Hammond Music

What’s the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band? Country and folk music in America are still very popular. They’ve been around for a long time. Many big time groups went on long tours. Many lesser known groups still do quite well. Here’s information on one of them.

The Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band had its start in California in 1966. Many musicians have come and gone.  There are still two who have been there from the start.  These are the singer guitarist Jeff Hanna and drummer Jimmy Fadden.  Their goal was to not have to work.

The Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band began as a jug band. Early jug bands were jazz bands who added the jug into which someone would blow as a novelty. In Memphis jug bands were more about the blues. They used washboards for percussion. One famous jug band often appeared in the TV series The Andy Griffith Show. They were portrayed as hillbillies who first had a run in with Ernest T. Bass. Andy would generally perform with them playing his guitar.

Buy for Me the Rain was the first single released by the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band.  It became a top 40 hit and was even exposed on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.  Jack Benny, of all people, joined the band to play it, and they once performed the song with the Doors.  Talk about diverse.

In 1968 the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band had appeared in movies and as an extra act at concerts. They appeared in one of the worst musicals ever made – Paint Your Wagon. They even opened for Bill Cosby at Carnegie Hall. They joined a jam session with the great Dizzy Gillespie.

In the 1970s they went country. They went to Nashville, Tennessee where they had some success including two Grammy nominations. They had a tour in Japan. They headlined in front of 350,000 people at the Ozark Music Festival.

The Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band kind of disappeared, but popped up now and then. They performed on Saturday Night Live and returned to Nashville to record other songs and albums.  They won two Grammy awards and one of their works was named album of the year.

The Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band has been heard all over the world.

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