John Hartford - Update

Subject: John Hartford - Update
From: GUEST,Bluebelle
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:00 PM

I just received this email regarding John Hartford's current condition:

"A note to ask my friends to send out a good thought and prayer for one heck of a guy. John Hartford is about to pass on and is not able to communicate now. I have found out that his family is not answering any phone calls, but he is at home now from the hospital."

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:14 PM

Glad he's home. Thinking of his family, and fans...

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:16 PM

Oh, I am really sorry to hear this. Thanks for letting us know. Good thoughts etc. going out to him and his family.

kat

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: annamill
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:19 PM

I've loved having his music in my life. I'm so sorry to hear that someone I admire so much won't be around. He'll be missed.

Love, annamill

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: kendall
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:21 PM

DAMN.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: jeffp
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:24 PM

I am really sorry to hear this. I have fond memories of watching John on TV back in the sixties. Imagine my surprise and joy when I discovered he was on the bill at Stompin' 76. John Hartford has enhanced my life considerably and I am greatly saddened to contemplate life without him. Thankfully, he leaves a great legacy of music.

jeffp

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Kim C
Date: 11 May 01 - 01:02 PM

There's always time to pray for a miracle.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 May 01 - 01:07 PM

I still a beautiful, tall, thin young man with a head full of dark tousled hair dancing and playing and breaking hearts with a boyish smile.

Sad times.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: SINSULL
Date: 11 May 01 - 01:32 PM

"see" needs to be added after "still". Teary - sorry.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Kim C
Date: 11 May 01 - 01:35 PM

I wasn't familiar with John Hartford, but Mister was. We went to see him at the Ryman Auditorium, I believe, some years ago. I'm still trying to figure out how to dance and fiddle at the same time. ;-)

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Chicken Charlie
Date: 11 May 01 - 02:46 PM

"Where does an old-time riverman go ....?"

CC

Subject: Lyr Add: OLD TIME RIVER MAN (John Hartford)
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 May 01 - 03:05 PM

Another of those people aho have always been there......and our lives were richened for it and lessenes now. Exactly the same song came to my mind Charlie............

OLD TIME RIVER MAN

Where does an old time river man go
After he's passed away?
Does his soul still keep a watch on the deep
For the rest of the river days?
Does he then come back as a channel cat
Or the wasps that light on the wheel?
Or the birds that fly through a summer sky
Or the fish swimming under the keel?

Where does an old time pilot go
After he's stood his last watch?
Does he fall by the ear of the man who steers
Saying hold her on that notch
There's a gentle sneeze in the river breeze
Saying son I'm goin to bed.
And they light their pipes and go off in the night
Or was that fireflies instead?

Where does an old time engineer go after he's cooled her down?
Gone up the hill to never come back, on the quiet side of town.
Does his soul live on in the engine songs
While the striker checks the gears?
Is he still afloat on an old steam boat after he's gone from here?

Geeziz but life sure stinks sometimes............

Spaw

Subject: Lyr Add: PRAYER (John Hartford)
From: Dharmabum
Date: 11 May 01 - 03:30 PM

I keep this tacked up on my wall.

Prayer, by John Hartford

I love life.
Every morning I wake up
Saying in the back of my mind
This could be my last day on earth
This could be the last time
I'll ever feel the wind raising the hair on my body
Or the touch of my feet to the ground
Or the warmth of your flesh next to mine
This could be the last chance I'll have to watch all kinds of people
Doing all kinds of things
And thinking all kinds of thoughts
In all kinds of directions around me
This might even be my last chance
To spend everything I've saved since last night
Or hear all your sounds ringing through my head
It might even be my last chance to be sick
And like a child
Trying to do everything
Say everything
See everything
And be everything all at once
Should I wake up one morning
God help me
And find myself bored
Among the walking dead.

Thank you John, For all the wonderful music.

DB.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 11 May 01 - 03:43 PM

Thanks for the update, BB....thanks for posting that song, Pat I'm gonna sing it a few times tonight when I get off work, along with a few others...and cry

I've traveled all over to watch John perform over the years. As I may have mentioned before, one of my favorite performances of his was in the Mark Twain National Forest near Salem, Missouri, when the Dillards held their family reunion and "Real People" came to film the concerts. I was living and teaching in Arkansas. I drove up to visit with Bryan Bowers and to spend the weekend camped on the river there.

I think it was the Elk River, if I am not mistaken. There is a natural stone bridge over the river that forms a long grotto. Bruce Kaplan and Bryan and I swam through it. Bryan had a panic attack and Bruce and I had to...well that's another story...

anyway, John was scheduled to go on before sunset but he waited until the moon was full to come out. He and Homer Dillard played fiddles and danced. The stage was a gazebo, the moon was full. He told how Homer had taught him to dance and play at the same time. Homer was short and he was in his 70's then. He had his cowboy hat and his pointy cowboy boots on. John was in a bowler.

