Ravinia 2025 Issue 4

BRIT TAYLOR A fast-rising country singer-songwriter born and raised in eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian Moun- tains, Brit Taylor embraces the traits of tradition while expressing her independence with senses of beauty, honor, and humor. With three albums, a Grand Ole Opry debut, and coast-to-coast tour- ing under her belt, Taylor is devoted to artistic integrity and writing music that would make her ancestors proud. Starting on the Kentucky Opry at just 7 years old, she left at age 17 to chase her country music dream in Nashville. A college degree and an internship quickly led to her first publishing deal and momentum with industry pros, but a marriage gone wrong, the death of her beloved bulldog, and a broken-up band combined for a turning point to rediscover her true self and sound. Taylor released her debut album, Real Me , in 2020 on her own label, Cut a Shine Records, having started her own cleaning company to finance it. In- fluences from Loretta Lynn to Bobby Gentry and Western swing brought the 10 original tracks critical and popular acclaim. Taylor teamed with Grammy winners David Ferguson and Sturgill Simpson as producers for her sophomore album, Kentucky Blue , featuring edgier honky-tonk instrumentation— piano and fiddle with slide and steel guitars and full-on string sections—plus flavors of LA and Texas that enhance but never overpower her Appalachian roots. Just over a month after the album’s release in early 2023, Taylor was invited to make her Grand Ole Opry debut and hit stages across the country. Last February, she introduced Kentucky Bluegrassed , a collection of five reimagined tracks from her debut plus three fully new songs, hearkening back to the 8-track tapes she grew up with. Backed by stellar pickers and mountain strings, Taylor eagerly extends outside mainstream country with songs fashioned for the classic bluegrass sound, sharing her authenticity and modern lyrical perspective on real-life living and loving with her powerful, expressive alto. Brit Taylor is making her Ravinia debut. NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND Nearly 60 years ago, Long Beach, CA, high schooler Jeff Hanna became transfixed by the resurgent folk and blues songs of a Minnesotan transplant in New York’s Greenwich Village, one Bob Dylan. When the wild-eyed singer-song- writer appeared in a nearby auditorium, Hanna was instantly perched in the balcony alongside fellow guitarist Bruce Kunkel, with whom he would soon start the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Another key co-founder of the band was Jimmie Fadden, who would who would sit behind any number of instruments to play Dylan songs with Hanna, basking in the blends of every strain of roots music. Since 1966, Hanna and Fad- den have been partners in the groundbreaking sound of the Dirt Band, Hanna considering Fad- den’s harmonica to be another lead vocal, mak- ing the band’s sound instantly recognizable. On NGDB’s latest album, Hanna and Fadden slide back to those roots with longtime (since 1980) keyboardist Bob Carpenter and three newmem- bers—fiddler Ross Holmes, bassist Jim Photoglo (who wrote the Dirt Band’s recent platinum hit “Fishin’ in the Dark”), and Jeff ’s son Jaime on another guitar and microphone pair. In the five decades between, NGDB brought folk music to the national forefront with “Mr. Bojangles” (1971) and three volumes of the multi-artist Will the Circle Be Unbroken series of albums (1972, 1989, 2002), featuring Mother Maybelle Carter, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal, John Prine, Dwight Yoakam, and doz- ens more guests. Across more than 25 albums, they’ve won three Grammys and had their “Mr. Bojangles” and first Circle album enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame. NGDB scored nu- merous country radio hits throughout the 1980s, including “Voila (An American Dream),” “Long Hard Road,” “Modern Day Romance,” and “Stand a Little Rain.” Dirt Does Dylan (2022), on the other hand, puts the band in vintage form with an era-bending take on “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You” and a multi-guest ren- dition of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” but also sets a definitive contemporary Dirt Band sound with “Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)” genre-bending musicality that the 1960s’ NGDB could only imagine. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band previously played Ravinia in 2016, on tour with Kenny Rogers for his farewell tour. CAROUSEL STAGE 6:30 PM TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2025 ALL THE GOOD TIMES: THE FAREWELL TOUR NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND with special guest BRIT TAYLOR † Brit Taylor –Intermission– Nitty Gritty Dirt Band † Ravinia debut RAVINIAMAGAZINE • JULY 21 – AUG. 3, 2025 56 NATIACINCO(TAYLOR);NEILSONHUBBARD(DIRTBAND)