Who Influenced Whom?

[jimk]

I just got the boxed set "There Is a Season" about a week ago. I've been listening to practically nothing else. Somewhere in the middle of disc 4, I was struck by how much the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ["Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy"] sounded like the Byrds, especially with Gene Parsons on banjo, and Clarence White on guitar.

I mentioned this to one of my bandmates, and he said "Or is it the other way around, the Dirt Band influenced the Byrds?"

I said that that was likely not the case, as the Byrds had been experimenting with coutry music since at least '68 when "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" came out. "Uncle Charly..." came out a couple years later, perhaps as late as '71.

So is there any connection, here? Or was it something just going around out on the Left Coast between 1968-72?

JimK

[beatlefreak]

Not sure about any connection, but the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band do date back to mid-1966.

[jimk]

And there were other bands, some not as famous doing the same thing; for example Mason Proffitt. [Who has heard of them?]

JimK

[shamustwin]

NGDB had a hit before (IIRC) Bogangles called Buy For Me The Rain. Excellent song. I'm thinking that was somewhere around '67, '68.

Had all the hallmarks of Country Rock/folk rock

[jimk]

Strange I never heard of that one. Beaujangles was the first I was ever aware of NGDB. Maybe if I heard it again...

JimK

[beatlefreak]

Mr. Bojangles is from Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy, the NGDB's fifth album.

[shamustwin]

Buy For Me The Rain was from their first album and was a top 40 hit in 1967. They performed it on Johnny Carson.

From Wikipedia.

Again, a great song. Very folk rock.