The Dillards

[Steven]

So I just got The First Time Live,Back Porch Bluegrass,and Live Almost!I gotta say these guys were fantastic,I cant stop listening to them.Dean is (was?) an awsom mando player,just really great stuff.Whatever happen to this group and the individuals,especially Dean Webb.Does anyone here know?

[EggerRidgeBoy]

I agree, The Dillards made some great music in the 60's. #

I posted the following on BanjoHangout a couple days ago:

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I went to see The Dillards last night, at the Birchmere with the Seldom Scene. I hadn't realized that they were still performing until I saw the notice for the show a few weeks ago. Well, half the band is still performing - Dean Webb and Mitchell Jayne, the original mandolinist and bassist, are pretty much retired. But it was great to see Rodney and Douglas singing and picking.

It was an interesting crowd. There were the usual Seldom Scene fans, but since they play fairly often around here I think the majority of the almost-full room was there to see The Dillards. And it was clear that most of those Dillard fans were interested in the band mainly because of their stint as The Darlings on the Andy Griffith show. For instance, several of the people at our table had been to various "Mayberry Reunion Days" in North Carolina, but they seemed to know very little about bluegrass music in general, or the Dillards' role as a progressive bluegrass band in the 60's. Nothing wrong with that, of course, just a little different from the usual Birchmere bluegrass crowd.

Since I was there primarily to hear The Dillards' music, I did get a little tired of the "Mayberry-centric" nature of the show. At one point Rodney spent 15 minutes taking Andy Griffith show questions from the crowd ("In the episode where Barney is trying to figure out who is singing off-key in the choir...", etc.), and he told a story about the show between almost every song (or so it seemed). I watched the Andy Griffith Show a lot as a kid and I liked hearing some of the stories, but about 10 minutes would have been enough for me - I would have liked to have heard five or six more songs. But hey, I understand, you gotta play to your fan base.

Despite that, I did really enjoy the show, and it was fun to get to see Doug pick. They did a meet-and-greet afterwards, and they were both very friendly and happy to talk to fans. Plus I got my 1963 "Back Porch Bluegrass" album signed, which was cool.

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Rodney and Doug gave a brief update on both their former bandmates. Mitchell is retired from the music business, in large part because he has lost almost all of his hearing. He lives in a very small town in Arkansas, and among other things does some writing for a local newspaper. Dean is semi-retired, but since 2001 he has been playing with The Missouri Boatride, a bluegrass band based in the Ozarks. #Check out their website for more information on Dean (including an email address if you want to contact him directly): http://themissouriboatride.com/home.html and http://themissouriboatride.com/deanwebb.htm #.

With the brothers were a bass player and a mandolin/fiddler player (who switched back and forth between the two instruments during almost every song) - I talked to each of them afterwards but can't remember either of their names. #I think they are both veterans of the Branson, MO, music scene, as that's were Rodney lives these days.

For more information on the history of The Dillards, check out http://www.the-dillards.com/ #and
http://members.chello.at/thomas.aubrunner/dillard.htm