Founding member Jeff Hanna talks about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

By FIELDING BUCK
The Press-Release


Here are excerpts from an interview with Jeff Hanna, founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

On the band's origins:

"'66 is when we started playing together and getting paid. We were a jug band, which is a really rootsy concoction, music that was mostly written in the '30s or before. A lot of blues and skiffle and country elements. Old-timey country music. Mountainy stuff. And then we went through a growing phase when some of the guys left and a couple of other guys joined in '69, and retooled as a country rock band. At that point there were three or four groups really playing that kind of music, the Burritos (Flying Burrito Brothers) and Poco. The Band, of course, was a huge influence on us. There's was a melding of Americana, which as a musical phrase didn't exist before ... and rock 'n' roll

"That kind of morphed into what later on became a career in country music, too, because the music we started playing in 1969 really fit country radio in 1984 ... It wasn't quite as pop music-oriented as country music is today."

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Nitty Gritty Dirt Band