![]() In 1977, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band became the first American band to appear in the Soviet Union, performing 28 sold-out shows to enthusiastic crowds. ![]() ![]() But it was the group’s groundbreaking tour of Russia - which was documented in a film McEuen’s has been assembling, tentatively titled “Rocking the Kremlin” - that put the band in the history books. The Dirt Band went on to score 21 hits on the country charts and a star on the Country Music Walk of Fame in Nashville - “Next to Hank Williams Sr. Indeed, it was McEuen who came up with the idea to do the “Circle” album, which still ranks as the primary document tying together all the strains of true American music. “We were doing it either before they were, or at the same time, and we actually stuck with it.” “The Byrds and the Burrito Brothers got into that whole country rock thing for a time, but kind of gave it up after a few years,” McEuen recalls. She started out that way and stayed there.”Ĭonsidering what they were able to pull off, it’s surprising that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band never really got its due as pioneers in the crossover to country, and by extension, a forebear of today’s Americana movement. “I told her, ‘This means 500,000 people bought this album, Maybelle.’ And she said, ‘I didn’t think that many people liked those songs.’ I thought she was kind of kidding, but she was just like your neighbor who just happened to play the guitar. “When I gave her her gold record for the ‘Circle’ album, it turned out it was the first one she’d ever gotten,” McEuen says. But she reaped a reward of her own later on in the project. Maybelle Carter agreed to the project simply because Earl Scruggs asked her to take part. They had worked together, but it was mainly at the Opry. We had opened the door to their house, it seemed. I remember Maybelle saying, ‘Roy, I always wanted to make a recording with you.’ Doc was saying, ‘I always wanted to meet you, Merle.’ All that kind of stuff. “The pressure was taken off of us, because we found out that they were as big a fans of each other as we were of them. These people recorded for a living,” he says. “Everybody came in and got down to business. McEuen recalls rehearsals took a mere five days recording the album took only six more. Both also play the banjo, and McEuen produced Martin’s Grammy-winning album, “The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo.” Publicity photo. But Martin and the Dirt Band’s John McEuen (left) were high school buddies, and they both worked in Disneyland’s Magic Shop. If you’re playing the “6 Degrees” game for country rockers The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Steve Martin probably isn’t even on your radar as a connection.
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