Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Big 2022: Dylan Covers Album, Tour
by Best Classic Bands Staff
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band have released Dirt Does Dylan, a 10-track album highlighting songs from Bob Dylan’s catalog. The recording, which arrived on May 20, 2022, features three new band members alongside founders Jeff Hanna and Jimmie Fadden, and Bob Carpenter, who joined in 1980: fiddler Ross Holmes; singer-songwriter and bass player Jim Photoglo (who wrote one of the Dirt Band’s biggest hits, “Fishin’ in the Dark”) and Hanna’s son, singer and guitarist Jaime Hanna.
Produced and recorded by Ray Kennedy at Room & Board Studio in Nashville, Dirt Does Dylan, says a Apr. 7 press release, “finds a generation-spanning Dirt Band paying an appropriately great tribute to arguably the greatest songwriter of the 20th century with the help of friends like Jason Isbell, the War & Treaty, Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash.” Listen to many of the tracks below.
The video for “I Shall Be Released” features sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell—better known as blues-rock duo Larkin Poe—singing, with Megan also contributing lap steel guitar.
Watch the band record “I Shall Be Released” in its official music video
On “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” the Dirt Band are joined by Rosanne Cash, Michael and Tanya Trotter of the duo The War and Treaty, Earle, and Isbell on vocals and slide guitar.
On “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” founder Jimmie Fadden shares vocals with Jeff Hanna and plays a signature harp solo.
Dirt Does Dylan Track Listing
1. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You
2. Girl from the North Country
3. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
4. Country Pie
5. I Shall Be Released (ft. Larkin Poe)
6. She Belongs to Me
7. Forever Young
8. The Times They Are A-Changin’ (ft. Rosanne Cash, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle, and The War and Treaty)
9. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
10. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
Here’s their version of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
Listen to their joyful cover on the album’s closer
Watch the band’s performance of “Forever Young”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band 2022 Tour Dates (Tickets are available here and here)
Apr 30 – Hopewell, VA – Beacon Theatre
May 01 – Wilkesboro, NC – MerleFest 2022
May 13 – Lancaster, PA – American Music Theatre
May 14 – New York, NY – City Winery
May 15 – Philadelphia, PA – City Winery
May 19 – Mankato, MN – Vetter Stone Amphitheatre
May 20 – Papillion, NE – Sumtur Amphitheater
May 21 – Chesterfield, MO – Chesterfield Amphitheatre
May 22 – Louisville, KY – Iroquois Amphitheater
Jun 09 – Eureka Springs, AR – Eureka Springs City Auditorium
Jun 10 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater
Jun 11 – Salina, KS – Stiefel Theatre for the Perf. Arts
Jun 23 – Pueblo, CO – Pueblo Memorial Hall
Jun 24 – Grand Junction, CO – Country Jam 2022
Jun 25 – North Platte, NE – Nebraskaland Days
Jul 04 – Las Vegas, NV – Fremont Street Experience
Jul 14 – Davenport, IA – Rhythm City Casino Resort
Jul 15 – Decorah, IA – Winneshiek County Fair
Jul 16 – Chicago, IL – City Winery
Jul 21 – Marietta, OH – Peoples Bank Theatre
Jul 22 – Shipshewana, IN – Blue Gate Performing Arts Center
Jul 23 – Twin Lakes, WI – Country Thunder Wisconsin 2022
Jul 24 – Bayfield, WI – Big Top Chautauqua
Aug 03 – McMinnville, OR – Yamhill County Fair & Rodeo
Aug 04 – Boise, ID – The Egyptian Theatre
Aug 05 – Park City, UT – Dore Center for the Perf. Arts
Aug 06 – Bellvue, CO – Mishawaka Amphitheatre
Aug 11 – Bismarck, ND – Belle Mehus Auditorium
Aug 12 – Hinckley, MN – Grand Country Nights 2022
Aug 13 – South West Fargo, ND – Lights Amphitheater
Aug 18 – Three Forks, MT – Headwaters Country Jam 2022
Aug 19 – Rexford, MT – Abayance Bay Marina
Aug 25 – Alto, NM – Spencer Theater for the Perf. Arts
Aug 26 – Alto, NM – Spencer Theater for the Perf. Arts
Aug 27 – Gilbert, AZ – Higley Center for the Perf. Arts
Aug 28 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
Sep 01 – Atlanta, GA – City Winery Atlanta
Sep 02 – Orange Park, FL – Thrasher-Horne Center
Sep 03 – Mill Spring, NC – The Earl Scruggs Music Festival 2022
Sep 17 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
Nov 04 – Clearwater, FL – Bilheimer Capitol Theatre
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3 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationThe NGDB may not have achieved the commercial successes of the Eagles, Poco, Buffalo Springfield, etc., but for my money, they are every bit, and perhaps more so, one of the best ensembles of true musicians/musicianship and creative song interpretors, that Americana music has produced in the past 50 years.
