They’re still doing it. Even though Jeff Hanna is 76 and Jimmie Fadden is 75. Musicians never stop, unlike civilians. Everybody I know not in the music business is talking about retiring, or is already retired, whereas musicians ten or twenty years older are still plying the boards, because they love their jobs, along with that audience hit you can only get on stage.

Greetings from Vail, Colorado, where it is not as warm as it is in the rest of the country and there’s enough name brand entertainment to have you believe you’re living in a small city. Strasburg had String Cheese in Dillon on Wednesday, Thievery Corporation on Friday and Old Crow Medicine Show on Sunday in Vail and in Beaver Creek, they had the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on Saturday night. And the experience is much better up here in the mountains, because the venues are so much smaller. As for the economics…if you know anything about performing arts centers there are subsidies and boards and the bottom line is that the Vilar has 150 dates a year, and don’t forget that that the spring and fall, especially May and October, are shoulder season, and essentially dead.

Now if you want to see an act in the Spotify Top 50, the mountains are not the place. Acts can only play a limited number of gigs, and they focus on the metropoli, where there are more bodies and more money, then again in the mountains the locals may be struggling, but not the tourists.

So the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has survived by pivot. Instead of just doing the same thing over and over, they went from “Mr. Bojangles” to country roots with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” to smooth singer songwriter to country hits to…now. They’re still making albums. Is anybody paying attention?

No.

Which is why I was amazed when Jeff introduced the song “Bless the Broken Road,” as a Dirt Band original, from the overlooked album “Acoustic” from 1994. It was released by a major label, Liberty, but it wasn’t until Rascal Flatts recorded the song in 2005 that it went to number one, earning the Grammy for Best Country Song. You see a hit song is a hit song is a hit song. And that’s very different from a record. Some hit records are great songs and some are not. And a lot of today’s tracks may be hits, but no one would consider them great songs. A great song is so good that it doesn’t matter who sings it. Kind of like the Dirt Band’s opener “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” an unreleased Bob Dylan song that the Byrds used to open the groundbreaking “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and many others have covered. It might not have appeared on the charts, but it lives strongly in people’s hearts.

Another highlight of the show was the band’s performance of “An American Dream,” the Rodney Crowell-penned opening tune from their 1979 album of the same name. You see I own that record. I went on a three album run, before the band decamped for Nashville and the country sound, when the smooth singer-songwriter sound was a revered staple as opposed to an in-joke, like yacht rock. Denigrate it all you want, this sound is still selling tickets prodigiously, keeping the creators alive.

I would have been thrilled if they’d performed “Harmony,” from 1980’s “Make a Little Magic,” but I guess I’ll have to wait for that one. Then again I’m going to give you links to the Jeff Hanna/Bob Carpenter track sung by long-standing band member Carpenter, as was “Bless the Broken Road.”

“Whether I’m right or I’m wrong

Too weak or strong

Sure seems plain to me

Too young or old

Too shy or bold

We all need help

Just to move the stone”

These are the ashes from another generation, when love was still believed to conquer all, when we still believed we were all in it together.

I don’t think a cover would make the Spotify Top 50, maybe it could make it in the country market, but one thing for sure is this was a hit back in 1980, even though you couldn’t see it on the chart. Check it out:

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/3sp3md33

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/mwfurfrf

But at this late date we no longer expect to hear deep album cuts live, only the hits. So when you’re in the audience and hear a song you know by heart but don’t believe anyone else is aware of it’s a special thrill, it makes your night.

Not that it was only the songs, the musicianship was notable in its own right.

There was Ross Holmes on fiddle and mandolin, known for his work with Mumford and Songs and Bruce Hornsby, earning a well-deserved standing ovation for his efforts on an extended solo.

And Jeff’s son Jaime, who paid his dues with the Mavericks and Gary Allan, performed an extended acoustic guitar solo that thrilled me.

As for the bass…

I figured it was just some road guy, some Nashville cat hanging in the deep background. But it turned out to be soft rock staple Jim Photoglo, who was a staple of L.A.’s soft rock station KNX-FM, 93.1, when that sound was still a dominant force. Jim co-wrote the Dirt Band’s huge country hit “Fishin’ in the Dark” with Wendy Waldman, a number one for the band back in 1987.

