Ozark Mountain Daredevils announce cap to touring career 

After decades, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils have announced a trio of concerts to celebrate their musical achievements, and perhaps to cap off their touring careers. 

A three-night event, slated for Nov. 13-15 at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts, will be made up of three shows, all starting at 7 p.m. Tickets for the shows will go on sale Feb. 21 and start at $49 apiece: 

• Nov. 13: The Ozark Mountain Daredevils with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra. This show builds on the 2022 collaboration between the ensembles, with the band’s music blended with orchestral arrangements.
• Nov. 14: Generations: Celebrating the Legacy. Local musicians have been invited to perform original works and deep cuts from the Daredevils’ catalog as band members collaborate. The show will be capped with a performance by the Daredevils.
• Nov. 15: The Ozark Mountain Daredevils: The Final Bow. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils will end their current tour with a celebratory performance.

“I don’t want to be embarrassed by saying we quit, and then something happens where we need to show up and play for any reason,” said John Dillon, who, with Supe Granda is one of the two original members of the band that still performs.  

The idea, Dillon said, is for band members to stay home. 

“We’re stopping this whole idea of touring – it could be that we never show up on stage again, depending on what happens,” he said. “Supe likes to say we’re landing the plane. I say we’re not necessarily leaving the terminal, but we still have music to share.” 

The final shows, Dillon said, are a fitting cap to five decades of touring. 

“We want to try to conduct business with a little dignity and grace, and that’s why we had the idea to do something in Springfield,” he said. 

Granda, who lives in Nashville, said the music remains joyful, but the touring has become hard. 

“Travel is starting to take a toll on my body,” he said. “The music is still free – still wonderful – but that’s two hours a day. There are 24 hours in a day – it’s the other 22 hours that are taking a toll.” 

He elaborated. 

“Taking eight-and-a-half-hour drives, s---ty food, a lumpy bed, late-night this, early-morning that. I’m not going to miss that,” he said. 

Dwight Glenn, manager for the band, said since 1972, 34 men and women have taken the stage as a member of the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. In that time, they’ve recorded 16 albums and sold over 3 million units. 

Throughout, they’ve remained tethered to the Springfield area, Glenn said. 

“After ‘Jackie Blue’ became an international hit, they had every opportunity to move to Los Angeles, be on Johnny Carson or Sonny and Cher,” he said. “But they wanted to stay home and raise their kids in the environment they felt was best for their families to succeed. 

“If the band had moved out in ’75 after ‘Jackie Blue,’ they would have burned hot and bright until disco came and then gone away.” 

Neither do the band members want a long, slow fizzle into obscurity.

Granda said when the band got together to, as Dillon hinted, “land this plane gracefully and with integrity” – they knew they didn’t want to be like the Doobie Brothers. 

“They had a farewell tour followed by a reunion tour followed by another farewell tour followed by another reunion tour,” he said. 

Interestingly enough, Springfield Business Journal this week received a news release about the Doobie Brothers’ upcoming show at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena, set for Sept. 5. There was no mention of retirement. 

Granda said the band decided to do a final two-year tour, which will cap with the trio of performances.  

“We said let’s just go two more years and tell everyone on the planet, if you want to hear us play, you’ve got a two-year window,” he said. 

Asked if he had enjoyed touring during the early days of the band, Granda replied, “You can put in parentheses ‘He laughs.’” 

“I’ve loved every minute of it,” he added, “but right now the 70-year-old men are having a hard time keeping up with what the 30-year-old men were doing. I love Keith Richards; I love Willie Nelson. I just don’t want to be Keith Richards and Willie Nelson.” 

Dillon said the Ozark Mountain Daredevils is a brand – one built on what makes the Ozarks region special, and it is expressed not only in its recordings and performances, but in its signature gin and bourbon collaborations with The Brown Derby. 

“The brand will continue, but we need to figure out a way to stop this momentum so we can do what we need to do in our lives to stay healthy,” he said. “We want to do that in a way that pays some respect to the people who have meant so much to us and the place that means so much.”