This is especially true of their “classic” line-up of Jeff Hanna, jimmy Ibbotson, John McEuen, Jimmie Fadden (not to omit Les Thompson and Rob Carpenter; pre- and -post).
After seeing the NGDB in the Fall of 1974, at my college, I bought the “Stars and Stripes Forever” LP, which they were touring to support at that time, along with the critically celebrated “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” ground-breaking crossover recording.
It was, and still is, one of the favorites in my collection, along with their compiled Greatest Hits collection.
The NGDB has always been a wonderful group. Great singing, great playing, and great entertainers. I love the fact that they’re covering Dylan songs. (Dylan cannot sing a lick and he’s a horrible entertainer, but he writes great songs.) I look forward to seeing the band live again later this year.
Well I’m just gonna say he’s a great entertainer whose singing has diminished in voice but that is what you would expect from a man who has just turned 80 years old and with this greater gift we all now have even better wow many facets and personas of a six decade plus and continuing legacy. How cool is this that we get a man, and living legend artist that’s still doing what’ Beatles did after he was already hear and stones and most of them are gone sad to say. Elvis seen and even the great cash family June and John but boy going to also say that’s just poppycock and not at all the big picture. There’s another form of Dylan for those who don’t know he’s actually a great version of himself in every aspect in any period in his career and he adapts to the time as they change and everybody knows that the times are a changing they always do and he writes about the times in the way he’s seen people feel and the way he feels and people realize that right now so then don’t listen to his music If you don’t dig it or dog his music if you don’t like it then don’t listen to it so I’m not gonna take back what I said and say he can sing. This is just another version of him at this period in whatever time you decide you think he’s a great entertainer or not it’s just another version of Dylan
You might think that there’s many Dylan‘s or maybe it’s only one doing that doesn’t sound good now but I’m telling you my opinion he’s going to stand he’s gonna stand true there’s many Dylan’s over many time periods and they’re all going to sound fine to me because I’ve realized it Dylan‘s gonna sound different all the time but that’s because that’s the way it is and if you don’t like it well then don’t listen to them and if you don’t like it you don’t got a listen to it either but I’m telling you there’s many different personas and many different personalities of Bob Dylan the man and I’m telling you Bob’s happy with it and if he wasn’t happy with it he probably won’t tell you either but he’s happy with his current album he’s happy with his current tour otherwise he wouldn’t be in a never ending tour again from 2021 to 2024 and if he saw you In person he’d probably have a mind to kick you in the face for talking trash for our country’s living hero in Nobel for poetry and literature and a pulitzer for impacting popular music and American culture as he “knows what he knows” and he knows it you don’t like his voice and wanted to tell him but I’m not going to town to tell Bob Dylan. Deal with it but I’ll tell you this he is a great entertainer and he is a great singer you need to look through the lines NO read between the lines and just appreciate who he is by the way that’s enough said that’s Bob Dylan I’ve only seen him 24 times in which I wish it was a lot more but time flies and what do I know.