Not to take anything away from drummer Jimmie Fadden. Who pounded the skins and played the harmonica simultaneously, a seemingly impossible feat. Also, Jimmie was really into it. As if it were still the sixties, when music was everything and to be a musician was to affect millions and elude the straits of standard life. We envied these people. They were anything but faceless.

And the band played a few songs from the three “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” sets, including the title cut, which as an encore bled into the Band’s “The Weight.”

That’s another song like “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” that everybody knows but was never a hit. Made it all the way up number 63, which means AM radio is not where most people were exposed to it.

Nor was so much of what we were addicted to even played on FM, these records are part of our DNA, they enriched our lives, they made us who we are.

So the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band goes on to another town. Playing to believers, those who remember when our music transcended everyday life, when it was life itself.

They’re still doing it and we’re still here. Much older, a bit battered, but young at heart, because we remember.

The music keeps us alive.

Well, that’s classic rock.

There’s so much info in the pipeline today that anything important oftentimes goes unheeded, or flows down the river with the overwhelming detritus of what is called internet news and most people remain unaware of it.

I wake up every morning and read the news on my phone and am agitated and inspired, wanting to point out stories/information I fear will go unnoticed. But then as the day goes on I slink back into my life and the information recedes and then, the next day, the whole process repeats. We live in what I’ve endlessly referred to as a Tower of Babel society, where we all listen to different music, watch different TV show, are exposed to different social media and big time media keeps telling us it’s the same as it ever was. According to big time media “Succession” is a hit on the level of “M.A.S.H.,” everybody saw the finale and it’s all the country can talk about. And Taylor Swift is as dominant as the Beatles or the Stones were in their era, never mind Culture Club and Duran Duran during the eighties and Nirvana in the nineties, when this is a complete falsehood. No act has that kind of penetration today, NONE! Which is another reason to ignore the manipulated charts published in media, tools of the labels, too often skewed by the sale of vinyl. The Republicans have nothing on record labels when it comes to disinformation.

Speaking of which, Elon Musk cried yesterday that Twitter had a 50% drop in advertising revenue and that this advertising deficit and heavy debt prevented the company from being cash flow positive. Now wait just a minute, isn’t this the same guy who told us all the advertisers were back and that Twitter was about to turn the corner? That’s Musk’s idea of freedom, the right to post outright lies on Twitter. What a great service!

And then there’s that story in today’s “New York Times,” talk about horrifying…

“Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025 – The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.”: https://tinyurl.com/mzznjpa9

Read some of this. That’s a free link. Scared yet? Most of the country not enough. Meanwhile, if Manchin runs under the No Labels banner it’s toast for Biden. I was at a family lunch last week and I asked the assembled Democrats who wanted Biden to run, and not a single person raised their hand. How can the DNC be so out of touch?

And then I segued to Emily Nussbaum’s article about Nashville in this week’s “New Yorker”: 

“Country Music’s Culture Wars and the Remaking of Nashville – Tennessee’s government has turned hard red, but a new set of outlaw songwriters is challenging Music City’s conservative ways—and ruling bro-country sound.”: https://tinyurl.com/67sxvsxu

This demands a read too. As an antidote to the claim that Nashville is the new Los Angeles, but more harmonious with more opportunities when it comes to music. And for the politics.

And classic rock rules.

Well, not exactly, but it’s experiencing a renaissance, rock’s streaming percentage is going UP!

“Why Is Rock So Big

“Overall, rock has grown most of any genre year over year in consumption units, with 11.2 million more units in 2023 over 2022. That growth, however, is almost entirely from catalog — 10.3 million of it, compared to 900,000 units of growth from current releases.”

That’s from the “Billboard,” behind a paywall. Once again, you’ve got to pay for news in 2023. The twenty five year old conception that everything is free online was and still is completely wrong.

R&B/Hip-Hop is still the number one genre, but rock is #2, and R&B/Hip-Hop’s numbers are going down, and rock’s are going up.

And as you can see in the above quote, the rock consumption is not being driven by new music, but old.

Wait just a second, wasn’t this old fart music in the rearview mirror with its creators in the grave or close to it, on their farewell tours?

