Long before the alt-country movement, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band linked roots music with rock by recording country songs, including the seminal Will the Circle Be Unbroken LP. Like The Byrds, NGDB were a folk act that went electric in the mid-‘60s, but they found little success until 1970. Two years later, they scored a watershed hit with Circle, an array of country standards featuring icons like Roy Acuff. It would establish the Long Beach, California, band as crossover stars, and they would continue to merge rock and country over the next four decades.