Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to Bring Music, Stories, and Special Guests to Public Donation Ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

Business Wire, Nov 25, 2002

Entertainment Editors & Music Writers

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 25, 2002

Film Documenting the Historic Circle III Sessions to Debut

Following Ceremony

The members of the ground-breaking Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Capitol Records/Nashville President & CEO Mike Dungan, record producer Randy Scruggs and some very special guests will assemble at the Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum to donate memorabilia documenting the NGDB's historic Will The Circle Be Unbroken Vol. III album to the Museum's archives on Tuesday, December l0, at ll:00 a.m.

"'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' recorded in the 1970's, is believed to be the first multi-generational album in history," said Museum Director Kyle Young. "The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has certainly established an important tradition with these collaborative Circle recordings, which have served to bring new audiences to traditional music.

"We are thrilled that they have chosen to celebrate the 30th anniversary reissue of the first album and the release of this new collection with these gifts to the Museum, where they will be cared for and forever preserved for the edification and enjoyment of future generations."

The ceremony will include live music and stories and will be followed at noon with the first public screening of Farther Along, a 36-minute film documenting the Circle Vol. III sessions. The ceremony is open to the public and free with Museum admission.

Mike Dungan will present the original plate for the Circle Vol. III album cover poster along with the first strike poster. NGDB member Jimmie Fadden, who played harmonica on almost all the current album's 28 titles, will donate the harmonicas he used on the Vol. III sessions.

Singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Randy Scruggs, who played on all three volumes of the trilogy, and produced the Grammy-winning Circle Vol. II and Circle Vol. III albums, will add his charts and notes from the Vol. III sessions to the Museum collection.

In addition to Scruggs, Dungan, and band members Fadden, Jeff Hanna, John McEuen, Bob Carpenter, and Jimmy Ibbotson, special guests will include McEuen's son Jonathan and Hanna's son Jaime, who both contributed lead vocals and lead guitar to the album's first single release, "The Lowlands," composed by Gary Scruggs. Among the invitees are all the members of the album's multi-generational cast including: Del McCoury, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Iris DeMent, June Carter Cash, Earl Scruggs, Sam Bush, Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Taj Mahal, Vassar Clements, Matraca Berg, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas, Glen Duncan, Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Rodney Dillard, and others.

The Circle trilogy's title song, the Carter Family's immortal "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," described by Wall Street Journal critic Nat Hentoff as "a song of eternal faith," is represented in the architecture and design of the Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum's $37 million new facility. At the Museum's ceremonial observance of the September ll, 200l, national tragedy, E. W. "Bud" Wendell, chairman of the Museum's Board of Officers and Trustees, cited the song as a source of comfort and inspiration. Since the launch of the Museum's capital campaign in l998, the song has evolved as the Hall of Fame's anthem and is traditionally performed at all formal ceremonies. Hall of Fame members Dolly Parton, Eddy Arnold, Jo Walker-Meador, Wendell, Little Jimmy Dickens, and Brenda Lee joined the NGDB to sing "Circle" at the Museum's Medallion Ceremony honoring new inductees Bill Anderson, Sam Phillips, the Delmore Brothers, the Everly Brothers, Waylon Jennings, the Jordanaires, Don Gibson, Homer & Jethro, Don Law, Ken Nelson, the Louvin Brothers and Webb Pierce on May 5, 2002.

The Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum's important collection already includes the washboard played by Jeff Hanna on the Circle II and Circle III albums, as well as the accordion heard on Circle II, donated by Bob Carpenter.

Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)3 educational organization chartered by the State of Tennessee in 1964. The Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museum's Frist Library and Archive, the CMF Press, RCA's Historic Studio B, and Hatch Show Print.

The Ford Division of the Ford Motor Co. is a Founding Partner of the new $37 million Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum, which opened on May 17, 2001, in downtown Nashville's new $1 billion entertainment district.

More information about the Country Music Hall of Fame(R) and Museum is available at www.countrymusichalloffame.com or by calling 615/416-2096.