Early Life: Native of St.Louis, Missouri... learned to play the banjo and fiddle as a child. ...In high school, performed locally in a number of bluegrass bands...released a few singles on local record labels....attended Washington University for a year...left before earning a degree...worked at various odd jobs including, commercial artist, radio announcer and steamboat deck hand.
To Nashville: Worked at various radio stations while writing songs and performing ...Began having some success as a songwriter....
Waylon Jennings, Billy Grammer, George Hamilton IV and Patti Page all recorded some of his songs...In 1966, signed with RCA Records... released a half a dozen very weird albums for the label...countrypolitan/MOR/bluegrass/hippie music...worth searching out, if you can find them...
Gentle On My Mind: On his second album, "Earthwords & Music", Hartford recorded an original composition called, "Gentle On My Mind"...Although, his version didn't go anywhere, the song was recorded by dozens of artists...it eventually became a multi-million selling hit for Glen Campbel putting Hartford on the map and making him a very rich man....the song eventually became one of the most recorded songs of the twentieth century with literally hundreds of versions..
Hollywood: Following the success of " Gentle On My Mind", Hollywood beckoned...He appeared regularly on The Smothers Brothers show and The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and hosted a few specials of his own...CBS offered him a starring role in a detective show they were developing but he turned them down..
Newgrass: In the early seventies, Hartford signed with Warner Brothers records...he released two very innovative bluegrass albums, "Aeroplane" and "Morning Bugle"...Surrounding himself with fellow young longhaired hippie musicians, he turned bluegrass on its ear...introducing jazz, blues and rock n roll influences and writing tunes about sex and marijuana and adding his very un-bluegrassy baritone voice to the mix...
Steamboat Captain: About this time, he began working as a steamboat river pilot...piloting boats of up and down the Mississippi, Illinois and Ohio Rivers...
Mark Twang: In the mid-seventies, he signed with the tiny Flying Fish label and released his magnum opus, "Mark Twang"...A completely solo endeavor, Hartford sang and accompanied himself on banjo, fiddle, guitar and something he called his "womper-stomper" (which consisted of a giant piece of amplified plywood that he tapdanced on while playing--seriously!)...he even plays his face on one song.(again, seriously!)..A true one man band effort, he played everything with no overdubbing or multi-tracking...
Incredible banjo and fiddle playing coupled with some really far out subject matter, including songs about; steamboats (Skipping Thru The Mississippi Dew, Long Hot Summer Days, Julia Belle Swain), warped record albums ("Don't Leave Your Records In The Sun"), a bluegrass "rap" song ("Tater Tate & Allen Mundy") and some just plain weird stuff ("Trying To Do Something To Get Your Attention", "Little Cabin On The Hill")...not to mention "The Lowest Pair" a sort of cannabis soaked Lord's Prayer....
Nothing like it had ever been heard before (or since, mind you)...."Mark Twang" actually won a Grammy Award for "Best Ethnic Recording"...Seriously! (For the third time)"
So Long: Hartford continued to record and tour until his death from cancer in 2001...Although, he performed and recorded with various musicians through the years, he did hundreds and hundreds of one man bands shows...just him his banjo, fiddle and his beloved "womper-stomper"....check him out below performing in Athens, Ohio--1977.
--Shangri-La, Ohio
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ReplyDeleteGreat article. Have just 'discovered' John Hartford via a post by Todd Snider about his contribution to a John Hartford tribute album. He had many wonderful songs and looks to have been a fantastic performer. Turns out I knew quite a few of his tunes without being 'aware' of him as a performer. So sad he's gone, but so wonderful that he existed.
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