on February 02, 2010, 12:16:00 PM
by Marv-El
Will the Circle Be Unbroken Volume II , Nitty Gritty Dirt BandReleased May 1, 1989
Length 62:19
Producer: Randy Scruggs and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
If you don’t like country, keep reading. Although the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, maybe the last of the clumsily-named hippie bands, had carved its own niche as alt-country before that term came to be, they proved their dedication with this album’s predecessor, Volume I, released in 1972. This one, released in 1989, is The Empire Strikes Back: the audience knows what to expect and expects much more. Volume III, released in 2002, is Return of the Jedi, but that’s another story.
 The guys in the band were a traditional country band, playing mandolin and banjo as well as plenty of guitars, and they had no problem keeping up with the fantastic guests they invited for this, a second living document of the state of the art of country music. The first volume had focused on Mother Maybelle Carter and to a lesser extent on her family, which extends to include Johnny Cash, June Carter, Roseanne Cash, and Marty Stuart. This volume refocuses on a slightly later generation, where Johnny takes center stage (although Roy Acuff reappears, in one of his last recordings). Other guests include Chet Atkins, Bernie Leadon, and Vassar Clements in the studio band and soloists and featured players like John Denver, Jimmy Martin (“the King of Bluegrass”), Levon Helm, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman, John Hiatt, Bruce Hornsby, and Emmylou Harris.
So what does this add up to? A snapshot of where country stood twenty years ago, with folk-rock staples like Denver, McGuinn and Hillman; Helm, the countriest rocker who ever lived; bluegrass/jazz/pop oddball Hornsby; and standout modern Western singer Michael Martin Murphey proving that country was neither the ghettoized “hillbilly” trash of yesteryear, nor the bad rock’n’roll that has dominated the airwaves for the last thirty years. It’s Johnny Cash bookending the project with his granite-solid lead-in to Life’s Railway to Heaven, joined by Earl Scruggs’ inimitable guitar, and the first verse of the title track, picking up where his in-laws left off and joined by the entire cast. In between the album (a Grammy-winner in 1990) gives you a classic character sketch in John Prine’s Grandpa Was a Carpenter, Ricky Skaggs’ modern spiritual Little Mountain Church House, the former Byrds’ duet on You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (more beautiful than ever with their aged-to-perfection voices), Helm with the perennial lament of the destitute suitor When I Get My Rewards, Jimmy Martin making all the youngsters look bad with the blazing I’m Sittin’ on Top of the World…it’s one jewel after another. There is a coda, as on the first and third volumes: Randy Scruggs, Earl’s boy, offers a short instrumental, this time choosing Amazing Grace.
 Also like the other volumes, there is dialogue and studio chatter throughout. Far from distracting, it’s more revelatory than a DVD commentary because the musicians aren’t consciously pontificating; they are working out the changes, choosing keys, writing the parts they are about to play. One track is just Emmylou reminiscing about what music meant to her growing up, how much of that has been lost, and how much that day's efforts had brought it back. This album and its companion sets are like that; made by and for people who love making and hearing real music.
I won’t tell you it’s the album for people who hate country or that it will change your mind forever, but almost anyone who enjoys organic music and a glimpse at how it’s made will find something to like here. Nothing fancy, no production tricks, tape loops or sound effects, just incredibly talented, experienced professionals laying down tunes they love in a form to which they owe their careers.
next: a commercial failure by a blues/rock legend
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