I been doing a lot of research about this subject because I’ll be honest Mr. John Hartford is an area that I LOVE to study, and delve into….nerd you if you will. One time I decided to do an article about that Sun Records cafe downtown when they boasted about being the FIRST 24 hour cafe in Nashville. I answered THAT with an article about a John Hartford song about the iconic Linebaughs Diner. They soon retracted their public statement.
The derby wearing fiddle man was perhaps one of the most iconic and influential students of the traditional fiddle that ever lived, and when he died in 2004 his family found scrapbooks composed of hundreds of fiddle tunes he composed throughout his life. His daughter Miss Katie Hartford Hogue and he husband Mr. Eric have labored feverishly to preserve his legacy, and allow us to still enjoy his music today.
A social media campaign was released that resluted in the re issue of the classic 1971 Bluegrass album produced by Mr. David Bromberg that brought 16 tracks of greatness to the world. Classics like “Steamboat Whistle Blues” and the popular “Tear Down The Grand Ol Opry” were on this album, and it’s a holy grail on vinyl.
They went past vinyl in November and released a 2 CD set of albums from his Flying Fish era in the late 1970’s, the albums being “Slumberi’n On The Cumberland’ and the other being “Headi’n Down Into The Mystery Below”. Slumberi’n contained a great song called “Southern Moon” wrote by Alton Delmore, that’s a classic song! It’s a Country album that was made with Mr. Pat Burton, and former Bluegrass Boy Mr. Benny Martin.
This summer at the John Hartford Memorial festival in Bean Blossom Indiana his estate will issue a fiddle book called “John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection Of Fiddle Tunes” based on the discovery of 60 plus journals that Mr. John was using to compile fiddle tunes from 1983 to 2000.
So this book WILL be available during the John Hartford Festival which will run May 30- June 2nd 2018, and after that will be available on their website. MORE info to come on this subject when I publish more work for the John Hartford Memorial Festival.
