins. The 20-track release earned the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band the Country Music Association's album of the year award. Additionally the set garnered a trio of Grammy Awards, including best country performance by a duo or group with vocal.
In 1991, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band celebrated its 25th anniversary as a group with the concert set Live Two-Five, which not only included 15 of the band's classics, but a set-closing cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Cadillac Ranch." Along with a substantial touring regimen, the years since have seen the band appear on the Buddy Holly tribute album "Not Fade Away" and the Grammy award-winning Chieftains album "Another Country," and have yielded several notable NGDB albums, including 1994's "Acoustic" and 1999's "Bang Bang Bang."
Discography Albums § Stars and Stripes Forever § Uncle Charlie § Acoustic § Not Fade Away § Bang Bang Bang § 20 Years of Dirt (Gold) § More Great Dirt (Gold) § Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 1 & 2 (Platinum)
*And Many More* Singles § Buy For Me The Rain § I Saw The Light § American Dream § Make A Little Magic § Dance Little Jean § Mr. Bojangles § Fishin' In The Dark § Bang, Bang, Bang Awards
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