Posted by Bob Shahan on June 06, 101 at 19:58:36:
Last year my father, who is 80 years old, dropped in
one day when I had "Retrograss" playing on the stereo.
Never before in my whole life have I seen him pay any
attention to music at all --- he plays a radio for
background noise but has never cared to buy a record,
tape, or CD --- but almost immediately "Retrograss"
captivated him. He listened in silence for a couple
of minutes and then asked, "What is this?" I told him
what it was and he gave me a strange look and said,
"You mean this is 'new' recording? I haven't heard
music like this since I was a little boy. This sounds
like what we used to hear on my father's old box radio
when I was just a kid in the '20's…"
I started the CD over and my father sat and listened
to it all completely transfixed by the music. When it
was over he asked if there was a tape of it that he
could buy somewhere so he could listen to it at home.
My father still listens to "Retrograss" along with the
other Hartford tapes I got for him. He says,
"It's real music."
John Hartford will be remembered for a lot of good
things, but for me he will always be the genius who
was able to capture my father's memories of listening
to "real music" on an ancient tube radio back in the
1920's.
He is missed already.