Roots Next for Dirt Band

Mainstream Nashville has become an inhospitable wilderness for stars of a certain vintage--including the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

On the current Billboard chart of the Top 75 country albums, only two albums of new material--one by Hank Williams Jr., the other by carpetbagging pop singer Neil Diamond--are by artists who had a high profile before 1980 (three others--by Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton and Charlie Daniels--are greatest-hits packages).

“The mainstream doesn’t relate real well to what we do,” says Dirt Band co-founder Jeff Hanna. “It’s so much about marketing and youth right now, and we’re sort of unmarketable old guys.”

But instead of despairing, the Dirt Band is charting its next career phase, which calls for finding a niche with roots-loving fans looking for something beyond the slicker conventions of the contemporary country scene.

Actually, this next phase began in 1994, with the Dirt Band’s strong “Acoustic” album, which featured good, new material and a farewell to glossy production. Hanna said the band will follow the same tack with an album it is working on now, funded with its own money. For the first time since 1967, the Dirt Band has no record deal.

Hanna isn’t worried: “Seeing what John Prine has done at Oh Boy [is encouraging],” he said of the veteran, Nashville-based singer-songwriter, who has prospered while releasing his records on his own independent label.

“There are lots of different avenues to go now in the record business that have less to do with boardrooms and having A&R; guys telling you what to record, and a producer to spend $200,000 of your money,” Hanna continued. “We’re into creating new music now and not worrying about those things.”

Even without a contract, the Dirt Band will get a couple of shots at cracking those mainstream-radio barriers in the near future: Its version of “Maybe Baby” from the recent, country-flavored Buddy Holly tribute album “Not Fade Away” is being promoted as a radio single, and “You Believed in Me,” a collaboration with old friend Karla Bonoff, is the first single from “One Voice,” a country compilation album tied to the Summer Olympics.