RAMBLIN ROUND: When 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken' brought country and rock together

Aug. 15—Sure, there have been lots of impressive double albums delivered by musical artists throughout the years — but to make a really impressive triple album is something else again.

It something few artists have even tried — with some notable exceptions.

Last week's Ramblin' covered a couple of triple albums helmed by George Harrison: "All Things Must Pass" and "The Concert for Bangladesh." Harrison wasn't the only one who recorded a triple album around that time.

Out in California, an acoustic band that was then classified under the rock mantle was about to travel to Nashville to record what would prove to be one of the most groundbreaking albums ever made — not by pioneering new sounds, but by looking back at the musical pioneers of another era. As their career continued, they would even go on to have a McAlester connection.

"Will the Circle Be Unbroken" is more thanthe name of the famed A.P. Carter song used to close countless music concerts and festivals, often as an ensemble and audience sing-along. It's also the name of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's triple album, that would do as much as Waylon and Willie and the boys did to bring together the then-often separate audiences of country and rock music.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band first found major success in 1970, with their album, "Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy," which included songs from other artists who no doubt appreciated the success the band had in getting their songs before the record-buying public.

"Some of Shelly's Blue" came from Michael Nesmith, who found worldwide fame as a member of the Monkees, but who also scored hits when other artists recorded his songs, such as Linda Ronstadt did when she hit with Nesmith's song "Different Drum."

Another hit came from Kenny Loggins, when the Nitty Gritty Dirt scored with "House on Pooh Corner" — yep, a song about Winnie the Pooh and his compadres in the Hundred Acre Wood.

The album's biggest hit came from Jerry Jeff Walker — the transplanted New York folk singer who would go on to become a stalwart member of the so-called outlaw-progressive country music scene primarily based in and around Austin, Texas at the time.

Although Jerry Jeff had written "Mr. Bojangles," his own recording about a down on his luck tap dancer he met in in a cell in New Orleans never really took off until the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band released their version of it from their "Uncle Teddy" album. While it peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 11, it's never gone away since then.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with their acoustic sound, including mandolin, guitar, fiddle, banjo, bass, drums and harmonica, gave the song just what it needed. While playing on the folk/bluegrass/country/rock circuit, they met some older musicians whom they had long admired, including Earl Scruggs, who at the time was no longer performing with Lester Flatt as part of Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys.

Instead, he had teamed with his sons, Randy Scruggs and Earl Scruggs, to form the Earl Scruggs Revue, which I was lucky enough to see perform once in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, at festival which also included the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Members of the Dirt Band also go to know the legendary guitarist Doc Watson.

John McEuen, the fiddler, banjoist and guitarist with the Dirt Band asked Watson and Scruggs if they would consider recording with them. When they both agreed, members of the Dirt Band and their manager decided to expand the project and ask other purveyors of what is sometimes called old-time music if they would come on board as well.

They weren't seeking out the then-contemporary country music artists such as Merle Haggard or Buck Owens to join them in the studio. Rather, they went for the country music performers of a generation before, who weren't selling millions of records, but were still highly-respected as artists.

They sought out Maybelle Carter, the pioneering singer and guitarist with the original Carter Family, which consisted of herself, A.P. Carter and Sara Carter, who by that time mainly performed with her daughters, June, Anita and Helen Carter in another version of the Carter Family that often toured with Johnny Cash.

An initially reluctant Roy Acuff agreed to sign on for the project, along with Oklahoma singer, songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire, Merle Travis, bluegrasser Jimmy Martin. Fiddle-great Vassar Clements signed on , as did Pete "Oswald" Kirby, the Dobro player who was part of Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys.

They all got together for three days in Nashville, where they recorded the three-disc LP "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."

It proved to be a treasure trove of old-time country and bluegrass music, the kind of stuff you would seldom hear on the radio. In those pre-internet days, it also provided singers and bands with three albums worth of songs to learn, if they didn't already know them.

It included Maybelle Carter singing "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" and "Keep on the Sunny Side" — songs that had been recorded by the original Carter Family at the dawn of country music industry.

Merle Travis sang his own tribute to coal miners, "Dark As a Dungeon," while Doc Watson offered his take on "Tennessee Stud."

One of my favorite tracks proved a revelation when I learned that in addition to being a virtuoso on the banjo, Earl Scruggs also played a beautiful guitar, as shown on his guitar-picking on "You Are My Flower," another Carter Family song.

Earl Scruggs even handled the guitar-playing duties when Maybelle Carter sang the classic Carter Family song, "Wildwood Flower," while Maybelle — a guitar virtuoso herself who created the style known as the "Carter Scratch"— opted to play autoharp on the track.

Along with McEuen, other members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, including Jeff Hanna, Jimmy Ibbotson, Jimmie Fadfen and Les Thompson, played as backing musicians on many of the tracks, as well as cutting some of their own, including rousing versions of Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues" and "Honky Tonkin."

Bluegrasser Jimmy Martin contributed "Sunny Side of the Mountain, while Acuff's rendition of Hank's "I Saw the Light" would garner a Grammy nomination.

The album closed — well almost — with the entire ensemble gathering for a great finale of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."

I say almost because Randy Scruggs closed the album with an instrumental rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Both Side Now," underscoring the album's theme.

It proved so successful the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band went on to record "Will the Circle Be Unbroken Volume Two," followed by "Volume III."

An enduring work, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" went Platinum in 1997, won induction into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is preserved by the Library of Congress as a landmark recording. Most recently it featured in a major segment of the PBS program "Ken Burns Country Music" in 2019, with, of course, an all-star ensemble performing the song on the stage of Nashville's fabled Ryman Auditorium.

In 1999, multi-instrumentalist John McEuen, who started things rolling on the "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" album when he asked Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson to record with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, was no longer with the group, but performing as a solo artist.

Promoter Chris Clark brought him to McAlester to perform as part of a series of concerts going on during the city's 1999 Centennial celebration. McEuen played a benefit performance at The Icehouse to benefit the family of Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Rocky Eales, who had been fatally shot while helping OHP's Tactical Team conduct a drug raid near Sallisaw.

Following his performance at The Icehouse, McKuen stuck around McAlester when he learned that Willie Nelson would be performing on the outdoor stage at the Expo Center, when the News-Capital brought Willie brought to McAlester as part of the Expo Center festivities.

McEuen joined Willie and his Family and onstage for a couple of songs, showing he was still giving his all to see the circle will stay unbroken.

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.