My Memories of John Hartford
John Hartford (1937-2001) was one of the most unique individuals in the history of American music. Most bluegrass fans are familiar with the rough outlines of Hartford’s career, from his early days in St. Louis, Missouri, becoming interested in bluegrass music and the old-time fiddle, to his early days in Nashville, his early songwriting and recording, the move out west to work with Glen Campbell and Tommy and Dick Smothers, the move back to Nashville and the Aereo-Plain band years (and their influence on what would later be known as newgrass), his fascination with—and his work on—river boats, his years of touring as a solo act and his work with the Hartford string band in his later years.
During the last fifteen years of Hartford’s life, Bob Carlin first became friends with Hartford (in the mid-1980s) and then became a collaborator starting in 1991. Carlin performed and recorded with Hartford for the last ten years of Hartford’s life and spent much of that time as Hartford’s right-hand man. There is possibly no other musician who spent as much time with Hartford during those years than Carlin and so this book offers a true insider’s look.
Carlin starts the book by detailing the years of Hartford’s life prior to the time the two started collaborating. He bases much of this information on an extensive interview he conducted with Hartford in 1985 for a broadcast of Fresh Air with Terry Gross on WHYY-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Carlin weaves quotes from Hartford’s appearance on the radio program with other information that he gathered about Hartford while conducting research for the book. One would guess, given the amount of time Carlin spent with Hartford later in Hartford’s life, that he had probably heard much of Hartford’s life tale directly from the man himself. Thus, his research for this part of the book most likely involved working out the details, such as putting exact release dates and titles to albums and tracing exact timelines.
After spending a short time detailing Hartford’s early life, Carlin spends the majority of this book chronicling his life on the road and in the studio with Hartford, starting with their first collaboration in 1991 and ending with Hartford’s passing in 2001. In these pages we are presented with a unique peek into Hartford’s personality and character because of Carlin’s close relationship with him.
The 137-page book is well written and kept my interest throughout. Over the years I saw Hartford perform a number of times, I read many magazine articles about him, read Andrew Vaughan’s book, and have had the opportunity to interview two of Hartford’s band members—Mike Compton and Matt Combs—about their time spent with Hartford. Even so, in reading Carlin’s new book I learned a lot about Hartford that I did not know and thus it was very captivating and enjoyable. I highly recommend this book not only to John Hartford fans, but to all fans of bluegrass music.
