Jeff Hanna was in a reflective mood when I spoke with him about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s farewell run. Announced in January 2024, All The Good Times: The Farewell Tour began March 21, 2024, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The band is currently on a break, but the tour’s final leg — titled 60 Years of Dirt — begins on March 20, 2026. The last concert is set for June 18 at the Mission Ballroom in Denver, CO.
For a band that has been touring for 60 years one can’t help but wonder if having the end in sight brings a sense of relief or one of regret. “We haven’t played a show since October 28, and I’m really itching to go play,” Jeff told me. “So you know what not touring is gonna be like. You know, the beginning of next year will be an interesting experience.”
If the past sixty years haven’t always been a hard road, they’ve certainly been a long one. And by Jeff Hanna’s account, it has been an enjoyable ride down that road all those nights.
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – the Dirt Band as they are affectionately known – started out as a jug band, “Just like the Grateful Dead,” Jeff observed. “We were six kids that played the guitar. So we went off and learned other things. I picked up the washboard. Jimmie Fadden learned to play the washtub bass. And he’s one of the great harmonica players, I might add – Jimmie is. He played harp and I played kazoo, washboard, guitar, and a little bit of mandolin in that band.”
According to Jeff, the original lineup also included future Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer Jackson Browne. Jackson left after six months and was replaced by John McEuen “who plays everything that you know, string wizard did he is.” Mandolin and bass player Les Thompson, Bruce Kunkel, and Ralph Barr – “great, great guitarists, both of them” – rounded out the original Dirt Band.
Again, according to Jeff, “We were really more, at that point in time, more blues — country blues I’d say. You know, like Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Mississippi John Hurt, that kind of vibe.”
The Dirt Band released their first single, “Buy For Me The Rain,” in 1967 that made it to #45 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The following year they made an appearance in the movie Paint Your Wagon singing “Hand Me Down That Can O’ Beans.”
The band made a musical turn in 1969 as evidenced with their album Uncle Charlie And His Dog Teddy. As Jeff explained, “There was this burgeoning California country rock scene going on that had just started. I mean, the Burrito Brothers and Poco were doing it six months, eight months before we were. But we just kind of retooled the band. A couple of the guys left and we got a fellow named Jimmy Ibbotson from Philadelphia.”
Uncle Charlie was a bit rock-oriented but utilized a fusion of styles from bluegrass to jazz to country to pop as well. It benefited from the broad taste in music each individual member of the Dirt Band possessed. The single “Mr. Bojangles” was part of the album, as were “House At Pooh Corner” and “Some Of Shelley’s Blues,” with “Mr. Bojangles” becoming their first major hit, reaching #9 on the Hot 100.
Then came August of 1971 when the Dirt Band traveled to Nashville to record Will the Circle Be Unbroken.
“It was an easy transition for us to do this all acoustic, live record because it was just literally like going back to our roots,” Jeff recalls. “We said we’d put the Les Pauls and the drum kits and the electric bass away for a week and had this great wonderful experience with all these folks that we had idolized for so many years, especially coming up as kids.”
Those folks the band idolized included luminaries of country and blue grass music – Earl Scruggs, Mother Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, Roy Acuff, Doc Watson, and Merle Travis. Norman Blake was on some of those sessions as well, as was Vassar Clements on fiddle and Junior Husky on bass.
Will The Circle Be Unbroken has been hailed as a groundbreaking album, one that helped bridge the gap between generations that had been growing in the 1960s into the 1970s. “The fact that it became a cultural phenomenon was really…” Jeff paused for a moment before continuing. “I’m really grateful that that happened, that people saw it that way.”
Two more Will The Circle Be Unbroken albums were released in 1989 and 2002. Both were as well received as the first.
Outside of that trio of albums, the Dirt Band’s catalog is a deep one. Jeff Hanna notes songs like “An American Dream” written by Rodney Crowell, “Make A Little Magic,” “Fishin’ In The Dark,” “Dance Little Jean,” “Modern Day Romance,” “Workin’ Man” and many others are popular with their audiences.
“Jimmy Ibbotson and I wrote this song called ‘Partners, Brothers, And Friends’,“ Jeff reflected. “And he had this line ‘It’s great to be a part of something so good that’s lasted so long.’ We’re kind of puffing out our chest on that one, but I think our band has consistently been really good for all these years.”
“But certainly, as they say in basketball, it’s the sixth man. It’s the audience, you know? Having the crowd is always a (real) communal experience with us.”
In Part Two, Jeff Hanna discusses what the future may hold for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
