The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s John McEuen shares stories of his heroes ahead of his Knuckleheads gig

John McEuen. // photo by Alan Nahigian

When we last spoke with founding Nitty Gritty Dirt Band John McEuen, he shared stories of bluegrass icon Bill Monroe and the enduring legacy of the Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken. McEuen returns to Knuckleheads this Wednesday, September 24, and he has more stories to tell us, including how he and his group came back to Steve Martin on his 1970s novelty smash single, “King Tut.”

“The Dirt Band needed a job,” explains McEuen of how it all came to be. “My brother was managing Steve Martin, who I got him to manage. Steve was a high school friend and he started being funny.”

McEuen and Martin got their first jobs at 16 years old, working in the Magic Shop in Disneyland, but didn’t start playing music until about a year and a half later, when the banjo came along. McEuen was so impressed with what Martin could do, he told his brother William, and thanks to a familial relationship, William McEuen would begin to produce albums for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and eventually became Martin’s manager as well.

“1977, Steve came out to a show at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and taught us this song,” McEuen continues, saying that Martin was going to sit in with the band as they did a bossa nova parody song called “The Girl with Emphysema,” a play on Antônio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl from Ipanema,” but Martin had other plans.

“He says, ‘I got this song I wanna do,’” recalls McEuen. “And he went through ‘King Tut’ and it just, absolutely, the room exploded. 2500 people. It was sold out at the Dorothy Chandler, and that’s kinda like the Carnegie Hall of L.A.”

A week later, the band’s in Aspen with Martin, and they record the track with William McEuen producing, all because two friends got to know each other at their first job, selling magic tricks to tourists. We wonder aloud to McEuen as to whether doing magic tricks translates well to when he started playing an instrument because he was used to dexterous maneuvers with your fingers.

“Well, it helped a little bit, but what it did was give me an affinity for being in front of people, which made me want to perform and with music instead of tricks,” McEuen offers by way of agreement. “I didn’t wanna work for a living and that was like not working. You’re doing tricks.”

That was what music is like, continues McEuen.

“The work is getting there and flying there and driving a rental car and checking in and doing a sound check, then you get to do the show,” the musician says. “And that’s what I got planned for Kansas City, the show.”

As to what folks can expect, and what song McEuen most looks forward to playing, that’s a little less hard to pin down. In addition to “Some of Shelly’s Blues,” “Mr. Bojangles,” “Dance Little Jean,” and “Long Hard Road,” McEuen says he likes playing all of the Dirt Band’s hits, but a set can only be so long.

“There’s enough of them where you can’t do all of them,” McEuen explains without bragging. “I don’t mean for that to sound arrogant, but we did pretty good over 50 years, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.”

McEuen is quick to say that the Dirt Band’s first number one single, “Long Hard Road,” is “one of the finest songs written in country music,” while also pointing out that “House at Pooh Corner” was a big hit in Kansas City before sharing the story of how that one came to be.

“When Kenny [Loggins] brought it to me, Kenny had to come up to my house so I could make a demo,” says McEuen. “I lived in Laurel Canyon and don’t you know, I lived in a duplex with my brother. It was $90 a month, and I had a two-track tape recorder that recorded great. I recorded a bunch of Loggins’ songs.”

It was the first time Loggins had been recorded, at 18 years old, with McEuen recording demos of songs like “Danny’s Song,” “House at Pooh Corner,” and “Santa Rosa,” among others. Four of those would go on to appear on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1970 album, Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy, although “House at Pooh Corner” almost didn’t get released as a single.

“I called Kenny up and said, ‘Kenny, we’re putting it out for a single,’” McEuen relates. “And I called him the next day and he says, ‘The company just got a call from Disney that said we can’t use ‘House at Pooh Corner’ for a single ’cause they own Winnie the Pooh.’”

The two commiserated over the bad news, with Loggins complaining, “Oh man, what a bummer. My first chance of getting on the airwaves.”

“And his girlfriend goes, ‘What’s the matter, Kenny?’” continues McEuen. And he told her that Disney wouldn’t let us put out ‘House at Poop Corner,’ and she goes, ‘Well, I’m gonna call my daddy.’”

Turns out that Loggins’ girlfriend’s daddy was Donn Tatum, the CEO of Disney, and the next day, the record company got a call saying they could release that song. Once again, a previously existing relationship had given the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band a success. We ask McEuen how collaboration and connection get him going.

“I’m not sure what you mean, exactly,” McEuen cautiously responds. “You just go, ‘What is in front of us to do?’ and if you open your eyes, there are a lot of things in front of you that you can do. Go do some of them, see where they go.”

A good case in point is McEuen recording with Steve Martin, which came from knowing him from the Disneyland days, which went to McEuen’s brother managing him and producing four of his albums, and then came back to McEuen himself producing one of Martin’s records to great success.

“Steve called me and said, ‘Hey, can you come over to my house? I wanna play you some music,’” McEuen explains. “He had five songs that he’d written on with his banjo, and he played the songs, and I said, ‘You ought to make an album.’ He said, ‘That’s what I wanna talk to you about.’”

McEuen’s response was simple: he wanted to produce it, and he needed Martin to write three more songs.

“Anyway, I ended up producing The Crow, which won a Grammy for both of us,” McEuen says as we wrap up, which is as satisfying a close to a circle as one could ask for.

John McEuen, along with fellow founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Les Thompson, and members of Kansas City’s RiverRock, plays Knuckleheads on Wednesday, September 24. Details on that show here.