The Dillards

That's what I was talking about.

"Angela and I just love the Dillards, Kara Knox, the squad car tours, and the parade.

We got pictures with the tribute artist Ernest T. Bass, Barney Fife, and wanted to get a picture with you, Alan, as Floyd the Barber." They must've just missed me.

"We just love the town and all the shops and stayed at a wonderful Airbnb in Fancy Gap, Virginia.

That's the golf dinner.

And you got to see Elvis and Patsy Cline perform and sing.

And, uh, they went to the Dillards concert and Karen Notch show.

"Everything was wonderful.

And down the street, and also in Philadelphia or outside, in Bryn Mawr, there's a place called the Main Point, which was more of a folk place, although Springsteen played there early on in his career.

But, you know, I saw the Dillards there.

I saw Tim Harden there.

I saw a lot of music there, too.

And just actually before I was born in the 70s, bluegrass was everywhere out here.

The Dillards really made the scene in the 70s and introduced people like Steve Martin and John McEwen and all of them to bluegrass music.

And so out here, it's kind of like how you described it a minute ago.

You know, it was word of mouth.

Andy Taylor, he was on Mayberry, the sheriff of Mayberry, and he loved to play and had the Darlings on there.

They're actually the Dillards, and they're actually from this area of Branson, Missouri, where I'm at.

So that's a pretty cool deal.

Did that influence you in the world of country music, be a sheriff and maybe play music like Andy did?

He's going to be doing a comic routine that's a tribute to nostalgia.

uh tuesday and they've got no time for sergeants and facing the crowd those movies are scheduled to be shown along with a band called too much sylvia in the evenings so there's there's stuff to do all week so if you don't make it this year if you didn't come early maybe you want to try to think about next year and see what's happening there now wednesday Wednesday morning is a big one because Randy Turner is going to be presenting a celebration, celebrating 100 years of American icon Andy Griffith.

And that's going to be over at the Earl Theater.

So you can go and check that out.

He's the darling boy who plays the guitar.

So that's who he is.

And the band, the Dillards, were the darling boys.

Well, Rodney will be performing and he'll be there with the Dillards together.

If anybody remembers the old Andy Griffith show, every once in a while there was a family of characters called the Darlins, and they would show up on this show, and they played in a band.

They were a family band, and they were played by an actual band called the Dillards, and the Dillards were a fairly popular band back in the 60s and 70s, and Doug Dillard was the banjo player.

In the episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, they all stood very deadpan.

Nobody spoke a word and they all had looks on their faces like their dog just died.

Mm.

You know, where I heard, first heard Buck Owens and The Dillards and Johnny Cash.

But there was, in the house, my mom had gotten it, the Smithsonian box set of folk, you know, music, of, like, everything from, uh, blues to The Carter Family.

Mm.

And John Hickman is going to be doing Don Reno-tuned.

Dixie Breakdown I first heard this from the Dillards and I always loved the tune and especially the second part the run down or the runs up depending on where you were in the song and they were always harder than you expected to do especially at speed and I know I'd worked out a sort of cheat way of doing them but I don't think John Hickman would do it in a cheat way so here he is with his friends playing the Dixie Breakdown let's have a listen ? ? ? Thank you.

Oh, I love the ending on that one.

Oh, I think Don Reno, the man who wrote that tune, would fully approve of John Hickman's version of it.