After more than 60 years bringing musical joy to its fans, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, known for the iconic rendition of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” is closing the loop.

The American-roots pioneering band — featuring founding members Jeff Hanna on lead vocals and guitar and Jimmie Fadden on drums, harmonica and vocals — along with longtime keyboardist and vocalist Bob Carpenter, bassist and vocalist Jim Photoglo, guitarist and vocalist Jaime Hanna (Jeff’s son) and fiddler, mandolinist and vocalist Ross Holmes, will bring its All the Good Times: The Farewell Tour to Canyons Village on Saturday, Aug. 10.

The concert, which will start at 7 p.m. and feature guest Jerry Douglas, will be presented by the Park City Institute.

“This will be the last night we play in Park City, that’s for sure, but we are looking forward to getting back to Utah,” said Carpenter, who has been a band member since 1980. “We spent a lot of time in the west, and some of us lived in Colorado and Utah for a long time. In fact, one of the guys in our road crew has a lot of family in Salt Lake, so we’ve done a lot of shows in Utah over the years. So it will be good to get back.”

The idea to embark on a farewell tour was a logical idea, especially after the band was forced to take a year hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic, Carpenter said.

“We’ve been touring every year except 2020, and that year, we did three shows, which could have been our last shows,” he said. “We didn’t like that because we didn’t get to do it the way we wanted to do it. So, our goal is to go out being grateful. We want to go out and thank people for coming to see us all of these years. We don’t want to just disappear.”

Another factor is time. The band played its first show as a jug band in 1966, and by 1969, it had become one of the cornerstones of the country-rock community.

“Right now, we’re all on the backside of 75 at this point,” Carpenter said. “Jeff and I will be 78 on our next birthdays. We know we’re not going to be able to do this much longer. So, we want to get out and do the best shows we can because when we can’t, we won’t.”

The set lists for the tour include some of the band’s trademark tunes, “Fishin’ in the Dark” and “Mr. Bojangles,” but also other songs such as “Stand a Little Rain” and “God Bless the Broken Road,” which are two of Carpenter’s favorites.

“As far as playing stuff on stage, anytime you can look out into the audience and see people’s faces light up when we play ‘Fishin’’ and ‘Bojangles’ is a good night,” he said.

Carpenter doesn’t know why those songs and others from the band’s catalog resonate with fans.

“You’ll have to ask them,” he said with a laugh. “But for us, it’s been a perfect storm because most of us were born at the right time. A large percentage of the population was into music and continues to (be) into music, and we had timely hits on the radio.” 

The Canyons concert may also include some newer covers, which may or may not draw  from its more recent album, “Dirt Does Dylan,” which released in 2022.

“We’d gone into the studio in March and had recorded a lot of that record with the idea to go out and play a couple of shows and then go back and finish up,” Carpenter said. “Well, it took a couple of years because it got put together piecemeal.”

The band regrouped in August 2021 after COVID leveled off and recorded some more tracks, according to Carpenter.

“We were able to record tracks here, there and everywhere as things allowed us to do it, which is not the ideal way to make a record, but you gotta do what you got to do, you know?” he said.

The album features 10 Bob Dylan songs, including “Forever Young,” “She Belongs to Me,” “Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)” and collaborations including “I Shall Be Released” with Larkin Poe and “The Times They Are A-Changin,’” featuring Rosanne Cash, Jason Isbell, Steve Earle and The War and Treaty, to name a few.

“When we decided to make the album, we all listened to as many Dylan songs as we wanted, and we all submitted lists to each other,” Carpenter said. “We tried to pick songs that would fit the instrumentation of our band. Also, there aren’t a lot of harmonies on Dylan records, and our band does a lot of harmonies. So we wanted to do some stuff that lent themselves to harmonies. And Dylan gave us a lot of leeway.”

One of the other goals of the album was to record the current Nitty Gritty lineup.

“At that time, we hadn’t been in the studio with this particular iteration,” Carpenter said. “Ross and Jaime started playing with us in 2017 and 2018. And we wanted to go in and do more of a concept album, rather than writing and recording a whole album of new material. We thought it would be a nice and easy thing we could do in a couple of weeks — Ha ha.”

Carpenter is grateful for his time with the band, and is amazed to see original fans, their children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren in the audiences. 

“It means a lot that people are still loyal to us, and that’s why we feel the responsibility 100% to play the songs right,” he said. “That’s why we’re tying a bow around this thing: because we’re not going to be 85 years old and still do the shows we want to do.”
There are a few things Carpenter will miss when the band retires after the tour.

“It won’t be the pizza after the show, the airplane rides, bouncing around the bus and waiting for the hotel rooms to be ready,” he said laughing. “What I’ll miss the most is the people we’re playing to, the guys on the stage and the music that we play. I’ll miss being on stage playing music with my friends.”

Park City Institute presents the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with guest Jerry Douglas