TOP 40 DEBUT: January 12, 1980
PEAK POSITION: #13 (March 1, 1980)
If you had a name as great as “The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,” why on Earth would you change it? And secondly, why would you switch it to something as lame as “The Dirt Band”? These aren’t theoretical questions—or at least they weren’t theoretical in the summer of 1977, when one of the more freewheeling country collectives of the day decided to make a hard left turn towards soft rock, complete with a truly stupefying name change. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band had just wrapped a tour of historic proportions, playing 28 sold-out shows in the Soviet Union as the first American act allowed behind the Iron Curtain. Their first hits collection, the triple album Dirt, Silver and Gold, had only been released months earlier. At their highest moment of visibility-to-date, the group surveying an entire decade of existence, realized nothing was broken—and decided to fix things anyway.
Less than three years later, the rechristened Dirt Band scored their biggest pop hit in almost a decade, while nearly matching their previous peak on the country charts to boot. And they did it with a song that hewed way closer to mainstream country than anything resembling “rock,” soft or otherwise. I’m not suggesting the ends justified the means here. But it’s a whole lot easier to overlook a few bad decisions when they result in a single as lovely and unassuming as “An American Dream.”
Multi-instrumentalists Jeff Hanna and Bruce Kunkel founded the original Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1966 in Long Beach, California, pulling in additional musicians (including harmonica player Jimmie Fadden) via informal jam sessions. The group initially performed in typical jug band fashion; members would play washboard, kazoo, and washtub bass, usually while wearing pinstripe suits and cowboy boots. A very young Jackson Browne passed through the ranks, before quitting to focus on his own songwriting. (Browne will be appearing on this site, so you can safely assume his decision paid off.) He was replaced by John McEuen, whose skills on a variety of instruments—banjo, mandolin, fiddle—gradually steered the sextet into more traditional bluegrass material. The early Nitty Gritty albums tended to fluctuate wildly between contemporary folk rock and 1920s standards, saddling the group with a (somewhat) undeserved reputation as a novelty act.
Everything changed with 1972’s Will The Circle Be Unbroken, a landmark recording now regarded as one of the defining country albums of the last fifty years. (It’s in the National Recording Registry, too.) Across three vinyl records and 38 songs, the NGDB effectively reframed the entire history of country music for a new, younger audience, mixing contemporary compositions with classics from Hank Williams and the Carter Family in raw, unvarnished fashion. Simply shining a light on the forgotten works of Jimmy Driftwood or Fred Rose would’ve been a noble undertaking on its own. But the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band went one better: They invited the music’s actual architects to participate.
The roster of guests on Will The Circle Be Unbroken included Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, and countless others, legends of country and bluegrass who’d fallen out of fashion as the slicker “Nashville sound” took over the airwaves. And they didn’t just play from the sidelines. The NGDB put them front and center, turning nearly every lead performance over to an elder statesman. Before too long, the country community started to pay attention: A cover of Williams’ “I Saw The Light,” sung by Roy “King Of Country Music” Acuff, reached #56 on the Country Singles chart, while the album itself garnered multiple Grammy nominations and went gold. (It’s now platinum.) Twenty-eight years before O Brother, Where Are Thou?, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band got there first—and with the original cast to boot.
Prior to the release of Circle, Nashville had made a point of ignoring the NGDB completely, dismissing them alongside the other “long-haired hippies” of country rock like Poco or the Flying Burrito Brothers. (It probably didn’t help matters that the band’s biggest single, the #9 “Mr. Bojangles,” landed closer to John(ny) Denver than Johnny Cash.) Following Circle, Nashville quickly went back to ignoring them again. By 1975, the NGDB were a non-entity at country radio, while their pop audience had mostly vanished as well. Short of mounting multiple tours in Communist countries, the only viable alternative was wholesale change.
1978 saw Hanna, Fadden, and McEuen modernizing the Dirt Band lineup to match their newly streamlined name. A saxophonist shared space with an additional keyboardist and a new rhythm section. McEuen’s role got reduced, along with the group’s bluegrass elements. Fadden played National steel and syndrums. The resulting album, The Dirt Band, crapped out at #163 and pleased no one. Weirdly, the group still found a way back to the pop charts: Under the name “The Toot Uncommons,” they backed up Steve Martin—and shared billing—on his million-selling single “King Tut.” (Somehow, Martin took “King Tut” all the way to #17 in August 1978. It’s a 4.) It was a confusing time in America. It was a confusing time to be in the Dirt Band.
A year later, “An American Dream” brought the group back to the Top 20, but this time without gimmicks: No novelty tunes. No synthetic drums. Nothing but a well-written song, well played and well executed. Billboard classifies “An American Dream” as pop, but from a non-chart perspective, it’s as country as any self-contained track released by the Dirt Band up to that point. That’s because they borrowed it from an actual country legend.
Rodney Crowell is now regarded as one of the great modern songwriters of country music, a Grammy-winning musician and a 2003 member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. But back in ’78, he was just another young artist struggling to break into the Nashville hierarchy. Ain’t Living Long Like This, his debut album for Warner Brothers, failed to chart upon its release, despite the presence of heavy hitters (Willie Nelson, Ricky Scaggs, Emmylou Harris) on multiple tracks. But artists within the community took notice.
