DIRTHEADS ! - NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND is what it's all about.

THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND

By David Elliott

For six days in August of 1971, THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND got together for what has become one of the most memorable and legendary albums in the past three decades. Some of the most brilliant acoustic performances of all time were recorded by this ensemble cast of traditional and country music's greatest players: Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Mother Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, Merle Travis, Vassar Clemens, Norman Blake, Pete Oswald Kirby, Junior Husky, along with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band members Jimmie Fadden, Jeff Hanna, Jim Ibbotson, John McEuen and Les Thompson. It just shows what can happen when you get a bunch of musical geniuses in the same room together.

What was unusual about the period of time when this album was cut is that groups like the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, etc. ruled the top ten. It was a period of time when the hippies were out of synch with the rednecks. But that didn't matter. Good music triumphs when it comes from the heart.

When I first saw them at Pasadena's ICE HOUSE they had a top ten radio hit with a song titled Buy for Me The Rain. A very few years later, since they were playing traditional and bluegrass acoustically, banjo virtuoso Earl Scruggs and his sons came to see the DIRT BAND play live. The band held him in such high esteem that after the show it was with lumps in their throats that they decided to throw the dice and muster their courage to ask if he would perform on this album with them. He said he would be honored, and they were pleasantly surprised. After that they approached Doc Watson, and then all of the other icons of traditional country music one by one.

The music on this record had a watershed of success when it was released three decades ago and went on to platinum status. It was the first record to combine the country rock sensibilities of Southern California with some of the most legendary of Nashville's icons. Most of the band members were raised in Orange County and Long Beach (John McEuen had even worked at Disneyland where he taught comedian Steve Martin to play the banjo).

Last year with the phenomenal success of Oh Brother Where Art Thou (with six million units plus sold), THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND decided to reform with a tour last year. What the Dirt Band did back then and is doing all over again is revealing not only what good musicians they were and are, but capturing a period in time of American musical history that will never be again. Some of the original players in WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN have departed this earth, which makes what the dirt band did in getting them all together not just a mere recording, but the preservation of what makes this music so special.

They say what goes around comes around. And lucky for us. Capitol records re-released WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN, which John McEuen re-mastered from the original analog tapes and added to it four previously unreleased tracks. This beautiful re-release soars to incredible heights with all the original favorites plus four previously unreleased cuts. Combining the sacred and the profane, this album is sincere and genuine in reaching for the heart of the matter, and telling it like it is with simplicity and joy.