EVENTS

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s All The Good Times: The Farewell Tour

For nearly six decades, the three-time Grammy® Award-winning Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has entertained audiences with their top-shelf musicianship and timeless hits such as “Mr. Bojangles,” “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream),” “Modern Day Romance” and “Fishin’ in the Dark.” Now the time has come for the band who has carried a torch for American country and roots music to say so long to the highways and byways they’ve crossed an unimaginable number of times throughout their career. This isn’t goodbye forever, but it will be the last fans see of multi-city runs and long bus rides.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band trades on a mix of reimagined classics and compelling newer works. The group formed in 1966 as a Long Beach, California jug band, scored its first charting single in 1967, and embarked on a self-propelled ride through folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll, pop, blue-grass, and the amalgam now known as “Americana.” Was this a cutting-edge combo or a group of revivalists? Was the goal rebellion or musical piety? Yes, to all these things.

Throughout the group’s lifetime, personnel has changed, with each change resulting in positive steps forward, new ways of playing the old songs, and renewed enthusiasm for writing and recording fresh material. The latest Dirt Band lineup is expanded to six members for the first time since 1968. Today’s group consists of founding member Jeff Hanna, harp master Jimmie Fadden (who joined in 1966), and soulful-voiced Bob Carpenter, who has more than 40 years of service in the ensemble. Those veterans are now joined by singer-songwriter-bass man Jim Photoglo, fiddle and mandolin wizard Ross Holmes, and Hanna’s son, the preternaturally talented singer and guitarist Jaime Hanna.

Blood harmony, thrilling instrumental flights, undeniable stage chemistry … these things are part of each Dirt Band show, just as they are part of Dirt Does Dylan, the first recording from the reconfigured, six-strong group released in 2022. Produced by Ray Kennedy and Jeff Hanna, it’s a remarkable ride through some of the most impactful songs of the past century, penned by Bob Dylan and taken for a blue highway spin by a great American band, with help from genius-level contemporary artists like Jason Isbell and The War and Treaty.

A Dirt Band show is unlike any other. For legions of fans, it’s less about the memories than the moment, crisp as an Autumn apple and rich as a royal flush.