Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is an American country-folk-rock band that has existed in various forms since its founding in Long Beach, California in 1966. The group's membership has had at least a dozen changes over the years, including a period from 1976 to 1981 when the band performed and recorded as The Dirt Band. Constant members since the early times are singer-guitarist Jeff Hanna and drummer Jimmie Fadden. Multi-instrumentalist John McEuen was with the band from 1966 to 1986 and returned during 2001. Keyboardist Bob Carpenter joined the band in 1977. The band is often cited as instrumental to the progression of contemporary country and roots music.

The band's successes include a cover version of Jerry Jeff Walker's "Mr. Bojangles". Albums include 1972's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, featuring such traditional country artists Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, and Jimmy Martin. A follow-up album based on the same concept, Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two was released in 1989, was certified gold and won two Grammy Awards and had one of their albums named Album of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was founded around 1966 in Long Beach, California by singer-guitarist Jeff Hanna and singer-songwriter guitarist Bruce Kunkel who had performed as the New Coast Two and later the Illegitimate Jug Band. Trying, in the words of the band's website, to "figure out how not to have to work for a living," Hanna and Kunkel joined informal jam sessions at McCabe's Guitar Shop.[citation needed] There they met several multi-instrumentalists: guitarist/washtub bassist Ralph Barr, guitarist-clarinetist Les Thompson, harmonicist and jug player Jimmie Fadden and guitarist-vocalist Jackson Browne. As the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the six men started as a jug band and adopted the burgeoning southern California folk rock musical style, playing in local clubs while wearing pinstripe suits and cowboy boots. Their first paying performance was at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, California.

Browne was in the band for only a few months before he left to concentrate on a solo career as a singer-songwriter. He was replaced by John McEuen on banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and steel guitar. McEuen's older brother, William, was the group's manager, and he helped the band get signed with Liberty Records, which released the group's debut album, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band during 1967. The band's first single, "Buy for Me the Rain," was a Top 40 success, and the band gained exposure on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", as well as concerts with such disparate artists as Jack Benny and The Doors.

A second album, Ricochet was released later during the year and was less successful than their first. Kunkel wanted the band to "go electric", and include more original material. Bruce left the group to form WordSalad and Of The People. He was replaced by guitarist-fiddler Chris Darrow.

By 1968, the band adopted electrical instruments anyway, and added drums. The first electric album, Rare Junk, was a commercial failure, as was their next, Alive!.

The band continued to gain publicity, mainly as a novelty act, making an appearance in the 1968 film, For Singles Only, and a cameo appearance in the 1969 musical western film, Paint Your Wagon, performing "Hand Me Down That Can o' Beans". The band also played Carnegie Hall as an opening act for Bill Cosby and played in a jam session with Dizzy Gillespie.

Jeff Hanna- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Jeff Hanna

 Jeff Hanna is a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, in which he is a lead vocalist and guitarist. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band began as the New Coast Two when Hanna and Bruce Kunkel joined together while they were still in high school. They soon met Ralph Barr, Les Thompson, Jimmie Fadden and Jackson Browne. They became the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in late 1965, and began playing jug band music at local clubs. Browne left after a few months to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by John McEuen. With Bill McEuen's guidance, the group landed a recording contract with Liberty Records and released their self-titled debut album in April of 1967. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has had seven CMA Award nominations and won the 1989 CMA Album of the Year Award for Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume 2. Hanna is one of the co-writers of the CMA Song of the Year nominated “Bless the Broken Road.” Hanna is married to songwriter Matraca Berg. 

From Jeff "Well, we started as a jug band—which is kind of a loose combination of old-timey, ragtime, blues, a little country, hillbilly music, a little bluegrass in there. Really we were all individual guys who played guitar and sang and did different stuff. But I had a jug band in high school called the Illegitamit Jug Band and when I graduated, another one of my friends—Bruce Kunkel, who was in that band in high school—we started hanging out at a guitar store in Long Beach, California, called McCabe’s.

So, we met a bunch of different guys in there who all thought that would be fun and a great way to just kind of hang out. The jug band music is really fun—that’s basically what it’s all about. So, that’s how we got started. We recorded a song that a friend of ours, Steve Noonan, wrote called “Buy For Me The Rain,” that went to the top of the charts in California (which is where we lived at the time). That song had nothing to do with jug band music—that was more of a folk-rock tune.

But there we were, a bunch of teenagers with a big hit on the radio, and we pretty much thought that was how it was gonna go for a while and it didn’t. But, you know, everything changes. In 1969 we morphed into a country rock band, which also used a lot of our roots from earlier with the bluegrass and the acoustic music that we started playing.

And we were hanging out at a club called the Troubadour in Los Angeles, with a lot of folks like the guys that would become the Eagles—Bernie Leadon, Glenn Frey and Don Henley. So yeah, our whole thing started in Southern California with a sort of singer-songwritery hippiegrass.