Nearly three years ago, singer/songwriter John McEuen decided it was a waste not playing music with his mates in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
"I hadn't been in the band since 1987, and I began to think about the fact that we were playing music, but not together," McEuen said. "We have been playing with each other separately, and it didn't make sense not playing as a band again. So in 2001, we decided to do it."
McEuen, who was the band's mandolinist/guitarist/vocalist from 1966-87, has concentrated on a solo career for the past 15 years.
Meanwhile, drummer/guitarist Jimmie Fadden, guitarist Jimmy Ibbotson, bassist/guitarist Jeff Hanna and bassist/keyboardist Bob Carpenter have kept the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band together — on and off — for the entire 36 years. (Fadden bowed out in 1976, but returned as McEuen was leaving in '87.)
And all are excited to be back on the road as a unit.
"The music we play takes people back to a place and time in their lives where they felt the most comfortable," McEuen said during a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles. "And each of the band members have become experts at what they do. When we get on stage, less has to be said. We go on stage and play what comes from our hearts."
Another plus is that the musicians have developed deeper respect for each other. "People have told us that we seem to enjoy each other's company more," McEuen said.
And playing in Utah is something they look forward to. "Every time we come to Utah it's a celebration," he said. "The guest list is so big we have to play two shows."
Both McEuen and Hanna have Utah connections. In fact, McEuen lived in Murray during the '80s, to get away from the perils of Los Angeles. "I wanted to live somewhere that I could raise my kids in a safe environment," he said.
There was one thing, however, that was somewhat difficult to overcome so the band could get back together. "Logistics was the hardest part of this whole reunion," McEuen said with a laugh. "It took us nine months to get us all in a single room together so we could take a publicity photo."
The 2001 reunion came on the tail of a reissue of the band's 1972 masterpiece "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" (which spawned a "Volume 2" in 1989,
two years after McEuen went solo). And now, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is busy with yet another sequel.
"We've just finished 'Volume 3,' which will be released this fall," McEuen said. "Like the other volumes, this one features a load of guests." Among them, Tom Petty, Sam Bush, Iris Dement, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash and Randy Scruggs.
"We had so much fun working on this album," McEuen said. "And we'll be playing some new pieces during the show."
And there will also be some surprises. "We have found a bunch of good songs that haven't been played for 25 years," he said. "We like to shake things up a bit. We don't want to be a band that just plays a bunch of the same old songs that have only been on the radio."
Of course, radio hasn't ever really been a focus of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. "We did go through a period when we wrote some songs so they could get on the radio," McEuen said of such works as "Make a Little Magic," "American Dream" and the No. 1 country tune "Fishin' in the Dark." "But we were mainly interested in taking our music on the road and bringing it to people live."
In doing that, McEuen said, the band is living the American dream. "We're doing something we love," he said with a laugh. "There are times when we feel that we doing something that other people love to hear and we're doing. So we keep asking ourselves if we're doing this because we love it, or are we doing it because people love us for doing it?"
As far as the Dirt Band's future, McEuen said there's no real goal. "We don't know how long we're going to be doing this. We do know that we're doing this because we want to do this as right as we can, and we want it to go as far as it can.
"Besides, it gives my younger children a glimpse of what dad used to do before they were born."
E-mail: scott@desnews.com