In January 2024, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band announced All the Good Times: The Farewell Tour, their final bow after 60 years of country music. They’ve kept the good times rolling since, extending the tour first into 2025 and now into 2026. Recently, the “Mr. Bojangles” musicians set a date for their final farewell.
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According to their official website, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will hang it all up June 18 at Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado. However, fans will have several opportunities to catch them on the road before then, as the six-time Country Music Association Award winner kick off the spring leg of their tour on April 9 at Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, New York.
Along with special guests Meels, Kathleen Edwards, Molly Tuttle, and Brit Taylor, the band will make stops in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, and Utah.
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The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band May Not Be Gone Forever
In 1962, Jeff Hanna and Jimmie Fadden founded the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band in Long Beach, California. Five years later, they released their self-titled debut album, which featured their first chart hit, “Buy for Me the Rain.” In 1972, they released the generation-defining album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, a collaboration with some of country music’s biggest names such as Roy Acuff, “Mother” Maybelle Carter, and Earl Scruggs.
Initially leaning more into folk and soft rock, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band began migrating toward country music in the 1980s. In 1984, they had their first No. 1 country single with the Rodney Crowell-penned “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream).”
Six decades, 25 studio albums, and numerous awards later, Hanna and Fadden are the only original members still standing. The rest of the lineup includes Hanna’s son Jaime, Bob Carpenter, Ross Holmes and Jim Photoglo.
As Jeff Hanna, now 78, recently told Bill Graham of the American Blues Scene, this doesn’t necessarily mean good-bye forever.
“We’re gonna try to create opportunities that you’ll still be able to see the band,” Hanna said. “Maybe doing a residency here or there, or the odd festival or one off this and that. But just not the full-time job part of what it has been.“
Celebrating Six Decades
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s May 13 show at the Grand Ole Opry is a special one. As Hanna said, that date marks 60 years since the band’s “first sort of professional gig where they actually paid us in dollars rather than pizza.”
“There’s a few tunes that we’re gonna dust off on this final run that we haven’t played in a few years,” he added with a grin. “I won’t tell you what they are.“
Featured image by R. Diamond/WireImage
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