Ravinia 2025 Issue 4

amazing. She was so sweet and so gracious. We recorded the album live in six days; when you’re playing with people of that caliber, that kind of stuff can happen. These were your heroes and elders. Did you ask them for any advice or was any forthcoming from them? It was such a whirlwind experience. We had a budget of $22,000—which is an odd number, by the way. We hung out about a week before we got into the studio. It was strictly about the music [there]. We played ping pong in the off hours, we sampled Southern cuisine; it was exotic for us being in Tennessee. But we got it done. After we finished the album, we jumped back on the bus. The band was featured in the movie musical Paint Your Wagon . Any good Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin stories? Not so much Clint Eastwood. He was cordial, but he pretty much kept to himself. We idolized Lee Marvin; he was as you’d imagine. A bit of a curmudgeon, but he was funny. We had a lot of time to kill on the set; we were there three months for three minutes in the film. What is it like playing with your son? I’m the luckiest guy. Number one, this is not his first rodeo. He’s been playing music professionally for 20 years. He played with the Mavericks. He and his cousin Jonathan McEuen re- corded a great record, Hanna–McEuen . Then he went to work with Gary Allen. At the end of 2017, John [McEuen] left the band. We were at a crossroads. We were celebrating our 50th anniversary, but there was a lot of tension behind the scenes. When he split, it was a relief for us and for him. But we had shows booked for 2018, and Jaime said, “You guys don’t wanna stop.” He recommended his friend Ross Holmes, who played with Bruce Hornsby. Ross came out and played with us, and we were like, “We can’t let him off the bus.” And then Ross said, “What about Jamie?” Jamie and I had a meeting with our families and we decided to try it. He went back to Gary and told him that he had an opportunity to play music with his dad. Gary, who had been in a family band, said, “You’ve got to do it.” Finally, this is the 90th anniversary of the original Carter Family recording, so this question has been asked for almost a century: Will the circle be unbroken? [ Laughs ] That’s a good question. My answer would be, of course. D onald Liebenson is a Chicago-based entertainment writer. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune , Chicago Sun-Times , Los Angeles Times , and on RogerEbert.com. The first Ravinia concert he attended without his parents was Procol Harum in 1970. Bob Carpenter and Jeff Hanna playing Ravinia’s Pavilion stage in 2016 RAVINIA.ORG  • RAVINIAMAGAZINE 13