Ten Favorite Linda Ronstadt Guest Appearances: An American Dream (#4)

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Currently I’m looking at some of Linda Ronstadt’s greatest vocal appearances...as a background singer. She’s appeared on a lot of different albums over the years, some by fellow legends and some by people who barely were noticed. Today’s song and group is somewhere in the middle, depending on how old you are and what type of music you listen to. Here’s today’s song. #4: An American Dream - The Dirt Band Back in the 60s the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band formed in L.A., blending all sorts of music. (Trivia: Jackson Browne was briefly a member.) They had a pop hit with a cover of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles” and a country hit with Mike Nesmith’s “Some of Shelley’s Blues,” and a cameo in Paint Your Wagon. Then came Will the Circle Be Unbroken. It started with a request for Earl Scruggs to guest on an album. Earl brought Doc Watson along, and from there things blossomed into one of the classic albums of all-time, which almost harkens back to the days of Alan Lomax making field recordings of songs of the various parts of the country in order to preserve them. (More trivia: Bill Monroe refused to participate in the sessions, although asked, because of band members’ long hair. ) Well, that’s for another post or 80. Here, seven years removed from the success of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, they shortened their name to just “Dirt Band,” and they scored a major pop and country hit with a cover of Rodney Crowell’s “Voilá, An American Dream,” shortening that as well to just “An American Dream.” Singing like an angel in the background, as she always does, was Linda Ronstadt. In the mid-80s the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band got back down to the Nitty Gritty, scoring a number of country hits under their original name. They caught lightning in a bottle again with Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Volume Two, which won a Grammy. This remains one of their best-known and best-loved songs. An American Dream Written by Rodney Crowell Recorded by the Dirt Band From An American Dream, 1979 Split the difference, go to Coconut Grove: