The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will further celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of their classic recording, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, with the release of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. III on October 1st. The group -- which reissued the first Circle record in March with bonus tracks -- has again brought an all-star group of guests onboard for the project, recorded in May and June in co-producer Randy Scruggs' Nashville studio.

The visitors this time around include bluegrass greats old (Jimmy Martin, Earl Scruggs), less old (the Del McCoury Band, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush) and relatively new (Alison Krauss). A spectrum of country stars are also participating, including Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam and Vince Gill. Tom Petty "makes a cameo," according to the Dirt Band's Jeff Hanna, to represent rock & roll, while Taj Mahal and Doc Watson bring the blues and folk, respectively.

While the first Circle implied a generational circle of song among the larger Nashville music family, Circle III places genuine familial collaborations at its center. Father/son combos are represented by Earl and Randy Scruggs, McCoury and his sons/band mates Ronnie and Robbie, Dirt Band banjo wizard John McEuen and his son Jonathan McEuen, and Doc Watson and grandson Richard. Hanna's wife, songwriter Matraca Berg tackles a song with Harris, and his son Jaime also makes an appearance.

"Randy does on this tune, an old gospel tune called 'Farther Along,'" says Hanna. "He actually plays an instrumental of it, that sets the tone of the whole record for me. It's, in a lot of ways, looking back, but there's this involvement of other generations of players and some of our family members. There are a few new songs, and a lot of it is old traditional songs. I think the tone is a little, rootsier than the second record; a bit more like the first."

Initially a folk-rock ensemble (which included Jackson Browne) when they formed in California in 1965, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band slid towards a more country-tinged sound in 1970 with Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy, which included their hit cover of Jerry Jeff Walker's "Mr. Bojangles." Two years later the band would further immerse itself in the sounds of Nashville, enlisting the likes of Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Vassar Clements, Norman Blake and other Music City pickers to record the double-LP Will the Circle Be Unbroken. The album was a celebration of a half-century of country, bluegrass, folk, gospel and mountain music, with the Dirt Band and their guests running through country classics like "Tennessee Stud," "Keep on the Sunny Side," "I Saw the Light" and "Dark as a Dungeon."

The album, which was certified platinum, was something of a loose musical predecessor for the more recent celebration of acoustic music on the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?. "I do think they're quite similar," Blake says. "One reason why people like these discs is because, if you're not a record collector, they offer a real broad spectrum of old-time music. And they're live -- not just a reissue of old records."

Hanna agrees that between the anniversary and the success of O Brother, the timing was right. "It just seemed like a great time to do it," he says. "We'd been talking about doing a third volume, but, understand that we've done three in thirty years. So we try not to pop one out every six months [laughs]. But I will say this much: We didn't have to explain the concept to any record company heads right now, which is nice."

The Dirt Band reconvened for 1989's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. II. Again, the album featured a lengthy list of guests, including Johnny Cash, Rosanne Cash, John Denver, Ricky Skaggs and John Hiatt running through a mix of music including traditional songs, some Dirt Band originals and tunes written by contributors like John Prine and Bruce Hornsby. The album won a pair of Grammys and the Country Music Association's Album of the Year.

ANDREW DANSBY
(June 28, 2002)