Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Takes On Bob Dylan’s Discography On Upcoming Record

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band will give fans their take on the Bob Dylan songbook later this spring. On May 20, the band will release Dirt Does Dylan, a ten-track album highlighting some of the gems from Dylan’s vast catalog.

In preparation for the full album, Dirt Band’s cover of “I Shall Be Released,” which Dylan originally recorded with The Band during their infamous Basement Tapes sessions, is available everywhere now. The new rendition sees blues-rock duo Larkin Poe lending their voices and lap steel guitar skills to the mix.

The new project will feature three new band members: fiddle specialist Ross Holmes, singer-songwriter and bass player Jim Photoglo who wrote the Dirt Band’s “Fishin’ in the Dark,” and Dirt Band founder Jeff Hanna’s son Jaime Hanna on vocals and guitar. Produced and recorded by Ray Kennedy at Room & Board Studio in Nashville, Dirt Does Dylan finds the band playing alongside Jason Isbell, The War & Treaty, Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, and more.

The group originally formed in 1966 as a Long Beach, California jug band and scored their first charting single in 1967. Their first major hit came in 1971 with “Mr. Bojangles.” In the 1980s, the Dirt Band reeled off 15 straight top 10 country hits, including chart-toppers “Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream),” “Modern Day Romance,” and “Fishin’ in the Dark.”

The band will be criss-crossing around the country through this fall on their headlining tour. For a full list of upcoming dates, click here.

Dirt Goes Dylan Track List:
1. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You
2. Girl from the North Country
3. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
4. Country Pie
5. I Shall Be Released (ft. Larkin Poe)
6. She Belongs to Me
7. Forever Young
8. The Times They Are A-Changin’ (ft. Rosanne Cash, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle, and The War and Treaty)
9. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
10. Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)