Needless to say, you won’t get the idea that classic rock is so prevalent from the news media, populated by young writers who hate the past, make fun of the classic rockers and want to promote new music. But could it be that the new music is not as good, not as appealing as the old music?

Despite all the blather about Frank Sinatra today, he was the enemy until the late eighties and then the nineties. Sure, he had a couple of hits in the sixties, which we knew as a result of the all-dominant AM radio, but boomers gave him no respect and didn’t listen to him.

Bette Midler covered the Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” in 1972, but almost no boomer could sing another song from 1941.

The past was anathema, truly history.

But today…

The funny little thing is that the classic rockers bitching about streaming payouts are the same ones who are benefiting from streaming, it’s keeping their music alive! This didn’t happen in the past, records went out of production, they were not stocked by retailers, they faded away. But not today!

Today’s customers can sample/listen to anything, all they need is a hankering.

And, once again, rock’s resurgence is not based on new music:

“Consider the rankings in terms of current share: rock (10.32%) slides to third place, behind pop (10.69%) and barely ahead of country (10.16%), with Latin coming in fifth at 7.84%. And its current unit growth year over year of 900,000 is significantly behind country (4.5 million), world music (3.3 million) and Latin (2.5 million), although at least it’s still growing, while R&B/hip-hop and pop are not. ”

“Billboard”

Wow, new country music is nearly as big as new rock music! Because, as Tom Petty said in concert, today’s country music is the rock music of the seventies. Tom was decrying the marginalization of the classic country sound, but ultimately the melodies and changes and memorable choruses of today’s country, lifted straight from old rock, are what so many in the public cotton to.

This is not pop with one chord and literally no changes.

And it’s certainly not today’s rock. Hard-edged and marginal, cult music for the brain dead and those living in an alternative universe where the 21st century never happened.

Now I’m all for evolution, that’s what made rock so great. But if you were starting today, I’d begin with three chords and the truth. Melodies, bridges, singable choruses…all sung by someone with a palatable voice. It’s just like in politics, rock has gotten so far from the center that the whole world is distorted.

And you wonder why music gets no respect.

It’s a backwater of people creating brands. Afraid of their customers. Not willing to go on record about anything unless it’s the essence of their image.

But you won’t hear any of this in boardrooms.

At the labels, they scour social media to look for those who’ve already got a base who they can make stars, whereas in the heyday of classic rock the labels led, found new and different talent and promoted it. Steve Jobs said the public doesn’t know what it wants and it’s Apple’s obligation to deliver it. The labels have abdicated that power.

Quick, who runs the record company?

You don’t know and you don’t need to know. Sure, you’ve got Lucian Grainge and his triple-digit million payout and the successful Monte, but after that? There is no Jimmy Iovine, never mind Mo and Joe.

So…

Everything I’ve said here goes unreported in big media and the public has a skewed view of the music landscape.

Furthermore, rock is seen as dead. And it’s true, new rock is dead, because it skewed too far from the garden.

But if you get back there…

Is it any wonder Joni Mitchell is singing and triumphing again?

We’re not going back to Woodstock, then again a lot of those values built the modern music business, pay heed.

P.S. You can get a lot of this “Billboard” information as part of your Apple News+ subscription. Don’t be cheap, lay down the $9.99 a month.

Re: The Forgotten Girls

Bob as usual, whenever you delve into politics, you completely mis represent things  because you are a delusional follower of Marxism. That is absolutely not what conservative values are about. True these towns are screwed up for many different reasons, and conservative with money care, and help a poor person no matter what. Liberals on the other hand only line their pockets. Remember Black Lives Matter. No, of course you’ll spin it but we all know better or how about the green new deal where we’re going to use clean renewable energies even though we don’t even have a power grid to maintain our current state, let alone, adding millions of new electric vehicles, and other devices to the grid. You take every opportunity you can to push your Marxist propaganda and have lost at least 50 Percent of your audience. No maybe some still continue to subscribe like I do but you are a true piece of shit for using your platform to spread the elite Marxist propaganda. Fuck you is all I can say.

Respectfully
Johnny Vieira

“The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America”: https://tinyurl.com/mryc7n8c

This is the real “Hillbilly Elegy.”

If you want to understand the rural MAGA mentality, this is the place.

