RODNEY DILLARD: We took out our instruments and started playing in the foyer there.

And the owner come up says you can't do this here.

He said do it on stage.

Well, it so happened that Jim Dickson who is responsible for the Eagles getting together, the birds-- he was there that night and he saw us.

Out of that deal, also William Morris Agency, which was the largest agency in the world and handled the Andy Griffith Show-- that all happened that night.

It was a perfect storm for the Dillards who knew nothing.

[upbeat music] The Ozarks has produced many talented musicians, but the Dillards rise from Salem, Missouri to the Andy Griffith Show and then to international stardom is truly an amazing story.

The Dillards have been producing music since they hit the LA scene in 1962.

And in 2009, they were inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Awards Hall of Fame.

My guest on today's show is Randy Dillard and he talks about his band's history and discusses their most recent album.

NARRATOR (VOICEOVER): Ozarks public television and Missouri State University are proud to present Ozarks Watch Video Magazine, a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Well today, I have an extremely special guest.

This is-- this is really quite a thrill for me to be-- I've admired the Dillards for years and years and years, and had the pleasure of interviewing Mitch Jayne a couple times.

A character.

But it's really great to have you here with me today.

Well, thank you.

I've admired your work too.

You keep it going.

Keep the music happening.

Yeah.

We're very happy to do that.

Let's start off.

Kind of work our way back to Salem, Missouri with the young Dillards and let the viewers know pretty much kind of your story of how you progress from a small town to Los Angeles, to all kinds of other things in between.

That's a book.

I will sum it up with buzzwords, if I can.

I graduated from high school.

Started college.

I went to college.

Decided I didn't belong there for some reason.

I just didn't fit in and I wanted to-- and Doug and I of course, my brother, had played music since we were kids with my dad.

And my dad's an old time fiddler.

And after I got out of high school and started the college thing, I decided you know this is not for me.

I wish I could-- naively thought I'd go play music because Doug and I, at that time, had made a couple of records with local record labels.

And we were just working in bars and things, and some of the skull orchards and stuff.

Sure.

And so, I decided.

I called him up said Doug, let's go somewhere.

Let's do something.

We had a fellow that we've been playing music with, Dean Webb, who's from Kansas City.

City of Independence, as a matter of fact.

And he started coming down to pick with us and we'd pick.

And John Hartford, of course, was a part of that.

And that was our first group with John.

It's called-- I think what we call it?

The Dixie Ramblers.

And that was our first group.

Then, Doug and I started making these records.

Became the Dillard brothers.

Brought Dean in.

We ended up-- and I can't remember how he did-- recording this album in St. Louis with a fella, and he had this huge big three story house.

And we cut it in his foyer there, the stairways.

You'd get all this echo.

And we took it down.

And at that time, Mitch Jayne was a DJ-- if you want to call it that-- in Salem.

What he used to say?

You run it on two Bic penlight batteries.

[laughs] And we had become friends because he liked the music and we picked occasionally on a local radio show of Howe Teague, an od fiddler.

And he heard the album and he got all excited.

And he couldn't really play anything, so I ended up trading.

He-- I traded him banjo lessons and he gave me a dog.

We traded.

It was a boxer-- [laughs] --which immediately started chasing all my neighbor's cattle.

So I had to get rid of it.

But was teaching him how to play banjo.

You know, the [inaudible] stuff.

And we started just playing at his house for fun of it on the weekends.

Well, this turned into more and more and more.

And finally, we ended up-- and I can't remember that far back doing our first concert at Wash U.

In fact, there's an album out called that, the first concert there.

And so, that's how we started.

That was our first concert at Washington University in St. Louis.

So you were talking about your father's an old-time fiddler.

RODNEY DILLARD: Yeah So this really goes back into the family-- RODNEY DILLARD: It does.

INTERVIEWER: --tradition.

RODNEY DILLARD: You wouldn't think to listen to some of my music, but-- [laughs] --he was just an old time fiddler.

And he had-- as a matter of fact, would tell me that he taught Elvis Presley's uncle how to buck dance.

He did that old-time mountain clog.

My dad did.

In fact, he was really good at it.

In fact later on, we brought him out when there was a show on television called "The Gong Show".

And we brought him out there.

And of course, he won it.

But wow, he was proud of that.

But he decided I guess he needed a backup band, so he bought my brother a banjo, a Kay banjo.

And later on, he bought me a silvertone guitar.

So we became his backup band and learned to play that old mountain cut time stuff.

You know, one, two, three, four, one.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah And that's how we really started, Doug and I both.

