Pickin’ Party on Music City Roots tonight

John McEuenNashville’s Music City Roots is given over tonight to a 70th birthday celebration and pickin’ party for John McEuen. It appears to be a big time planned to help celebrate the banjo picker and multi-instrumentalist who has spent 50 years of his life as a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

John will be on hand for tonight’s live show, along with bluegrass from Rhonda Vincent, whose brand new Christmas album is sure to be the source for her performance selections, as well as The Roland White Band. Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas will have their own tribute to McEuen, along with John Carter Cash and Bernie Leadon. Lots of music lovers know Bernie as the original lead guitarist with The Eagles, but he’s also a fine banjo player, and picked with John before either of them hit it big.

Also scheduled to appear are John’s Dirt Band brothers Jeff Hanna and Les Thompson. It’s not clear if they will perform, but you can bet that MCR interviewer Craig Havighurst will coax a few road stories from McEuen’s bandmates during the program. Jesse McReynolds is also expected to make an appearance.

Things get started at 8:00 p.m. Eastern (7:00 in Nashville) before a live audience at The Factory in Nashville. It is streamed live online at musiccityroots.com, where past shows are also archived for later viewing.

Sounds like a raucous, birthday pickin’, Christmas celebratin’ good time!

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.