What we’ve got here is Clinton, Arkansas. Not Fayetteville, the hip Arkansas, not Little Rock, the urban Arkansas, but nowhere Arkansas, where people have no money, drop out of school when they’re pregnant and the cycle of poverty continues and everybody believes it’s God’s will and you will be saved by the Almighty.

It’s your responsibility. Even though you were born without advantages, and your hometown continues to go down the drain as the tax base craters and you entertain yourself with drugs and alcohol while you live a shortened life.

Deaths of despair. You’ll read about them in the elite press, now you’ll fully understand them.

Yes, the elite, the enemy. You hear politicians talk about the real America, American values, a return to when America was great? This is what they’re talking about. It’s not great at all, these people are being duped. Then again, they’ve got one advantage over almost half the country, they’re white, and that makes them superior, no matter what you think.

Now by this point those on the right side of the bench have already tuned out. But this book isn’t for them. Because either they don’t read books or they’re taking advantage of those being written about. Yes, lower taxes, all that hogwash, is benefiting them as it continues to hurt the base. Voting against your interests? This is the place!

So what we’ve got here is Monica Potts, yes, that’s her real name, and her best friend Darci. They’re smart, funny, the leaders of their class. But Monica goes one way, and Darci the other. Monica’s mom wants her to get out, and Darci’s mom? She exercises no control over Darci, she’s serving her husband, not that Darci would listen. Then there’s the mother who lets her daughter get married at fifteen to get her out of town, believing she is saving her. Monica stays on the straight and narrow, but as Darci hits high school, she goes boy crazy (the book’s term, don’t think I’m holier-than-thou, judging here), and starts to party with ever older boys (men), and school becomes secondary…

If you grew up where I did, in the suburbs in the fifties and sixties, you’ll marvel how different this is. I was born knowing I was going to college. My parents tolerated little. I had to do well in school. It wasn’t that it was strict, there was plenty of fun, but the goals were clear, life was laid out in front of me, become a professional, or else…

Living in California I’ve told all my friends that their kids should apply to the elite schools, assuming they’re qualified, because if they get in, the school will foot the bill. They didn’t believe me. They saw those price tags and blanched. Better to go to the state school. Almost no one is leaving Arkansas to go to school. And then there are people who never leave Arkansas whatsoever, I mean why?

But Monica falls into the east coast system by accident. Spends a summer in NYC at Barnard. And ends up going to Bryn Mawr, only because her mother had heard of it, she hadn’t and had never been there until she stepped foot on campus. But it changed her life. Because once you’re on the leafy grounds you’re coddled, the administration cares about you, there are all these services, mental health and more. As for therapy, it’s a sign of weakness, don’t you know?

And the city… Everybody says not to go, it’s a hellhole. This is what they’ve been told, growing up and from Fox News. You can’t stay alive in the city, you’ll be robbed and killed, better to stay home where you are safe, where you die from drugs and alcohol and other misadventures.

This is not a hard book to read. And people are reading it. But I wish more would. I learned more about the rural, MAGA mentality in the few hours it took to read “The Forgotten Girls” than I ever have reading “The New York Times,” “The New Yorker” or watching Fox News. This is a report from the heartland, someone who actually lived there, who grew up there. This is not a reporter taking notes with an agenda.

Monica got out, went to Bryn Mawr and Columbia Journalism School. But she moved back to Clinton. Now works remotely for 538. She’s back there, she reported this story.

And it’s not histrionic, not over the top dramatic, but ultimately you’ll learn more from “The Forgotten Girls” than “Educated.”

“Educated” is a horror movie. “The Forgotten Girls” is a train-wreck. “Educated” blows your mind, whereas “The Forgotten Girls” sinks in gradually and then stays with you, because these people aren’t rawly batsh*t crazy, but they’re not like you or me, unless you live in these circumstances.

Now the book is peppered with studies, facts, it’s not pure narrative. Which lends authority, but makes the book just a bit more difficult to read. But don’t let that turn you off. If you want to know what is going on with all those blind Trump-lovers, the people who support the elected officials and their nonsense in the House of Representatives, whose positions seem looney-tunes and can’t be changed, you need to read “The Forgotten Girls.” Not as a sentence, this is not schoolwork, this is not an assignment… It’s just fascinating. See how the other half lives.