New Collection Shows the Many Sides of John Hartford

This has been a good year for John Hartford fans. In the summer of 2018, Hartford’s daughter, Katie Harford Hogue, assisted by fiddler Matt Combs and musicologist and musician Greg Reish, compiled and narrated John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes (StuffWorks Press Inc.), an astonishing anthology of 176 of Hartford’s original compositions, most of them previously unpublished and unrecorded. The beautifully crafted book contains Hartford’s personal drawings, his reflections on many of these tunes, and many never-before-seen-photographs.

Now Backroads, Rivers & Memories, a collection of 27 rare and previously unreleased recordings, compiled and annotated by Hartford scholar Skip Heller, reveal glimpses into Hartford’s early songwriting genius. The album contains 16 demos, dating from 1965 to 1969, including a spare version of his well-known “Gentle on My Mind” and an instrumental excerpt from his ground-breaking “Steam Powered Aereo Plain.” His twinkling humor and wordplay flows over gentle banjo rolls in “Left Handed Woman”: “Left handed woman / you south pawed member of the female gender / tender bender of my splendor.” Many listeners unfamiliar with Hartford discovered his music when “This Eve of Parting” played behind the penultimate scene in the movie Lady Bird; the earliest demo of the song appears on this album. The most hilarious track on the Backroads, Rivers & Memories is “Station Break” (a longer version than the one that ended up on Aereo-Plain) on which Hartford, who himself worked as a DJ, delivers a rapid-fire, pattering parody of a WSM DJ. The “station break” opens: “Bill Randall 650 / Dorothy S. Ma’am / the Axelwide and Peppermint Endurance Company / in Bashful Johnny C. / Home of Fannie Hill University, the Grand Ole Conglomeration, the bathtub of the South.” He refers to a WSM DJ as Ralph Summery, and, later in the song, calls the Grand Ole Opry the “Grand Ole Operation.”

Backroads, Rivers & Memories also contains three unreleased radio performances from 1964 — “Ice Cold Love,” “Matthew 24,” “Greensleeves” — that feature Hartford’s growing strength as a vocalist, as well as his maturing banjo work. Eight rare tracks from the Ozark Mountain Trio — Hartford, Dan Brown, and Norman Ford — from 1960, including the traditional “The Way is Narrow,” “When I Feel the Hands of My Saviour,” and “Corinna,” round out the album, and reveal Hartford’s evolving banjo style.

Backroads, Rivers & Memories captures John Hartford’s emerging songwriting genius, his ceaseless creativity, his humor, and his growth a musician. This set is a nice companion to John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes, and we can also hope that the John Hartford estate will compile other collections of Hartford’s unreleased music.

Track listing:

Demos

Towboat River
Tall Tall Grass
Front Porch
Eve of My Multiplication
California Earthquake
Left Handed Woman
George
Run
This Eve of Parting
Self Made Man
Minus the Woman
Like unto a Mockingbird
Grownup Man
Gentle on My Mind
Steam Powered Aereo Plain (first rehearsal excerpt)
Station Break

Live on WHOW, Clinton IL with Pat Burton (guitar) & Nate Bray (mandolin)

Ice Cold Love
Matthew 24
Greensleeves

The Ozark Mountain Trio singles

Corrina
Greenback Dollar
Jesus Loves Everybody
I Forgot to Forget
The Way Is Narrow
Short Life of Trouble
That Great Day Is Coming
When I Feel the Hand of My Saviour