Will the Circle be Unbroken - The Nity Gritty Dirt Band (with a Who's Who of the Bluegrass A Tier)
This was a 3 disc vinyl set.
Will the Circle be Unbroken is the seventh
album by the
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with collaboration from many famous
bluegrass and
country-western players, including
Roy Acuff, "Mother"
Maybelle Carter,
Doc Watson,
Earl Scruggs,
Randy Scruggs,
Merle Travis,
Pete "Oswald" Kirby,
Norman Blake,
Jimmy Martin, and others. It also introduced
fiddler Vassar Clements to a wider audience.
History[edit]
The album's title comes from
a song by
Ada R. Habershon (re-arranged by
A. P. Carter) and reflects how the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was trying to tie together two generations of musicians. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was a young country-rock band with a
hippie look. Acuff described them as "a bunch of long-haired West Coast boys." The other players were much older and more famous from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, primarily as old-time country and bluegrass players. Many had become known to their generation through the
Grand Ole Opry. However, with the rise of
rock-and-roll, the emergence of the commercial country's slick '
Nashville Sound,' and changing tastes in music, their popularity had waned somewhat from their glory years. Acuff was initially contemptuous of the project, but later relented and participated.
[3]
The album cover features an image of
Union general Fitz John Porter. Every track on the album was recorded on the first or second take straight to two-track masters, so the takes are raw and unprocessed[
citation needed]. Additionally, another tape ran continuously throughout the entire week-long recording session and captured the dialog between the players. On the final album, many of the tracks—including the first track—begin with the musicians discussing how to perform the song or who should come in where in any given portion of a song.
The record includes the first meeting of
Doc Watson and
Merle Travis, after whom Watson's son,
Merle, was named.
Bill Monroe, sixty years old at the time, refused to participate in the recordings.
[4]
Originally appearing in 1972 as a three
LP album and three-
cassette tape offering,
Will the Circle Be Unbroken was remastered and re-released in 2002 as a two
compact disc set. The original album was certified platinum by the RIAA on November 6, 1997, indicating shipments of 500,000 copies.
[5] It has sold 301,600 copies as of October 2019.
[6]
Much later, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded two subsequent albums,
Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two and
Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume III, in an attempt to repeat the process with other historically significant musicians.
Volume Two won the
Country Music Association's 1989 Album of the Year as well as three
Grammys. In 1990, the album was celebrated on the
PBS music television program
Austin City Limits, which featured a performance by the full ensemble of guests on the
Carter Family song,
Will The Circle Be Unbroken, from the original 1972 album.
[7]
more here if interested
