“Fishin’ in the Dark” with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
“Fishin’ in the Dark” with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
A Conversation with Bob Carpenter On Their Upcoming Performance
On Friday, August 4th, the Nitty, Gritty Dirt Band will be hitting the stage at 7:00pm when their tour makes a stop at Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino in Salamanca.
The Dirt Band is wired and ready to get out there on tour after the two years the whole world was locked up when Covid hit. “That was awful,” said band member Bob Carpenter when I caught up with him recently to talk about the tour, the music and the newest album, “Dirt Does Dylan”. “You know everybody’s out there this year touring and trying to get back to what their normal is and it’s great!”
Starting out in 1966, the band has won multiple Grammys and the Country Music Association Album of the Year in 1989 for “Will The Circle Be Unbroken: Volume II”. In the 1980s they had an amazing run of 17 Top Ten singles on the charts. The Dirt Band has become a staple in music with songs like “Fishin’ In The Dark”, “Country Pie”, “Mr. Bojangles”, “American Dream”, and ”Battle of New Orleans”, along with albums “Will The Circle Be Unbroken Volume I, Volume II and Volume III.
The line-up has changed over the years and the number of members has changed from the usual four to six, which we touch on in the following conversation. The current members are Jeff Hanna, Jimmie Fadden, Bob Carpenter, Jim Photoglo, Jeff Hanna’s son Jaime Hanna and Ross Holmes. Their newest album, “Dirt Does Dylan”, is a product of the addition of the two new members and is producing accolades from critics as well as fans.
Collaborations with the likes of Ricky Skaggs, Linda Ronstadt, The Chieftains, Karla Bonoff and Steve Martin (playing Banjo) are only a few of the artists that have lined up to be part of the music history that is the Dirt Band, who seem to always be in demand by their peers, and they are always ready to answer the call.
One thing is for sure… making the music is very important to the band, but when it comes to their fans, Carpenter says it best: “The best thing going on in our musical life is that people still want to come out and hear us play music… because playing music live is our life blood; we so enjoy that… especially in this day and age to have people sit down in an audience after turning their TVs off and leaving their homes to sit in front of us and smile and have a great time, while sort of time traveling back to the old songs and listening to the new songs… to see people with smiles on their face is the best thing in the world.”
For more info on the band visit nittygritty.com. For tickets visit senecacasinos.com and click on Seneca Allegany.
A CONVERSATION WITH BOB CARPENTER
HULICK: For some of the country we’re in an unprecedented heat wave. Have you guys had to deal with that on your tour yet?
CARPENTER: I’m in Boulder, Colorado now and the other day it was 96 degrees, which is hot for here. Luckily we haven’t had to play any outdoor venues yet.
HULICK: With you the music all began at the age of four.
CARPENTER: (laughs) I’ve never heard it put that way before.
HULICK: (laughs) I’m taking you all the way back to the beginning.
CARPENTER: (laughs) My parents forced me to pick up the accordion when I was four years old because they didn’t want me banging on pie tins… yeah that lasted about a week and that was the end of that. The funny thing about that is that it’s the same accordion I’m playing on stage and on the Dirt Band recordings over the years. Crazy, uh? They don’t make them like that anymore.
HULICK: You currently have six guys in the band as opposed to the usual four since the band started way back. Why the change?
CARPENTER: Yes, we have six members right now. Over the years, depending upon what albums we made… well things change. The music morphed, we progressed then regressed and what happened was back in 2016 we added a bass player, Jim Photoglo, who wrote “Fishin' In The Dark” actually, and he’s played with a lot of great acts over the years. Jeff Hanna’s son was playing with Gary Allan at the time and Jeff’s always wanted to play with his kid. Jaime’s a really talented guy, so he came aboard and he lived across the street from this kid Ross Holmes, who was playing with Mumford & Sons and Bruce Hornsby... he came and sat in with us and there you go. There were no auditions or interviews or paperwork to fill out… we just started playing together and that’s how it ended up here with the current band. Then we went in in 2020 to do a record, which we thought was going to take about 10 days and it took almost two years because the pandemic got in the way. So we’re out here touring with that bunch right now.
HULICK: There are so many tours this summer with everybody getting back out there and being able to do a full tour this time around. I was talking to Joe Bonsall of the Oak Ridge Boys and he said there wasn’t a tour bus to be had, even if you searched for one.
