Somewhere along the line I realized that the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is my favorite band — not Jethro Tull, not Tommy James and the Shondells, not the Beatles, not any of the other bands that I have called my favorite over the years.
I have followed them since the summer of 1966, when the WMCA Good Guys’ weekly Long Shot was a lovely little song called “Buy for Me the Rain” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Those were the days when groups had names like the New Vaudeville Band or Dr. West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band, so why not the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band?
The song was a minor hit but didn’t really climb the charts, and I never heard from them again — until one day I walked into Graymat’s music store in Morristown, New Jersey, and up on the wall was a new album called Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy by … the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
Through the 1970s I bought every album the Dirt Band released, but they never quite topped Uncle Charlie — their mammoth achievement, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, is awesome because of the country legends they share the spotlight with. Still, my second-favorite NGDB album, Symphonium Dream, released in 1975, is the one that contains my all-time favorite song of theirs.
Band member Jimmy Ibbotson wrote “Ripplin’ Waters,” an ode to Colorado and meadows of columbine. It’s the standout track on the album, and I remember reading about a studio mishap that accidentally erased the second half of a song that was even better.
As performed nowadays, it usually runs around 10 minutes. They perform the song as it appeared on the album, and then Jimmie Fadden brings in an achingly sweet harmonica solo, and over the next few minutes the other band members each contribute a solo before Jeff Hanna brings it home with his grand electric guitar work.
I was there when they performed “Ripplin’ Waters” at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville during their 50th anniversary concert, and it remains the prettiest thing I have ever heard live in concert.
The other day I found my DVD that was released in tandem with the Circlin’ Back live album recorded that night. There wasn’t room to put “Ripplin’ Waters” on the CD, but it does appear as a bonus DVD track, and I am entranced all over again.
Ibbotson retired from the band but flew out for that special concert — “It’s an honor to be up here with the boys again. It’s 12 years since I got on an airplane, and there’s very few things that would make me do it,” and he led them through his masterpiece. Jimmy sang the song, and Fadden’s harmonica, John McEuen’s mandolin, Bob Carpenter’s keyboards, and Hanna’s guitar were simply magic, one after the next.
YouTube has dozens of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s renditions of “Ripplin’ Waters,” and I’ve enjoyed a lot of them, but that version at the Ryman remains a DVD exclusive as far as I can tell. I wish I could share it with you, but I assure you it’s worth searching out.
That wonderful night is on my mind because we’re 10 days away from the 10th anniversary of that Sept. 14, 2015, concert. The band has been playing for 60 years now, and they’re in the second year of their “Farewell Tour.” If they wander near your neck of the woods, you owe it to yourself to go.
At the very least treat yourself to “Ripplin’ Waters” — this video is from earlier that year and features the same arrangement they used in Nashville. Just imagine this on the Ryman stage and twice as lovely. Oh, man.
