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The circle is unbroken: Acoustic legend John McEuen plays the Hideaway Tuesday

Bill DeYoung

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John McEuen today. Photos provided.

There’s a strong argument to be made that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band invented Americana music.

“I’ll let you say that,” co-founder John McEuen laughs during a telephone interview. “I think so too … but I don’t want to say it.”

In 1972, the California folk/rock quintet, which had previously experimented with old-time acoustic country music, put out the groundbreaking album Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Guests on the sprawling three-record set included solid-gold luminaries such as Doc Watson, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs, Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis and others.

Circle, as it’s known, introduced an entire generation of hippies to acoustic mountain and bluegrass music, opening the door for the eventual crossover success of everyone from Willie Nelson to Jason Isbell.

The million-selling album, which is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, and the Library of Congress, was the subject of a lengthy segment of Ken Burns’s recent Country Music documentary series.

Thinking about it today, McEuen mentions a memory he holds dear, of watching Doc Watson at the microphone as they all recorded the Appalachian classic “Tennessee Stud.”

“In the middle of that,” McEuen says. “I distinctly remember thinking, ‘This sounds like an old record you found in a pawn shop. Only it sounds really good!’”

In a way, McEuen – who’s been a Tampa Bay resident for six years – never let go of that feeling. His 2016 solo album, Made in Brooklyn, was recorded live, with an all-star acoustic band gathered around a single, “very expensive” microphone.

It won the Independent Music Award for Best Americana Album.

Ah, but there’s been a lot of water under the (Brooklyn? Gandy?) bridge since then. McEuen, who’ll perform Tuesday (Dec. 17) at the Hideaway, left the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 2017.

“I told my agent a few years ago, ‘I think I’m going to leave the group. What do you think – do you think I’ll survive?’” he says. “And he said ‘John, 50 years is long enough for anything.’ That finished my decision.”

Salad days: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (that’s John McEuen at far left).

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s fortunes had faded somewhat since the salad days of “Mr. Bojangles,” “Make a Little Magic” and “Long Hard Road.” But the band was legendary, and still finding steady work. And McEuen – who is fluent on banjo, fiddle, guitar and mandolin – won a Grammy in 2010 as producer of Steve Martin’s banjo album The Crow (Martin – a longtime friend – was also one of the musicians contributing to Made in Brooklyn).

So yeah, 50 years is a long time. But McEuen’s idea of what the band should sound like in the 2010s didn’t jibe with that of longtime singer and frontman Jeff Hanna.

“Because of the group structure, and certain people in it, the decision was made that they shouldn’t record any more of my music,” McEuen, 73, explains. “That was a real blow. I was putting a song or two on each album. That was an income cut, it you look at the royalties on publishing. I made things for the records that were icing on the cake; I didn’t make the cake.

“I was doing one-third of what I do onstage. And I felt like the pen that I was getting penned in was getting smaller, and more restrictive. I like to frail the banjo. I wasn’t frailing any more. I was hearing ‘I don’t want to sing that song.’ ‘That one’s boring.’ On and on. I’d ask ‘Can we do more bluegrass?’ ‘No.’

“About a year before I left, I was sitting on the bus one night, around 1 in the morning, and I said ‘Hey Jeff, isn’t it funny how there’s certain things we don’t talk about, because we know better?’ And he goes ‘Yeah … I think it’s a good thing.’”

Earlier this year, McEuen and his wife Marilyn sold their 10 acres on the Manatee River, loaded up the truck and moved to South Tampa.

Expediency, he explains, was the reason. “I do a hundred cities a year, so I go about 25, 30 times to the airport. Where I lived, it was taking an hour and 10 minutes each way.” He’s made lots of friends – musicians and more – since settling in to his Hillsborough home.

For Tuesday’s show, which he’ll perform with former Dirt Band member John Cable (late ‘70s era), McEuen will be packing his guitar, fiddle, mandolin and banjo. “And some strange guitars, ‘cause I’m close to the house; I can’t take them on the airlines, so that’s one of the things I like about playing around here.”

This all-acoustic evening is not a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Jr. show. “I have a lot of fun onstage,” McEuen says. “I enjoy doing what I do.

“And I like telling people the stories of what’s behind the songs, how did they come about, who wrote them and when, and then get into it. And do a little different version than the record. I never liked the fact that you had to ‘sound like the record.’ Let’s change it around.”

Tickets and info here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. Avatar

    Sylvia Rusche

    December 17, 2019at7:47 am

    Legend…

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