As randomly chosen by survey on Mastodon, our next spotlight is on number 997 on The List, submitted by dwenius. (The survey choices given were “My”, “Empire”, “Of”, and “Dirt”, following the earlier survey with “You”, “Could Have”, “It”, “All”; as the winning selection,”Dirt”, was the last choice and only 2 albums in The List have “dirt” in the title, the survey result was translated as picking the last one.)
Want 2 hours of ol’ timey, finger pickin’ country folk, bluegrass, and gospel classics such as “Keep on the Sunny Side” and “I Saw the Light”? Well, here you are. This double album features a ton of collaborations with people such as Mother Maybelle Carter (i.e., June Carter Cash’s mother), Doc Watson, and Merle Travis. The album was so successful that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band tried it two more times – Volume II (1989) features the likes of Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, and John Denver, and Volume III (2002) Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, and Tom Petty. So, if this is your sort of thing, I think your listening is sorted for a while.
Before you listen, make sure your harmonica or washboard is nearby.
Note on the image included: As you may notice after clicking on the above links, the image included here is not the front cover of the album, but is instead the back cover. I don’t wish to censor the art of any of the albums on The List, but the front cover has images of the Confederate flag, which of course today is recognized as a hate symbol. Given the time the album was released, the musical content of the album (which, as far as I know, isn’t itself problematic), and the presence of Union flags (as well as a photo of a Union soldier) on the front cover, presumably the point of the cover was not to promote hate symbols in any way. So, since there is no ability to add content warnings or sensitive image filters on the WordPress side to show up with the automatic cross-posting on the Mastodon side, I have chosen instead to provide alternate art, to keep the problematic images out of your timeline.
https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/07/03/nitty-gritty-dirt-band-will-the-circle-be-unbroken-1972-us/
#1001OtherAlbums #1970s #bluegrass #country #countryFolk #DocWatson #MaybelleCarter #MerleTravis #NittyGrittyDirtBand
