Nitty Gritty Dirt Band-Plain Dirt Fashion

Plain Dirt Fashion

"Long Hard Road", written by Rodney Crowell(the writer of NGDB's 1980 hit "An American Dream"), was the Dirt Band's first #1 country song, and it has always been one of my favorites. I especially like this line: "When the world was on our radio, hard work was on our minds/We lived our day to day in Plain Dirt Fashion." "Long Hard Road" by itself shows the Dirt Band's ability to pick a well-crafted song. The record's most fun moments, however, are provided by NGDB's Jimmy Ibbotson. Ibbotson's "High Horse", a driving, bouncy song, was a huge hit, as was his wisecracking celebration of the band's first 20 years, "Partners, Brothers And Friends". These two songs are also among my favorite NGDB songs. Still another excellent Ibbotson song is "Telluride", about life in the Colorado gold-mining town("Take the gold into Telluride"). Why "Telluride" didn't get radio airplay I'll never figure out. It's a great song--I think it's certainly up there with Ibbotson's "Ripplin' Waters"(from NGDB's album Dream) and NGDB's '70s classic hit "Mr. Bojangles". NGDB's rocking version of "Cadillac Ranch" is well done and in my opinion surpasses Bruce Springsteen's original. The reflective songs "Home Again In My Heart" and "Old Upright Piano", the romantic ballad "I Love Only You", the rodeo song "The Other Side Of The Hill", and Steve Goodman's humorous song "Video Tape"("If your life was on video tape/Wouldn't everything be alright") are also highlights.Plain dirt fashion, the first album here, dates from 1984. While the music of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band always had country influences (not forgetting their bluegrass album, Will the circle be unbroken?), this album was the first to put them in the country mainstream. There are wonderful country cover versions of two songs that may be familiar to rock music fans, these being Two out of three ain't bad (Meatloaf) and Cadillac ranch (Bruce Springsteen). Of the other songs, it's hard to pick out which are the best, but the opening track (Long hard road - the sharecropper's dream) is a very touching Rodney Crowell song, while other highlights include Face on the cutting-room floor (co-written by Steve Goodman), Video tape (written by Steve Goodman), I love only you and High hopes