Crowell’s compositions soon began to get covered by Waylon Jennings, Rosanne Cash, Jerry Jeff Walker—and even John Denver. (Sixteen years later, Alan Jackson took “Song For The Life,” one of Living’s deep cuts, to #6 Country.) By early 1980, two different artists had connected on two different formats with songs from Crowell’s debut: “Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight,” a #1 country single for the Oak Ridge Boys, and “An American Dream,” a #13 pop hit for the Dirt Band.
It’s a credit to Crowell’s songwriting talent—and the Dirt Band’s good taste—that the hit version of “An American Dream” barely differs in feel or temperament from the 1978 original. The tempo is accelerated slightly; the production smooths over a few more edges. But Jeff Hanna delivers his lovely, understated vocal mainly by taking cues from Crowell, and the rest of his bandmates follow suit, proving the Dirt Band did eventually learn the value of leaving a good thing alone. The most blatant difference? Crowell’s original title of “Voilá, An American Dream” loses one word—and is markedly improved as a result. (Credit to the Dirt Band for nailing this whole “shorten a name” process on the second try.)
Sonically, “An American Dream” slots halfway between the rising “country pop” sound of 1980s Nashville and the California version of soft rock. So the overly clean production is definitely period accurate, if a trifle annoying to modern ears. I could also take the Dirt Band to task for subcontracting lead guitar duties out to a session guy, rather than letting one of the three guitarists in their five-man lineup handle the task—except that Tony Haselden, the man playing all those dancing, double-stopped lines, might be the MVP of the entire track.
The other contender? Linda Ronstadt, the voice behind those lovely, effortless female harmonies. Technically, she’s reprising a part originally sung by Crowell’s old friend (and former boss) Emmylou Harris, meaning the hit version simply subbed one legend for another. (Don’t make me choose between Linda and Emmylou.) From a commercial standpoint, though, the Dirt Band upgraded. In 1979, Harris was largely unknown outside country circles. Ronstadt, coming off back-to-back #1 albums on the Billboard 200, ranked among the biggest pop singers in the country. The Dirt Band didn’t have to overly sweeten Crowell’s song to make it work for Top 40 radio; they just needed to nail the marketing.
Another change that probably worked in the Dirt Band’s favor? Taking the subtle island lilt of the Crowell version and making it explicit. These days, adding a “beach vibe” to a basic three-chord composition is just another tool in the arsenal of the modern country artist. (Ask Kenny Chesney or Zac Brown.) Back in ’79, utilizing that device put you smack dab in Jimmy Buffett territory. In defense of the Dirt Band, “An American Dream” leans into its island overtones for actual artistic reasons. I realize Crowell’s lyrics initially scan as a Royal Caribbean ad campaign: “I think Jamaican in the moonlight/ Sandy beaches drinkin' rum every night.” Scratch the surface, though, and the true meaning is significantly cleverer—and darker.
The song’s narrator is never going to Jamaica. He’s never even leaving his house. From just the opening lines, the daydreaming conceit becomes obvious: “I beg your pardon, momma/ What did you say?/ My mind was drifted off on Martinique Bay.” All that talk of Jamaica is pure fantasy, a distraction from the dead-end reality of life in Augusta, Georgia. (I’ve been to Augusta a few times. I tend to agree with Crowell. It’s “no place to be.”) Even his “split the difference” compromise of vacationing in Coconut Grove (a nine-hour drive now, and probably longer in ‘79) feels impossibly out-of-reach for two people with no money, no means, and no way to improve their situation.
Every time Hanna and Ronstadt hit that chorus, I picture a married couple: probably old, almost definitely redneck (or, to use the song’s era-appropriate parlance, “hillbilly”). They’re drinking warm beer on a Saturday night, sitting in lawn chairs parked outside their trailer home, maybe moving under the overhang once the rain starts. They’re soaking in the lights of the convenience store across the road, and wishing. They’re wishing hard. “Voila! An American dream/ Well we can travel girl without any means/ When it's as easy as closin’ your eyes/ And dream Jamaica is a big neon sign.”
On one hand, I doubt the narrator is being entirely serious. He’s making a joke, like old married couples do, and indulging in a little harmless escapism. Many would find that charming. But I suspect Crowell was aiming for a heavier point: namely, the way the “American dream” too often boils down to nothing more than mutually acknowledged delusion. And that’s not charming. That’s heartbreaking.
After the success of “An American Dream,” it didn’t take long for the Dirt Band to realize they’d landed on a winning formula. They would return to the charts within months, thanks to another smooth country-pop song featuring another female vocalist from the world of Top 40 radio. Nor would they be the only mainstream act to mine Crowell’s catalog for hidden treasures. Within a few short years, a legendary rocker from Detroit would be taking a different Rodney Crowell song to the upper reaches of the Hot 100.
GRADE: 7/10
BONUS BITS: I rarely resort to live clips in this space, but there’s no video for this song and no significant covers of note. Plus, it’s a real treat hearing the song’s writer team up with the (back to the Nitty Gritty) Dirt Band and the amazing Alison Krauss on the same stage. Enjoy.