Back in 1971, when John McEuen and his Nitty Gritty Dirt Band went into the studio to record their seminal album “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” McEuen had a tape recorder running.
In that studio was the who’s who of those days in country/gospel/roots music — Doc and Merle Watson, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs and Mother Maybelle Carter among them — and McEuen wanted to capture every word they said.
“I imagined using it someday, but I didn’t know how,” the 72-year-old said from Florida earlier this week.
The recording sat there, collecting dust for decades as McEuen pursued a solo career in the 1980s during a prolonged hiatus from the Dirt Band. He returned in 2001 and picked up where the country-rock band had left off, but by the time their 50th anniversary tour rolled around in 2015-16, McEuen realized the band had probably run its course — or at least he had run his course with the band.
“They couldn’t agree on anything except where to eat,” he said of the California band he helped form in 1966. The band had “no future, just more of the same, and I like to live on the edge more.”
McEuen split from the band and dug up those old “Circle” session recordings and the photos they took in the studio.
He put them together in a multimedia show that pairs songs from “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” with Dirt Band classics and a handful of McEuen’s solo works, including cuts off his 2016 album “Made In Brooklyn.” The tour pulls into Fox Tucson Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 24.
“This is the most important show I’ve ever brought to the state,” McEuen said of Saturday’s show, which he also is taking to Mesa Arts Center on Friday, Feb. 23.
“People tell me it’s like they’re at the (1971 recording) sessions. It’s really fun. It’s the most fun I’ve had on stage in a long time.”
Digging back into his past with those recordings and then performing cuts off his new record bring McEuen’s career full circle in many ways.
Critics have said “Made In Brooklyn,” which is nominated for an Independent Music Awards Americana Album of the Year, is McEuen’s newest “Circle” because of its iconic cast of guest artists. Guitar great David Bromberg, jazz/folk legend David Amram, New Grass Revival frontman John Cowan and McEuen’s lifelong friend and fellow banjo player Steve Martin are among them.
The album of McEuen’s originals, with a couple classic covers including Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy,” also features Maybelle Carter’s grandson, John Carter Cash.
McEuen’s Circle Band — bass player and fellow Dirt Band founding member Les Thompson, John Cable on guitar and mandolin and McEuen’s longtime music collaborator Matt Cartsonis on vocals and mandola — join him for the Fox show, along with Arizona’s award winning bluesman/harmonica player Hans Olson.