INTERVIEWER: So it was-- how did you get into-- and we'll talk a little bit about when you guys went to Los Angeles, but how did you really get into the Bluegrass music part of it?

There's a little bit of difference between Bluegrass and some of the traditional-- Yes, the old timey stuff.

Bluegrass became what old timey was.

Like all music, it evolves.

Old timey Irish, old timey Bluegrass came out of all that.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah And so, but Doug and I were playing Bluegrass too.

I mean, we used to listen to the Opry through the static on the radio and listen to the Flatt & Scruggs.

And we got into that style of picking because at the time, there was nothing to me as a young kid that offered me anything on the radio that I liked is that '50s stuff, you know.

And I just-- it didn't appeal to me.

It wasn't real enough.

I always-- I always think of Bluegrass as fairly-- well, it's a pretty sophisticated type of music, actually.

I mean, there's a lot of levels to it.

RODNEY DILLARD: It has become more and more so.

I mean, the chord structure has changed and they've got-- they're now bring in jazz chords.

And I've got a young banjo player with me, Corey Walker, who you can play Doug Dillard's Doug's tune and turn round and round and bail a fleck out, you know.

I mean, he's that sort of player.

So the music has evolved.

Bluegrass has much to a lot of traditionalists chagrin, but that's what happens to music.

It does progress.

But anyway, we decided to go to LA.

OK. We were playing enough together-- Dean Webb, and Mitch Jayne, and Doug and I-- and we left Salem-- and I've told this before-- in a '55 Cadillac, a one wheel trailer, and a Thanksgiving turkey that my mother had prepared because we just left before Thanksgiving.

And we got as far-- well, we had $9.60 between us.

And we weren't used to large sums of money like that and we ran through it in about three weeks.

[laughs] But we ended up in Oklahoma City taking odd jobs.

And we hung out there until there was a-- there was a famous club down there folk music club called The Buddhi.

And we auditioned for them.

We got hired.

We made enough money after working for manpower there for three weeks doing what we could to stay alive.

And as a matter of fact, there's a scene in the Andy Griffith Show we did where we all were in the hotel room and had snuck in.

Well, we stayed at the YMCA, the four of us.

Two of us checked in and four of us stayed there and we wired the beds together so they wouldn't spread apart.

Somebody had to sleep in the crack.

Yeah.

But anyway, we ended up getting to LA.

Was this-- by the way, was this-- just out of curiosity, was this the old Route 66-- RODNEY DILLARD: Yeah.

--kind of a thing?

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER: So it had to be-- Yeah.

So here we were.

We got to LA and I couldn't believe it.

I woke up and I smell the stuff like, you know, like a burning motor.

And it turned out to be the ozone that was hanging over LA.

[laughs] INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

LA used to be a little bit-- RODNEY DILLARD: But what we did, we checked into a hotel there on Melrose.

And this is how it all started and I'll have to make this-- we checked into a hotel down there that rented by the hour.

And we went to a club because we'd heard about it called The Ashgrove.

And that's where the petri dish of all the intellectual folk people were.

You know, that's where I met Earl Seager and all these folks, and the Baezes and everybody.

And I'll never forget we walked in with our instruments.

And somebody walked up to me and said, what do you think of the existentialist dilemma?

And I said I was raised a Presbyterian.

[laughs] And they just walked away, sort of huffed.

And we took out our instruments and started playing in the foyer there.

And the owner come up and says you can't do this here.

He said do it on stage.

Well, it so happened that Jim Dickson, who is responsible for the Eagles getting together, the Byrds, he was there that night and he saw us.

Out of that deal, also William Morris Agency, which was the largest agency in the world and handled the Andy Griffith Show.

That all happened that night.

It was a perfect storm for the Dillards who knew nothing.

[laughs] That was a heck of a night.

RODNEY DILLARD: Oh.

So they said-- we ended up making a deal with Elektra records, a three album deal.

They put a little blurb in "Variety".

It says Elektra records signs these weird looking guys from the Ozarks who play this kind of funny music.

They didn't know.

Andy saw it.

There was a script he had called "The Darlins Are Coming".

And he said to call them boys up.

See what they do.

So here we went.

We've been there maybe two weeks.

Walking into Desilu studios out of the Ozarks, right?

Looking around.

I mean, we had the Darlin look, you know.

We walked in and they were shooting an episode.

They-- he and Bob Sweeney, the director, stopped.

They pulled up a couple of folding chairs in front of us and says OK, boys.

Show us what you got.

