The Dillards

Rodney and Doug grew up in Missouri playing music with their family and friends, among them a teenage John Hartford. As the Dillard Brothers they performed on a St. Louis radio station in 1958 and recorded for a local label, and “Banjo in the Hollow” was issued on K-Ark. Dean Webb then joined on mandolin, and Mitch Jayne, a one-room schoolteacher who hosted a radio show in Salem, came in on bass and as the band’s emcee.

After a first show at Washington University in St. Louis, the four headed for Los Angeles in 1962 with $300 in their pockets. On their first night in town they went to the Ash Grove, where the Greenbriar Boys were playing, and were invited onstage; an Elektra representative in the audience signed them the next evening. The signing brought them television work as well. A DesiLu Studios representative saw the Elektra announcement in Variety and called them to audition for the Darlings on The Andy Griffith Show. They recorded six episodes, and in one broadcast in October 1963 they performed “Feudin’ Banjos.”

Elektra issued three albums in as many years: Back Porch Bluegrass (1963), Live!!! Almost!!! (1964), recorded at The Mecca in Los Angeles, and Pickin’ & Fiddlin’ (1965), with Byron Berline on fiddle. Songs of the band’s own from these records, among them “Dooley,” “Doug’s Tune,” “Banjo in the Holler” and “There Is a Time,” became bluegrass standards, and in 1965 they also cut two singles for Capitol, one of them “The Last Thing on My Mind.” Comedy was part of the stage show. They played clubs from Los Angeles to New York, college campuses and folk festivals, and toured with Sam the Sham, Mitch Ryder, Bill Cosby, the Byrds and Elton John.

In 1967 Doug wrote and played the banjo music for the film Bonnie and Clyde. That led to a tour with the Byrds, and he left the band, later forming Dillard & Clark. Herb Pedersen replaced him on banjo, and with Pedersen the Dillards made Wheatstraw Suite (Elektra, 1968) at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, bringing in Buddy Emmons on pedal steel, Joe Osborn on electric bass and the drummers Jim Gordon and Toxey French. The amplified instruments and drums drew objections from some bluegrass listeners, and the band is credited with helping set the stage for country rock.

Pedersen stayed for Copperfields (Elektra, 1970), which had Paul York on drums and Berline back on fiddle for some tracks. By Roots and Branches (Anthem and United Artists, 1972), made at American Recording Studios in Studio City, Billy Ray Latham was the banjo player, and he is on Tribute to the American Duck (United Artists, 1973) as well. The band’s later records include Vs. the Incredible L.A. Time Machine (Flying Fish, 1977), Decade Waltz (Flying Fish, 1979), Mountain Rock (Crystal Clear, 1979) and Homecoming and Family Reunion (Flying Fish, 1981), which brought Doug, Pedersen and John Hartford together again with the group, followed by Let It Fly (Vanguard, 1990) and Old Road New Again (Pinecastle, 2020).

Mitch Jayne died on 2 August 2010, Doug Dillard on 16 May 2012 and Dean Webb on 30 June 2018. The Dillards were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2009, and on 24 September 2022 they entered the Bill Monroe Bluegrass Hall of Fame, where Rodney Dillard, the only living member of the original four, accepted the honor.