Dillard/Hartford/Dillard

In the closing years of the 1970s, longtime friends John Hartford and brothers Doug and Rodney Dillard came together to launch the uncommonly wide-ranging outfit Dillard-Hartford-Dillard. Although bluegrass remained the core style, the group wove in threads of rock, reggae, and country.

Their opening release, Glitter Grass from the Nashwood Hollyville Strings, arrived in 1977 and spotlighted a collection of original songs that crossed stylistic boundaries. Numbers such as "High Dad in the Morning," "California Is Nicer Than You," and "Artificial Limitations" stood next to Hartford’s wryly phrased piece "Two Hits and the Joint Turned Brown."

Three years later, Permanent Wave presented bluegrass-inflected versions of Buddy Holly’s "That’ll Be the Day," the Coasters’ "Yakety Yak," Stevie Wonder’s "Boogie on Reggae Woman," and Don Reno’s "Country Boy Rock and Roll."

New York-born and St. Louis-raised Hartford had reached the height of his career when he helped assemble the trio. Writer of the 1967 hit "Gentle on My Mind," which Glen Campbell later made famous, he had already issued a run of trailblazing solo albums that culminated in his Grammy-winning 1976 record Mark Twang.

Although Doug and Rodney had built a devoted following in the early ’60s and appeared repeatedly as the Darling Family on the Andy Griffith Show, the brothers went their separate ways by 1967. While Rodney and Hartford kept performing, with banjo player Herb Pederson stepping in for Doug, the latter helped shape country-rock through the duo Dillard & Clark he formed with Gene Clark of the Byrds.