So I don't know.

I just nervous.

We tore into "Ruben's Train."

And Andy sat there a few bars and went that's it.

And I said, Doug, they're kicking us out.

We got up to leave.

He said, where you going?

You got the job.

We were supposed to do one show, but they had so much response that they got us as often as they could, once a year.

Because then, we moved to other shows.

The Judy Garland Show and all the things-- all the stuff that was happening because we got hot.

And they still didn't know how to market us, the record company.

You know, what are these guys?

You know, they're not toothpaste.

They're not soap.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah They're just-- they play this odd kind of music.

And so, that's how our career really got started and we started working a lot of college.

We did 32 college concerts in 30 days.

INTERVIEWER: Whoa.

And we were really working it then.

And then after the third album with Elektra, we cut one with Byron Berline.

It was nothing strictly but a fiddle album.

Very esoteric because we'd got blasted by all the folk critics.

You know, so we did this real, real, solid fiddle album.

And then after that, I said you know, I'd like to do something else.

You know, I've been out there and I had things I wanted to do.

I loved Bluegrass and I loved old timey, but I have things in my head I kept hearing.

Hence, came in an album called "Wheatstraw Suite" and that was the beginning of another whole career.

To me, that's where my career really started personally because we did depart from what was happening at the moment.

That's when I started bringing in pedal steel drums, Bluegrass harmonies.

And that just sounds so arrogant and I don't mean to, but Rolling Stone called the fathers of country rock.

And that whole movement there, that era during the '60s, people were-- we all kind of knew each other.

The Byrds, Dean Webb, the guy who did the harmonies for-- what was it?

Not "Turn, Turn, Turn".

"Tambourine Man," because they couldn't figure out the three parts.

Krosby and those guys couldn't figure it out.

[laughter] And then, all of that started working together.

Everybody knew each other back then.

That's when music really had a creative impetus that really did something to the music before it became just techno corporate.

You know.

And the music really had something to say and a lot of good things came out that, obviously.

A lot of good music.

INTERVIEWER: So in the early 60s, the Bluegrass, the harmonies the different-- there was a lot of experimentation taking place in different kinds of music.

Yes.

INTERVIEWER: And you guys were kind of riding the wave of that stuff, it sounds like.

Well actually, I think we were one of the first people-- I was-- to take Bluegrass harmonies, banjo, mandolin, and that rhythm and add orchestration, pedal steel, harp, keyboards and do-- and the really great thing about that is when I brought Herb Pedersen into the group.

And Herb was in Nashville being a Bluegrass guy, but he had a lot more to offer.

So "Wheatstraw Suite" came along.

And his vocals, the way he sang and the way we sang together, really created-- you could-- I don't want to speak for Don Henley, but you could ask him about that.

He's spoken of that several times how he was influenced by that Dillard's harmony on "Wheatstraw Suite."

You know, I think you get where I think Dillards had influence on a lot of groups at that point.

It appears that way.

Especially on the harmony stuff.

I just went along doing music I felt like doing from the heart.

Anything that I didn't feel like doing-- and there was a lot of the label sometimes would want you to do stuff that just wasn't-- there was no soul in it.

There was no heart.

It was just manufactured.

And I always wanted to stay to stuff that I really believed in.

Otherwise, you're just acting.

So for-- And I'm a bad actor.

[laughter] Just look at the Andy Griffith Show.

Oh.

You were great on the Darlins.

You didn't-- your lines weren't too good, but-- I keep forgetting mine.

What was a-- for you, as you progressed along, what was a typical performance?

I mean, what kind of music-- was there a little bit of Bluegrass, a little bit of stuff that you liked.

It sounds like it was fairly, not esoteric necessarily, but you had some different kinds of things going on at any given show, right?

I mean, if people came just to listen to Bluegrass, they probably were disappointed when they heard something else a little bit different.

RODNEY DILLARD: Maybe so.

I never-- we didn't play a lot of Bluegrass festivals back in those days and that's another story.

But when we-- we had one on the pop charts when we toured with Elton John.

"Roots and Branches" went on the pop charts.

All of a sudden, the Bluegrass promoters were claiming as a part of them because they saw a little success there.

It's the hypocrisy of everything.

[laughs] INTERVIEWER: Yeah RODNEY DILLARD: But yeah.

For instance, we did a lot of the stuff off of the "United Artists" album that we did with Elton John when we toured with him.

So it was a combination.

But going back before that, I think really what brought us to prominence there was the humor.

You know, Mitch is that dry sort of down home humor.

