POP MUSIC REVIEW : Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Demonstrates Both Appeal, Limitations in Crazy Horse Show

If nice guys finish last, at least they get to hang around long enough to be last.

With 23 years behind them, not too many bands have endured as long as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, or with less acclaim. The Dirt Band has certainly generated its share of hits, but aside from the barrier-breaking 1972 “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” album, it has also been a group easily taken for granted; just nice guys making nice music in a business where “nice” is often an epithet.

Originating in Long Beach in 1966, and practically residing through its early years at Huntington Beach’s now-defunct Golden Bear, the Dirt Band started as a jug band that briefly included Jackson Browne as a member. Not unlike the Lovin’ Spoonful on the East Coast, they moved on to a rock style that incorporated elements of folk and country into a light-hearted mix. With the early ‘70s, they shifted again into an equally buoyant country rock.

The quartet’s early show Monday at Santa Ana’s Crazy Horse Steak House was both a proof of the continuing appeal of the band’s good-timey sound and an example of the limitations of that appeal.

Founding member Jeff Hanna and guitar-bass-mandolin player Jimmy Ibbotson handled the front-line vocals with capable ease, with occasional lead vocals from keyboardist Bob Carpenter, and nearly founding member Jimmy Fadden impressively playing both drums and harmonica simultaneously.

But the aggregate effect was such that, if one had found the Dirt Band playing in a hotel lounge, the response would more likely be, “Hey, good lounge act,” than “What cruel fate has denied these fellows their rightful spot at the pinnacle of fame?”

Of the show’s 18 songs, Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” from the newly released “Circle II” album, the Carpenter-sung “Stand a Little Rain” and the round-like harmonies of “Fishin’ in the Dark” carried more weight than country-lite fare such as “High Horse” and “Make a Little Magic.”

Certainly, two decades of playing “Mr. Bojangles” nightly hasn’t added anything--except choreographed heel-kicks--to their hit version, already a sticky confection compared to the Jerry Jeff Walker original.

Oddly, the one real standout of the performance was Ibbotson’s “Ripplin’ Waters,” a song once covered by John Denver. Sparked by a round of hot solos, particularly Hanna’s guitar workout, the song finally found the band living up to its name and throwing some grit into the musical mix.