When the Dillards bumped into Steve McQueen on a Hollywood street

As the front man for progressive bluegrass outfit the Dillards, Rodney Dillard was signed to the Doors’ Elektra Records label when he briefly stumbled upon Steve McQueen on a Hollywood street during the swingin’ ’60s. Still hunky when fully covered in mud from the Magnolia State, the undisputed King of Cool is seen near Carrollton, Mississippi, in the aftermath of trying to push a specially built 18 horsepower touring car resembling a 1904 Winton Flyer out of a mud bog in director Mark Rydell’s rollicking “The Reivers,” unleashed on December 25, 1969, by Cinema Center Films, the theatrical film production company of the CBS television network from 1967 to 1972. Photography by Mel Traxel / Paramount Pictures

The Dillards are to bluegrass what Steve McQueen was to film cinema — supreme innovators during a decade when everything was a changin’.

Originating from Salem, Missouri, the first and still classic lineup of the band found Rodney Dillard on guitar and lead vocals, pipe smoking emcee Mitch Jayne on stand-up bass, Dean Webb on mandolin and harmony vocals, and elder brother Doug Dillard on lightning speed banjo.

Breaking into the mainstream when they guest starred on six fan favorite episodes of The Andy Griffith Show between 1963 and 1966 as a peculiar, non-speaking, but musically agile mountain clan called the Darling Family, the Dillards were simultaneously signed to Elektra Records by label owner Jac Holzman and Byrds producer-manager Jim Dickson. As the ’60s progressed, they infiltrated the L.A. folk rock scene, accumulating club appearances all over the Sunset Strip like the famed Troubadour. Plugging in and hiring Buffalo Springfield’s future drummer Dewey Martin, the Dillards opened for the Byrds on a major USA tour and may have been the first bluegrass act to cover Bob Dylan [“Walkin’ Down the Line”] and the Beatles [“I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “Yesterday”].

A master raconteur capable of discovering humor in mundane situations, Dillard is a one of a kind guy just like…