It wasn't hokey pokey.

It was, you know, just humor, making fun of the Ozarks and people.

And just-- not putting them down like Hollywood did back with the Judy Kenova hillbilly stuff, which we hated.

INTERVIEWER: Right And that's one of the things we fought.

We'd go into and do a television show and they'd have the hay bales out.

They put freckles on the dancers and Daisy Mae costumes.

And we'd say uh, no.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah I listened to a couple of the monologues with Mitch because he was telling me one time that a lot of times when you were tuning your instruments and stuff, he'd just talk just kind of cover some time and everything.

And he had this one routine about outdoor toilets, which is one of the funniest things I think I've ever heard in my life.

RODNEY DILLARD: Oh, yeah.

The one where you're too far-- Yeah.

RODNEY DILLARD: --summertime's too.

Yeah.

[laughs] Yeah.

He explored the edge there quite a bit.

At that time, that humor-- it was important because the folk people saw that and understood it as being a part of that-- the intellectual-- I don't mean to come down on it.

But in those days, the intellectual folk people were-- they were collecting these people like in a museum.

They wanted to show them off and discover part of their heritage.

And a lot of the New York guys would put on leather vests and blue work shirts and start copying the Bluegrass stuff, which is fine.

I mean, that's good.

But Mitch and I managed to retain the integrity and the dignity of rural folks without doing those old Vaudeville jokes.

You know, the guy dressed in the bandanna suit with his teeth were blocked out and saying bathroom humor.

And we just pointed out rural people.

You know.

INTERVIEWER: Well I think you guys-- just at least the stuff that I've listened to and I've listened to quite a bit.

It's fairly-- it's rural in nature, but it's relatively sophisticated too.

There's a sophistication level there that a lot of times if you're really focusing on hillbilly stuff, it just doesn't exist.

But you guys did it a little bit-- RODNEY DILLARD: A lot of the-- A little bit differently.

Yes, sir.

Very observant.

I mean, I don't-- I haven't-- nobody points that out to me very much.

But, yes.

The lyrics.

Mitch and I were a great writing team.

We fought like cats and dogs.

Wouldn't speak to each other for hours and then we'd write an album of songs.

And those lyrics-- Mitch was a-- he was a writer.

He was a prose writer.

He wrote-- INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

--books.

And when it came to writing lyrics, you can't write a melody to a newspaper article.

Right.

RODNEY DILLARD: You know, just the cadence gets weird, unless you're going to rap.

[laughter] INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

But we would fight over the lyrics.

And all in all, it was very good because we came out, I think, with some fairly interesting things.

One of the songs, if I may be so bold, on the new album is called "Take Me Along for the Ride."

And that's a 2 minutes and 30 seconds of the history of America.

And if anybody's interested in hearing that, they ought to check the album out.

I'm going to show that in a minute because I'm very happy to have a copy of it right here in my lap.

But as you've gone through your career, what are some of the-- I guess, some of the songs, maybe the albums that you're most proud of that really stand out to you?

It's like picking out your favorite kid or something.

But is there stuff that really stands out that you say, boy, this is really-- I caught something here.

You know, I didn't do that for years until I started reflecting.

You know when you get older, you tend to do that.

INTERVIEWER: I've been reflecting a lot lately.

[laughter] I've been trying to find my car keys.

But I started listening some stuff and I said wow, maybe I really did say something.

Maybe we really did contribute because I just did it because-- I don't know.

It's like a hunting dog.

You do what you do and you enjoy it or you quit.

And you get a job teaching at school or whatever.

But some of the lyrics and some of those albums-- my favorite album or the two albums are "Wheatstraw Suite" and this last one because this last one is like bookends to "Wheatstraw Suite".

It was a departure.

This is kind of completing the circle.

And there was some things on "Wheatstraw Suite" that were some very nice things.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

I have to go back and listen to that I think after this conversation.

But so, one of the things that's happened-- and you've had really a long and terrific career.

You've had a lot of different folks in your band.

The band has morphed.

And so, this new one-- the new one you've got, the "Old Road New Again."

We'll just advertise it for you here.

RODNEY DILLARD: Thank you.

INTERVIEWER: It's got a little bit different make up of the band.

Can you talk a little bit about the band you've got right now?

RODNEY DILLARD: Yes.

I can give you the whole quick history of the band in a real quick collage here.

INTERVIEWER: OK. Douglas left the band in '67.

I brought Herb Pedersen into the band.

He stayed with me several years.

And then, everybody they work in and they wanted to go do something else, which is great.

