I'm frequently criticised for all the "old" records I comment on. I point out that this blog is a vinyl music blog and vinyl died in the early to mid 90s in Australia. Accordingly, vinyl product after that is hard to find.
That statement usually elicits a response that I could comment on more records from the 80s and I suppose I could.
So, here is a John Hartford album from 1987.
And it's one, in keeping with Hartford's style, that could have been recorded in 1925.
So, I assume this is a "fuck you" to all who ask me to comment on more 80s music.
OK, perhaps it's only a "fuck off".
Either way I remind everyone that if you haven't heard the music before it's "new" music to you regardless of when it was recorded.
If you are out there looking for the "new revolution" in music then you are only wasting time … the high-water mark has been hit and subsequently everything new is old. It's, otherwise, all just repackaging and marketing.
So why can't Hartford do an album of (largely) newly written old-timey music in 1987.
There are quite a few Hartford album comments on this blog so search those out for background and detail but here I will take this from one of my other comments:
"He has also been referred to as literary folk music and "MOR romantic nostalgia told from the perspective of a homeless man remembering days of perfect love"…. I like that …. He has also been called Americana/Appalachian Folk/Country-Rock/Old-Timey/Progressive Bluegrass/Progressive Country/Progressive Folk/String Bands/Traditional Country … take you pick …but I like all those also.
I also said in relation to his "Aereo Plain" album in "What Frank is Listening to #154" : This album is his old timey album with bluegrass and Appalachian sounds thrown in. Hartford however is no mere traditionalist as themes are updated to suit the modern world. Its as if the music of times past was never marginalized but remained the dominant mainstream music and current concerns were incorporated into the sound, just like in rock music.
Hartford's style is both simple and perceptive, mainstream and left of centre, populist and eccentric. His songs sing of simple joys and at times it seems that even with his regrets he doesn't have many harsh words to say and seems to accept everyone with all their quirks. That's not to say he isn't critical – he can be – but it never comes from a mean spirited place".
Hartford is an archivist and a librarian of music. The sounds he knows and loves are in his memory so he can channel those sounds into new music effortlessly. And, he does that here. The songs are beautiful, simple, old-time and bluegrass songs with a hint of Appalachian and trad jazz.
This is, then, a new volume to the old, rural "Great American Songbook".
Jack Clement produces (and also plays some of the guitar) and he keeps the sound clean and crisp. Perhaps a little to clean and crisp though that may not be a Clement thing but a result of recording for a mainstream label in the 80s – everything had to sound clean in the 80s. That, perhaps, detracts a little from the ambience of the old timey sounds but it does show the mastery of the musicians on their instruments.
Hartford's songs, here, are not as quirky as his earlier work and there is a clear theme of growing old and looking back which makes the music beautifully melancholy (which was something Hartford had in him from the start).
Maybe Hartford would have rather been out their piloting his Mississippi steamboat (how many musicians can say they are steamboat captains?) but the music he creates is sublime and as joyously gentle as a paddle steamer on the Mississippi river at night (I imagine).
All songs by John Hartford unless otherwise noted
Tracks (best in italics)
- All in My Love for You – Graceful and heartfelt without being overly sentimental.
- Ohio River Rag – A nice instrumental piece.
- Annual Waltz – a beautifully melancholy song.
- Gone, Gone, Gone (Harlan Howard) – The great Harlan Howard wrote this and Lefty Frizzell had a #12 with it in 1965.
- Love Wrote This Song (Hartford, Charles Cochran) – Love brought feelings back from "long, long ago"
- Learning to Smile All Over Again – Love gone wrong and beautifully done.
- Pennington Bend – another good instrumental.
- Here's to Your Dreams – another beautifully melancholy tune with nice, sad fiddle.
- Short Life of Trouble – (arranged: John Hartford) – An old fiddle and banjo standard done by many including G. B. Grayson and Buell Kazee.
- Living in the Mississippi Valley – a fun, upbeat statement of where Hartford wants to be (in mind and body)
And …
Yes, 1987 was a good year for new music because of this album …. I'm keeping it.
Chart Action
Not likely
Sounds
All in My Love for You
MP3attached
John Hartford – All In My Love For You
Annual Waltz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzS3K8Nv2OQ
live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0v5ZSNroUQ
Learning to Smile All Over Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BI1N08FEo0
Pennington Bend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQY7g7GRnGo
Short Life of Trouble
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laUBC5BMfpM
Others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELEJbhO4_og
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW7OFAir3OQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svI0X19AFfQ
John and The Dillards
Review
—
Bio
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-hartford-mn0000221603
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hartford
Website
http://www.johnhartford.com/
http://www.johnhartford.org/
Trivia
- Muscians: John Hartford: Fiddle, Banjo, and Vocals / John Yudkin: Fiddle, Mandolin / Mark Howard: Mandolin, Guitar / Jack Clement: Guitar / Roy Huskey, Jr.: Bass / Kenny Malone: Percussion / Gary Janney: Harmony Vocals
- From the liner notes: "Jack Clement made all this possible. He shared his vast knowledge and believed in us. When we were on a roll, he stayed out of our way; and when we were done, he would give our cart a good shove to see whether it would turn over or not. He always told us to stay with it until it "disappeared". Just that one concept has changed the way we make records".
