 John Cowan Hartford (December 30, 1937– June 4, 2001) was an American bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics and unique vocal style. Hartford performed with a variety of ensembles throughout his career, and is perhaps best known for his solo performances where he would interchange the guitar, banjo, and fiddle from song to song. He also invented his own shuffle tap dance move, and danced on an amplified piece of plywood while he played and sang. Image File history File links B00005O6IM.01. ...
December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ...
1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...
June 4 is the 155th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (156th in leap years), with 210 days remaining. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
Bluegrass music is considered a form of American roots music with its own roots in the English, Irish and Scottish traditional music of immigrants from the British Isles (particularly the Scots-Irish immigrants of Appalachia), as well as the music of rural African-Americans, jazz, and blues. ...
The violin is a stringed musical instrument that has four strings tuned a fifth apart. ...
Old 6-string zither banjo 4-string banjos The banjo is a stringed instrument of African-American origin, early or original examples sometimes being called the gourd banjo. Its name is commonly thought to be derived from the Kimbundu term mbanza. ...
Life John Harford (he would change his name to Hartford later in life at the behest of Chet Atkins) was born on December 30, 1937 in New York City. He spent his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri. There he was exposed to the influence that would shape much of his career and music, the Mississippi River. From the time he got his first job on the river, at age 10, Hartford was on, around, or singing about the river for much of his life. Chet Atkins Chester Burton Chet Atkins (June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001) was an influential country guitarist and record producer in country music. ...
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His early musical influences came from the broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and included Earl Scruggs, inventor of the bluegrass style of banjo playing. Hartford said often that the first time he heard Earl Scruggs pick the banjo changed his life. By age thirteen, Hartford was an accomplished old-time fiddler and banjo player, and he soon learned to play guitar and mandolin as well. Hartford formed his first bluegrass band while still in high school at John Burroughs School. Although he enrolled in college at Washington University, within a year he dropped out to focus on his music. He immersed himself in the local music scene, working as a DJ, playing in bands, and occasionally recording singles for local labels. In 1965, he moved to Nashville, the center of the country music industry. In 1966, he signed with RCA Victor, and produced his first album, Looks at Life, in the same year. The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly Saturday night country music radio program broadcast live on WSM Radio in Nashville, Tennessee. ...
For other cities named Nashville, see Nashville (disambiguation). ...
Earl Scruggs Earl Eugene Scruggs (born January 6, 1924 in Flint Hill, North Carolina) created a banjo style (now called Scruggs style) that is one of the defining characteristics of bluegrass. ...
Founded in 1923, John Burroughs School (JBS) is a private, non-sectarian preparatory school with nearly 600 students in grades 7-12. ...
Washington University in St. ...
Sony BMG Music Entertainment is the result of a 50/50 joint venture between Sony Music Entertainment (part of Sony) and BMG Entertainment (part of Bertelsmann AG) completed in August 2004. ...
In 1967, Hartford scored his first major hit, "Gentle on My Mind." His recording of the song was only a modest success, but it caught the notice of Glen Campbell, who recorded his own version, which gave the song much wider publication. At the 1967 Grammies, the song netted four awards, two of which went to Hartford; just as importantly, it became one of the most widely recorded country songs of all time, and the royalties it brought in allowed Hartford great financial independence; Hartford would later say that the song bought his freedom.[1] As his popularity grew, he moved to the West Coast, where he became a regular on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour; other television appearances followed, as did recording appearances with several major country artists. The Smothers Brothers are an American musical-comedy team, formed by real-life brothers Tom and Dick Smothers. ...