I think that's important.

So I have different people over the years, but I've always kept the vocals the same.

Always kept the intent and the lyric content true to what we did, what Mitch and I did.

And so hence that album, I decided I wanted to bring Herb Pederson who really made the career kick it on "Wheatstraw Suite" and "Copperfields" and him to do the vocals, background vocals.

And I asked Don Henley because I knew Don before he went to LA.

That's another story.

Before the Eagles.

RODNEY DILLARD: Yeah, before the Eagles.

And he had a great group then called Felicity and he was in Texas.

And we talked about LA, career changes and different things.

And then Ricky Skaggs, of course, I'd known when he was in New South and a lot of the other Bluegrass bands.

And I've always admired both of these guys.

And Bernie Leadon.

Bernie was in my brother's group for a while.

He's one of the Eagles, the original Eagles.

But anyway, I've admired what their music was, the effect they had on people and how they stood their ground and what they believed in what they did.

And also, knowing them.

So I thought you know what?

I'd like to have these guys because of their talents, obviously, and just their integrity.

If that makes any sense.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

RODNEY DILLARD: And Sam Bush, of course, of New Grass.

He's a tremendous guy.

Other people were on that album.

Gosh, I can't-- there's a lot of guys.

And my bunch.

The guy who plays bass for me is a doctor in Nashville.

Has his own clinic.

And he says on his Facebook he plays bass for the Dillards.

Well, that's something to be proud of, I think.

And one of the fellows who played in Branson for years, he played fiddle on this.

And Timmy Crouch and a lot of people that are steadfast great musicians.

So do you do any live performances now or is it just like a recording that you do just when you see something you want to do?

Now, if this is a replay, we're in the middle of a virus, right?

Yeah, it's not a replay.

[inaudible] But right now-- RODNEY DILLARD: There are no-- there's no live.

There's nothing for entertainers and anybody can tell me now they're playing-- Herb Pedersen called me and he said we just played a drive in, but they honked their horns.

INTERVIEWER: Right RODNEY DILLARD: That's too much separation for me.

INTERVIEWER: That's a little separation.

RODNEY DILLARD: Yeah.

I like that intimacy where I can break that wall and relate to the people.

But no, our gigs have all been canceled or we've canceled them because of our own personal-- Assuming everything gets back on track and everything, what are some of the worlds that you want to conquer in music still?

You still got-- you still got the passion for it.

I can see it when I'm just talking to you.

Well, we can't tour Canada because they won't let Americans in.

And we can't tour Australia where our record is globally on the charts for weeks, on the folk charts.

We can't work.

We can't work.

So this album is actually on the folk charts as opposed to-- International global charts.

Folk-- Bluegrass charts.

It was number one on Amazon.

I don't keep up with that anymore because that is not important as people being able to hear.

Either like it or not.

To me, all my stuff has been like well look what I found.

I found this neat looking rock.

You want to see this rock?

You see that design?

That's a fossil.

That's-- me being a fossil now.

But that's why I approached it, but it is done very well.

And I must say, it's probably a lot of it due to the people I used on the album.

Used.

I shouldn't say that.

That I invited.

Yeah.

They contributed.

Did you write most of the songs, or were you involved in writing some of the songs?

Yes.

There's several on there.

There's one that Mitch and I wrote, which we recut.

"Take Me Along for the Ride."

One that my wife and a preacher in Mississippi wrote called "They're Tearing Our Liberty Down."

And one called "The Common Man" that my wife and I and there's a-- Jon Vezner, who was married to Kathy Mattea who wrote "Where Have You Been," a country hit.

He's got two or three Grammys.

I've always tried to surround myself with people who are more talented and smarter than me and hang on.

[laughs] Sounds like you've done a pretty good job of it.

Well, I really want to thank you.

Thank you for the album.

RODNEY DILLARD: Oh, you're very welcome.

INTERVIEWER: Really appreciate your being here and learning a little bit more about you.

I think we could talk for probably several more hours.

I would like to-- I'd like to interview you and get your opinion on music and where you stand because you said some pretty interesting things before the cameras went on.

And I'd like to know more.

When's your book coming out?

Well, we'll leave on a high note.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

We'll be back in a moment.

NARRATOR (VOICEOVER): Ozarks public television and Missouri State University are proud to present Ozarks Watch Video Magazine, a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

I want to thank my guest, Rodney Dillard, for taking us on the wonderful journey that the Dillards have had.

I hope you enjoyed our program and that you'll join us again for Ozarks Watch Radio Magazine.

[upbeat music]