John Hartford
(December 30, 1937 - June 4,
2001)
Some of my earliest memories of Appalachian music
came from radio and television, since it was not in my family or neighborhood
while growing up. In 1967 John Hartford had the hit "Gentle On My
Mind" which featured him playing banjo. The top 40 AM stations back then
played it many times a day for at least a decade, ( just like they do today.)
Then, at some time during the 1970's, while I was still in high school he was
on a televised concert where he fiddled and clog danced, at the same time. This
was inspiring to me, even before I had any real awareness of the traditional
side to this music.
I later learned that while
Hartford was popularizing the style during much of his early career, he was
mainly writing songs and tunes that sounded similar to traditional music, with
an occasional traditional piece appearing on his albums. This included his
composition of The Delta Queen Waltz.
Later in his career, perhaps
when he came to realize that a lot of people were finding deep appreciation for
the real thing, he began to present entire albums of traditional music, and
give authentic references in the credits. He even became involved in the
production of a CD collection of tunes from a renowned Kentucky fiddler named
Ed Haley. He also recorded a version The Squirrel Hunters, which he
cited is from Pennsylvania.
I got to see him perform in
Pittsburgh shortly before he died of cancer. It was his farewell tour, everyone
knew it would be the last chance to see him. He was still the ultimate
entertainer, and I recall what he said at the beginning of the show as he
introduced the band:
Hello, I'm John Hartford,
and I'm tickled to death to be here...
Here's Bob Carlin, and he's tickled to death to be here... There's ____ and he's tickled to death to be here...
We just returned from a
concert tour of Japan, where I said to the crowd, hello, I'm John Hartford, and
I'm tickled to death to be here. What I didn't realize was that when they
translate that into Japanese it comes out something like "he scratches himself
until he dies."
A clip of John Hartford playing The
Squirrel Hunters