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Will the Circle Be Unbroken is the seventh studio album by American country music group The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with collaboration from many famous bluegrass and country-and-western players, including Roy Acuff, "Mother" Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Randy Scruggs, Merle Travis, Pete "Oswald" Kirby, Norman Blake, Jimmy Martin ...
Norman Blake/Tut Taylor/Sam Bush/Butch Robins/Vassar Clements/David Holland/Jethro Burns is a studio album recorded by American musicians Norman Blake, Tut Taylor, Sam Bush, Butch Robins, Vassar Clements, and Jethro Burns and British bassist Dave Holland. It was released in 1975.
Feb 10, 2017 · Blake played guitar on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline in 1968, one of the founding albums of country-rock; on John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain in 1971, which marked the beginning of Newgrass; and on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken in 1972, which sold approximately as many copies as there were college students in America ...
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s album, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” was by any standard a unique undertaking, simultaneously a commercial release in the popular music marketplace and a consciously historical project.
- Music Career
- Discography
- External Links
Early performing
Blake was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and grew up in Sulphur Springs, Alabama. He listened to old-time and country music on the radio by the Carter Family, the Skillet Lickers, Roy Acuff, and the Monroe Brothers (Charlie and Bill Monroe). He learned guitar at age 11 or 12, then mandolin, dobro, and fiddlein his teens. When he was 16, he dropped out of school to play music professionally. In the 1950s, Blake joined the Dixieland Drifters and performed on radio broadcasts, then joined the L...
Nashville and Johnny Cash
After being discharged from the Army, Blake moved to Nashville and became a studio musician. For ten years, he toured and recorded with country singer Johnny Cash and continued to play with Cash intermittently over the next thirty. He met Nancy Short, a cellist with a classical music background who was playing in a folk group. He was asked by Bob Dylan to play on the country-folk album Nashville Skyline, then became a member of the house band on Johnny Cash's TV show. Kris Kristofferson, one...
Style
Most of the music that Norman Blake plays could be described as neo-traditionalist Americana folk and roots music (folk, bluegrass, country, blues), and many of the songs he plays are traditional, but he plays this acoustic type of music with a style, speed, and quality that has evolved and progressed in the modern age. Though probably best known for his fluid renditions of classic fiddle tunes transcribed for the guitar ("Fiddler's Dram/Whiskey Before Breakfast"), Blake has also written song...
Home in Sulphur Springs (Rounder, 1972)The Fields of November (Flying Fish, 1974)Norman Blake and Red Rector (County, 1976)Discography Archived November 27, 2016, at the Wayback MachineOct 3, 2023 · Will the Circle be Unbroken was the seventh studio album by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, with collaboration from many famous country and bluegrass notables afore mentioned plus Pete “Oswald” Kirby, Randy Scruggs, Norman Blake, Tut Taylor, and others.
Jul 28, 2022 · For fifty years, John McEuen has been talking about Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1972 bluegrass magnum opus. Now he's written a book about it, and Will The Circle...