CARPENTER: Joe and I went to high school together in Philadelphia and we didn’t know each other until we played with them at a show in Buffalo. We were sitting around the hotel room and we were one of those where’d you come from, where’d you go to high school and it turns out Joe and I were in the choir together and didn’t know each other. Isn’t that crazy? That’s true about the buses… the other thing that happened was since there were no tour buses going out all the bus drivers got jobs with Fed-Ex and other companies to get health care and benefits, so when we started touring again there were no bus drivers around. But everybody’s out there now. After 55 or 56 years we started wondering if we wanted to maybe take a year and a half off and then Covid hit and everybody was forced to take that time off… and oh my God we thought this is awful and what were we thinking. We couldn’t wait to get out there and play.
HULICK: One of those “be careful what you wish for scenarios”.
CARPENTER: Exactly!
HULICK: Your newest album, “Dirt Does Dylan” must be doing really well.
CARPENTER: Well we’re playing some songs on stage and we had a lot of fun making it, although it was tough because we were all in different places because of Covid and we couldn’t get on a plane. We did the best we could do. We got a lot of it done before Covid hit, but finishing it up was really tough. There were all sorts of problems involved, but we got it done and it was fun to do. The whole idea was the fact that Dylan was a great songwriter, but not too many people appreciate his music. His lyrics are hard to understand sometimes and his music doesn’t lend itself to the Dirt Band really… we had to dig really deep because his music doesn’t have three-part harmony, it doesn’t have a lot of the influence that we like that’s put into our music. So we had to really look for stuff that we thought would really suit the band.
HULICK: What made you guys come up with that idea?
CARPENTER: Well we hadn’t taken the new line-up of the band into the studio and we didn’t want to go in and start pulling teeth to try and do all original songs because we had never been in the studio as the six of us. So we decided to do something easy; we decided to concentrate on one songwriter and after we threw out a bunch of names we went with who’s got the deepest catalog we could pull from, and of course that’s Bob Dylan. Plus we all grew up with the guy... when we were all in high school we were sitting around with acoustic guitars playing his songs, so it was a natural fit… we were all familiar with a lot of the material.
HULICK: I read when you were in high school you went to see him and you only had to pay $4 for a ticket. (laughs) That’s crazy!
CARPENTER: (laughs) Yeah, and it was front row reserved seating.
HULICK: How did you choose the songs that went on the album? Did you each pick your favorites?
CARPENTER: Everybody picked like 30 songs and then some of them we agreed on. Then some of us had a song they had to do. There were songs that lent itself to Ross’ fiddle playing, like “Country Pie”. Some songs lent themselves to three-part harmony. So it was a long process. When we got into the studio we cut some tracks and we just thought this isn’t working, let’s dig a little deeper… let’s come up with something else. We cut the basic tracks in two different sessions that were basically 14 months apart, so we had a lot of time to reflect on this. We cut some tracks that we almost finished but didn’t put on the record, but that’s true with any project… you always cut more and use less… and you’re always thinking at the end we need something like this and you start rethinking things. So in that respect it was a normal process.
HULICK: You don’t really hear the word retirement as far as an artist's standpoint unless there are health issues or something like that, because most of the artists I’ve talked to are doing what they love and want to do, and to stop doing that I would imagine would be very difficult… we got a taste of that with Covid, and I think people are appreciating music even more now.
CARPENTER: You are exactly correct. As long as you can do it and you’re not up on stage embarrassing yourself by not being able to sing or play, why would you stop? People retire and they spend the time on hunting and fishing trips with their buddies… that’s what we’re doing out here.
HULICK: Are there any practical jokers in the band?
CARPENTER: Everybody. You gotta keep it light out there. As you know, musicians are just kids in bigger bodies. (laughs)
HULICK: (laughs) What can we expect for your show?
CARPENTER: What we’ve been doing this year is doing stuff from our very first single in 1967 and all the way up to a cut or two of our “Dirt Does Dylan” album. We’re also doing some of our country hits from the 80’s, at least one song from the three “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” albums and basically everything in between. We’re doing a taste of everything from all 57 years. Of course we have to do “Mr. Bojangles” and “Fishin’ In The Dark”, and we have a few surprises.
HULICK: Do you have a message for your fans that are coming out to see you?
CARPENTER: Yeah… thanks for coming out to see us so we can keep our jobs! (laughs) I can’t stress to you how important it is when people come out and see us… (laughs) I can’t overstate it.