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John Hartford's best friends mourn him with music
By Dan Martin
June 13, 2001
www.stltoday.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - This evening's performance at New York's Carnegie Hall will feature some of the biggest names in bluegrass and roots music, including Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Ralph Stanley. The concert is the result of the phenomenal success of the soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" the Coen brothers' film that brought new attention to old-time sounds.
But the scheduled master of ceremonies, a native St. Louisan who had longed to play the storied hall, won't make it. John Hartford, 63, died June 4 in Nashville after a long battle with cancer.
Some of the musicians scheduled to appear tonight in Manhattan speculated last weekend that the show might end up being a tribute to Hartford. If that's the case, it would be similar to his funeral service Friday in Nashville.
A large tent on the lawn of Hartford's home, overlooking the Cumberland River, accommodated 500 of his closest friends. His trademark black bowler hat and a miniature fiddle sat on top of the wooden casket. A single microphone was set up nearby, facing the shaded mourners.
And then some of the best musicians in the country paid homage the only way they knew how: They played and sang.
Among them were Sam Bush, Sonny Osborne, Tut Taylor, Vassar Clements, the Nashville Bluegrass Band and the Hartford String Band. Emmylou Harris sang "Your Long Journey." Hartford's hero and mentor, Earl Scruggs, played "Flint Hill Special," and his banjo led the group in the gospel classic "I'll Fly Away."
Nashville royalty also was well represented -- a tribute to Hartford's musical influence over the past 35 years. Vince Gill, Ralph Emery, Jim Stafford, Riders in the Sky and Marty Stuart were among the crowd.
But plenty of the mourners were river people, struggling musicians and others whom Hartford had helped. And then there were just friends from more ordinary walks of life. Like me.
When I was a kid, I remembered seeing Hartford on TV. After buying his Grammy-winning album, "Mark Twang," in the mid 1970s, I would try to go to concerts when he was in town. In 1986, we were introduced at the Mercantile Library. When he asked what I did, I told him I was an artist at the Post-Dispatch. His eyes lit up. "You don't draw the Weatherbird, do you?" he asked. "I love that little cartoon. I used to clip him out of the paper every day when I was a kid."
From that exchange grew an improbable friendship.
Most of my friends are more or less like me. John's brain worked differently. His craziest, most abstract thoughts made perfect sense to him. While working together on a benefit concert for the Mercantile Library, he seriously suggested that all the guests be commanded to dress up as famous steamboats with paddlewheels attached to their rumps. Only after shouting pilot directives could they navigate to the nearest hors d'oeuvres table, made to look like river islands.
His dress and persona on stage were the same as they were off. He drew stares walking along the street with his derby pulled down around his ears and his long, black winter coat almost touching the ground. His entire "filing cabinet," filled with song lyrics, phone numbers and other important incidentals, were kept on 3 by 5 cards tucked into his always-present vest. His ornate handwriting was similar to that seen on 19th-century steamboat ledgers. And he had the quirkiest talent to write with his right hand while simultaneously writing a backwards mirror image of the same sentence with his left hand. He was also extremely bright, and had the wide-eyed enthusiasm and curiosity of a 9-year-old boy.
And as eccentric as he was, he was also unfailingly witty, humble, soft-spoken and well-mannered. When I last saw him a month ago, he politely wanted to know all about my 2-year-old, whose name is the same as one of John's bluegrass idols, the late Benny Martin.
Although he had an ego big enough to perform on the "Tonight Show," David Letterman, "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" and "Prairie Home Companion," I never once saw him act egotistical or throw his show-business weight around. To the last, he always kept in contact with and still revered the Ozark musicians who helped him 40-plus years ago in south St. Louis.
On the surface, it would seem that we didn't have that much in common. He was 20 years older than I. He was a privileged doctor's son, a graduate of John Burroughs School, and the world-famous composer of "Gentle on My Mind." I was from Concord Village, worked for the local paper and couldn't read a single note in fifth-grade trumpet class.
But we did have some similar interests.
His mother was a painter and John (then Harford, his real surname) studied art at Washington University. He loved to draw and often did the artwork for his own albums. And at least I liked to listen to bluegrass music. And there was the river.
The Mississippi has been a hobby and interest of mine since my mom bought me a paperback version of "Tom Sawyer" at an old Rapp's supermarket.
With Hartford, it was an obsession, instilled in him by his Community School teacher, Ruth Ferris. He lied about his age to become the night watchman on the Delta Queen and spent teen-age summers as a deckhand. He earned his steamboat pilot's license.
His 50-plus years of collecting river memorabilia and his passion made him the envy of steamboat nerds everywhere. Atop his Nashville home is the replica of a pilothouse. Many nights, he'd climb into it to watch the boats on the Cumberland cruise past the navigational light the Army Corps of Engineers named for him.
There are plenty of people in this town and across the country who had known John Hartford longer and better than I, but few, I think, who had more fun with him. We spent countless hours riding the river, inventing horrible puns and drawing caricatures of each other on restaurant napkins. But mostly we laughed, chewed over life and where ideas and creativity come from.
As a by-product of our friendship, I was awarded his trust and a shadow in his spotlight. There were late-night concerts over the phone, mentions in liner notes and invitations to his three-day birthday/Christmas parties. The welcome mat was always out for us in Nashville. His Mississippi-born wife, Marie, graciously treated us to food, lodging and Southern hospitality. When touring permitted, he would stay in St. Louis with us, although we soon learned that the Crestwood police frown on giant Silver Eagle tour buses idling on residential streets.
Of all the mementos I have from him, my most cherished is one of his songs.
Ten years ago, in honor of the Weatherbird's 90th birthday, he wrote "The Weatherbird Reel." It was never released commercially and I believe I have the only tape. It's a wonderful fiddle tune that he played while he sang and danced. He even designed the cassette cover. It goes like this:
I'm the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Weatherbird
I was born in 19 one
In a box at the bottom of the daily front page is where I have my fun
It may be hard to fly too high cause I wear these big old shoes
But I cover all of old St. Louis from the Cardinals to the Blues.
Thanks a whole lot to Kris and Dan Martin
From John and Marie and a small dog a barkin'.
No, John, thank you. Rest in peace. But I sure wish you were in New York City tonight.
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