Hartford recorded several more albums with RCA before moving to the Warner Brothers label, where he was given more freedom to record in his untraditional style, in 1971. There, fronting a band that included Vassar Clements, Tut Taylor and Norman Blake, he recorded several albums that set the tone of his later career, including the acclaimed "Aereo-Plain" and "Morning Bugle." Of the former, Sam Bush said "Without Aereo-Plain (and the Aereo-Plain band), there would be no newgrass music."[2] Switching several years later to the Flying Fish label, Hartford continued to participate in the experimentation with nontraditional country and bluegrass styles that he and artists such as Bush were engaging in at the time. His Grammy-winning "Mark Twang" features Hartford playing solo, reminiscent of his live solo performances playing the fiddle, guitar, banjo, and amplified plywood for tapping his feet. At the same time, he developed a stage show, which toured in various forms from the mid 1970s until shortly before his death. In the 70s Hartford earned his steamboat pilot's license, which he used to keep close to the river he loved; for many years, he worked as a pilot on the steamboat Julia Belle Swain during the summers. Cover of Old and in the Way (1975) Vassar Clements (April 25, 1928-August 16, 2005) was an American fiddle player. ...
Norman Blake is a singer-songwriter in the Glasgow band Teenage Fanclub. ...
Sam Bush Sam Bush (b. ...
Hartford went on to change labels several more times during his career; in 1991, he switched to the Small Dog a'Barkin' label. Later in the 1990s, he switched again, to the Rounder label. On that label and a number of smaller labels, he recorded a number of idiosyncratic records, many of which harked back to earlier forms of folk and country music. He recorded several songs for the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou," winning another Grammy for his performance, and made his final tour in 2001 with the Down from the Mountain tour that grew out of that movie and its accompanying album. Rounder Records is a Cambridge, Massachusetts based independent record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin, and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students. ...
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a musical comedy film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, set in Mississippi during the Great Depression. ...
During his later years, he came back to the river every summer. "Working as a pilot is a labor of love," he said. "After a while, it becomes a metaphor for a whole lot of things, and I find for some mysterious reason that if I stay in touch with it, things seem to work out all right."
Along with his own compositions, Hartford was a voluminous repository of old river songs, calls, and stories. He could spend hours talking about the glory days of steamboating, or demonstrate the lead calls that the river's most famous chronicler took as his name, "Mark Twain" (or "two fathoms"). A virtuoso fiddler and banjo player, Hartford was simultaneously an innovative voice on the country scene and a thrilling reminder of a vanished era.
Hartford was also the author of Steamboat in a Cornfield, a children's book that recounts the true story of the Ohio River Steamboat The Virginia and its somewhat comical beaching in a cornfield. At the time of his death, Hartford was also working on the biography of the blind fiddler Ed Haley. Hartford's album "Wild Hog in the Red Bush" is a collection of Haley's tunes. Hartford also provided narration for several of Ken Burns' documentaries. Steamboat in a Cornfield (ISBN 0517561417) is a childrens book written by musician and steamboat pilot John Hartford. ...
James Edward Ed Haley was born in 1883 on Harts Creek in Logan County, West Virginia. ...
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American documentary filmmaker. ...
From the 1980s onwards, Hartford struggled with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. On June 4, 2001, at age 63, he died of the disease. Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is a type of cancer. ...
Works Hartford recorded more than 30 albums in his life, ranging across a broad spectrum of styles--from the traditional country of his early RCA recordings, to the new and experimental sound of his early newgrass recordings, to the traditional folk style to which he often returned later in his life. Hartford's albums also vary widely in formality, from the stately and orderly "Annual Waltz" to the rougher and less cut recordings that typified many of his later albums.
"Aereo-Plain" and "Morning Bugle" are often considered to be Hartford's most influential work, coming as they did at the very beginning of a period in which artists such as Hartford and the New Grass Revival, led by Sam Bush, would create a new form of country music, blending their country backgrounds with influences from another of other sources. His later years saw a number of live albums, as well as recordings that explored the repertoire of old-time folk music. New Grass Revival is a great bluegras band. ...
Hartford is remembered as an influential and pioneering artist. Never bounded by the limitations of one genre, he recorded wherever his interests led him. Performing and recording until his illness rendered him incapable of continuing, Hartford contributed a vast and unique body of work to the library of American music.
References
External links
Notes - ↑ Hartford's biography from his official site.
- ↑ Hartford's biography from his official site.
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