John McEuen traces a musical path
Along with his musical prowess, John McEuen could give a master class in networking. Fifty years ago he asked his new friend, bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs, to work with his group The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on what became Will The Circle Be Unbroken, a record that brought together American roots music’s leading lights.
McEuen used that promise to bring the equally iconic Doc Watson on board. “I told him, ‘We’re making an album with Earl Scruggs, and I want to know if you want to be part of it,’” he recalled by phone recently. “We weren’t making an album yet — he’d just said he would record with us.”
One by one, an all-star cast of bluegrass legends joined up.
Its success led to two follow-ups, one in 1989 featuring John Prine, Rosanne Cash, John Hiatt and other country-folk stars, and a third volume in 2002, which had Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, the latter singing “Goodnight Irene” with Tom Petty.
The Willie and Tom duet came together when McEuen heard Petty recording in another studio and again chose to be bold.
“I walked in and said, ‘Hey, Mr. Petty, I’m John McEuen from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and I have one question: Have you ever wanted to sing with Willie Nelson?’ It took him off guard. He said, ‘Well, yeah, I wanna sing with Willie Nelson’ and I said, ‘We’re recording him down the hall.’ He came right then.”
There will be more stories like that when McEuen and his group The Circle Band appear March 18 at Manchester’s Rex Theatre. During the interview, he recalled getting a private serenade from Linda Ronstadt at her “When Will I Be Loved” session, capturing an early take of Gregg Allman’s “It’s Not My Cross To Bear” in a Los Angeles studio, and recording an 18-year-old Kenny Loggins in McEuen’s Laurel Canyon home, before Loggins joined Jim Messina.
A few years later, McEuen and bandmate John Hanna turned down Messina when he pitched him a tune; Hanna didn’t think it was a hit. “It’s a teeny-bopper song,” he recalled him saying. “Anybody can write, ‘Your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll.’ I called up Jimmy the next day and said no. He said, ‘That’s OK; Kenny and I decided to put that out together.’ Good decision, huh?”
The show commences with early hits like “Mr. Bojangles” — the Dirt Band was the first act to have a hit with that song — and winds through gems like “Voila, An American Dream” and “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream).” Along with McEuen are bassist (and Dirt Band cofounder) Les Thompson, and Nashville guitarist Danny Knicely.
The bulk of the evening is devoted to McEuen’s best-known project, a recording that so powerfully documented the many threads of American acoustic music that a copy of the 1972 triple disc could have been sent to the Library of Congress at the same time it shipped to record stores across the country.
It’s a multimedia show, much of it centered on that first Circle album.
“My brother Bill was manager of the group; he also produced the record, and he shot photographs, so behind us on a screen will be a projection of the studio sessions, with us in front, playing the music,” he said, adding, “it’s really exciting to see myself 50 years ago; it helps keep me young.”
There are occasional divergences, McEuen continued.
“We do things that aren’t reflected by what’s on the screen when we get into some other music,” he said, then began to muse. “This is a strange job; you travel all this time so you can go work for an hour and a half. Well, I try to make it … maybe two hours depending on the audience. I hear that this room is really nice and I’m looking forward to it.”
Asked what fans can expect from the evening, McEuen was expansive.
“People should come if they want to see a night of music that takes them to a pleasant space that exists from 1860 to 2018,” he said. “ I like to tell stories about what’s going on before and after the songs, and we have a good time. We play hot, fast, sweet, smooth and all that. I hope people come out to hear us.”
John McEuen & The Circle Band
When: Saturday, March 18, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester
Tickets: $29 and up at palacetheatre.org
Featured photo: John McEuen. Courtesy photo.
