Any Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fan who thought the smooth soft rock of 1978’s The Dirt Band was a fluke was proven wrong by the following year’s American Dream, which took the template of its predecessor and improved it with a streamlined production and some very strong material.
Chief among these, of course, was the title song, a winningly polished take on Rodney Crowell’s clever “American Dream” that became a hit, climbing all the way to 13 on the pop charts and thereby establishing the band in the public’s eyes as the soft rock act they’d become.
It’s a brilliant single, one of the best Californian soft rock songs of its era, and American Dream the album delivers at least on the level of sound — sonically, it’s a sleek and appealing collection of mid-tempo pop songs, ballads, and lazy jams.
It’s the latter that hurt the momentum of the album; although the instrumental “Jas’moon” works better than “White Russian” on The Dirt Band, there are some really silly good-time numbers — “New Orleans,” “Happy Feet” — that deflate the mellow vibe of the record (as does the reggae-fied cover of “Wolverton Mountain” that closes the LP on a sour note). Though these are stumbles, they don’t hurt the record, since the rest of American Dream glides by on its smooth surfaces — all electric pianos, slick guitars, saxophones, and glistening polish — and songs as light but appealing as “In Her Eyes,” “Take Me Back,” “Dance the Night Away,” “Do You Feel the Way That I Do,” and “What’s on Your Mind.”
This won’t win over the fans lost on The Dirt Band — it would be some time before they returned to the progressive country that made their reputation — but this is another small late-’70s soft rock gem.
The Dirt Band
- Jeff Hanna — guitars; lead vocals (tracks 1-3, 5, 6, 9, 10), backing vocals (track 3, 6-8), guitar solo (track 6)
- Jimmie Fadden — guitars, harmonica; backing vocals (track 2), lead vocals (track 8)
- Al Garth — violin, saxophone, keyboards, horn arrangements and solos; backing vocals (tracks 2, 3), lead vocals (track 7)
- John McEuen — guitars, banjo, mandolin, Dobro, lap steel guitar
- Bob Carpenter — keyboards; backing vocals (tracks 6-8)
- Richard Hathaway — bass; backing vocals (tracks 2, 3)
- Mel Bregante — drums, percussion; backing vocals (tracks 2, 3)
Additional musicians
- Linda Ronstadt — harmony vocals (track 1), backing vocals (track 6)
- Leah Kunkel — backing vocals (tracks 5, 9)
- Marty Gwinn — backing vocals (tracks 5, 9)
- Funky Lester — bari
- Al Kooper — keyboards
- Bobby Lakind — percussion
- Le Roux:
- Jeff Pollard — guitars; backing vocals (track 2), guitar solo (track 6)
- Tony Haselden — guitars; guitar solo (track 1)
- Bobby Campo — trumpet, cornet, percussion
- Rod Roddy — keyboards; backing vocals (track 2)
- Leon Medica — bass
- David Peters — drums
Production
- Producer – Jeff Hanna and Bob Edwards
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