John Hartford died earlier this week. We've lost a truly original American artist, one whose work embodied the spirit of the American heartland and plumbed the depths and currents of his beloved Mississippi River.
I once had the pleasure of opening the show for Hartford at a small club in Seattle, and I still remember his gentle manner and the twinkle in his eye. Hartford was a unique performer, to say the least. He was primarily a fiddler, banjo player, and dancer, and toured for a number of years with a piece of plywood that was wired for sound; he used it as a dancing platform to amplify the rhythms of his unique dancing style that blended elements of clog and tap dancing with "the old soft shoe" of Bill Bojangles.
Over the last twenty-five years or so, Hartford's work grew increasingly intertwined with the river that became his central metaphor. He obtained his steamboat pilot's license, and songs like "Skippin' in the Mississippi Dew," "The Julia Belle Swain," and "Natchez Whistle" are examples of his fascination with the river that flowed past his boyhood home in St. Louis.
Hartford is probably best known for "Gentle On My Mind," which was a hit for singer Glen Campbell in 1967. Although often cited in those turbulent times as a statement of rebellion from the commitment of marriage, I also heard the song as a declaration of independence by someone who refuses to "get bent out of shape by society's pliers," as Bob Dylan put it. Like Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land," I think of "Gentle On My Mind" as a classic American song because it's straightforward and honest as well as poetic and hopelessly romantic.
The song's smooth, rolling rhythm is instantly appealing, and it's opening line:
It's knowing that your door is always open
and your path is free to walk
is an invitation in itself, a come-on-in-and-sit-by-the-fire sort of welcome to a long evening's chat.
The verse that has most appealed to me over the years includes four images, each of which I think of as great American landscape themes:
Though the wheat fields and the clotheslines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us...
Whenever I hear those lines I'm transported to the highways of the Midwest that I traversed as a boy with my family, as well as the spell-like trances that long car trips used to induce. And I think the railroad tracks, train yards, and campfires of "Gentle On My Mind" speak to me as strongly as they do because I read Kerouac's The Dharma Bums in sixth or seventh grade, which forever romanticized the image of the American hobo in my mind as an independent free spirit. The song seems to be from a recent but oh-so-far-away American past, like the memory of a first love or the perfect childhood vacation.
The recording of "Gentle On My Mind" that I'm most familiar with is Hartford's own version from the Flying Fish album entitled All In the Name of Love. While Glen Campbell's version is the one played most often on the radio, I prefer to hear the songwriter himself having fun with the song. Hartford uses it as a showcase for his musical friends, announcing each soloist by name, and the caliber of the playing is incredible. The band he assembled is a cornucopia of accomplished musicians, including Benny Martin on fiddle, Sam Bush on mandolin, Hargus "Pig" Robbins on piano, and Buddy Emmons on pedal steel guitar. Emmons' steel guitar solo is a wonder to behold.
Saying Hartford was an original artist is an understatement, to say the least. I hope I'll always see him
waving from the backroads by the rivers of my memory
ever smiling, ever gentle on my mind
Thanks for all the music, John.