It was my thirtieth birthday and I remember it as one of the best. I had spent the weekend camping, swimming, playing autoharp, and drinking beer and telling jokes with Byron Berline. Bryan tried to introduce me to John that weekend but I ran off. I wanted him to be a mystery. We have never actually met. Now he is "headin' down into the mystery below"...not really down below though I'm sure, just across the river. He brought so much joy to so many people. I'm one of those folks...a sad harpgirl

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:06 PM

We will miss you, John.

Humor of a wry and gentle sort, musicianship of the highest caliber; a poet's soul in riverboatman's frame - and who else could ever play a sheet of plywood with such capering virtuosity?

Steam on, old friend; roll on with the River that knows no end.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:08 PM

On Fiddler's Green (for John Hartford)

Last summer I found you up in the Missouri woods dancing and fiddling with old Homer Dillard under a gazebo in the moonlight. Two common fiddlers.

On a muddy street in Portage de Sioux hung out on a curve of the river I saw you in the misty future working horse hair into a bow.

I thought I saw you in the pilothouse of a riverboat beyond the stilthouses, dancing a deckhand's waltz.

Winter, I looked for you in Natchez. Were you fiddling or sipping gumbo in a damp cajun club?

Meet me in Ponchartrain for oysters and sasparilla when the river sluices down its muddy secrets. My love is common, like the river.

harp, Fayetteville, Arkansas 1980

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Amergin
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:16 PM

I'm saddened too...I have never had the privilege to see him live....but I have loved his music from the very first moment a friend of mine played him....I wish now I had been able to see him live....

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:30 PM

That's beautiful, harp.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:42 PM

Harpgirl...can't type for the tears. Beautiful words. Thanks for sharing.

Was it John who sang a song about moving to the country, making babies, and growing peaches? I cannot remember and it is a very significant song for a friend of mine, so I'd like to tell her if it is one of his and let her know about him. Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Dharmabum
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:46 PM

That's Spanish Pipedream, by John Prine,Kat.

DB.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: jeffp
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:46 PM

kat, that sounds like a John Prine song. The title escapes me now, but the chorus goes:

Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Move to the country
Build you a home
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
Try and find Jesus on your own.

That the one?

jeffp

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: jeffp
Date: 11 May 01 - 05:00 PM

Spanish Pipedream, that's the title. It's on his first album.

jeffp

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 May 01 - 05:15 PM

Yeah, it is, thanks you two. sorry for the thread drift.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 11 May 01 - 05:17 PM

There are few LPs that got more play at my place than John Hartford's first few. If my memory serves, I did see him live at the Riverboat in the "goodle days" (a Hartford phrase). Safe home, John.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: catspaw49
Date: 11 May 01 - 05:50 PM

Harp.....simply beautiful.................

And thanks to harpgirl and a few others, we just ran an excellent thread of John Hartford Songs. BE sure to read the post from Art.

Spaw

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: BanjoRay
Date: 11 May 01 - 07:03 PM

Glen Godsey sent this to fiddle-L: I thought you guys would like to read it:-

Received this very sad note from Mark O'Conner today for all friends of John Hartford:

A note to ask my friends to send out a good thought and prayer for one heck of a guy. John Hartford is about to pass on and is not able to communicate now. I have found out that his family is not answering any phone calls, but he is at home now from the hospital.
John Hartford has been a friend of mine since he flew to Nashville from L.A. to be on my 2nd recording back in 1975 when I was just thirteen. He was a prince and has always been there for me as a friend and a colleague.
When I was trying to figure out how to play unaccompanied performances twelve years ago, it was John who gave the words of encouragement I needed to have, while many others simply doubted the possibility of my doing it. John was also my mother's favorite person in the music business. Thought he hung the moon. Just before losing my mother to cancer almost 20 years ago, one of her last wishes was for my sister and I to drive her across the country from Seattle to see John one last time in Tennessee. It is also cancer that will take John Hartford away from us very soon as well.
A collective prayer from my mailing list towards John Hartford would be something great. The wonderful modern day minstrel one man show, the author of one of the greatest hit songs of all time, Gentle On My Mind, and those early memories of him and Glen Campbell on "The Good Time Hour" in the late 60's prime time television will last with me for ever and I am sure will endure with many of you. He was a champion for the fiddle and collected as many original fiddle tune manuscripts and the various literature as anyone I know. He continued to practice furiously on the fiddle even until recently, setting out to get better and better. And he did! He would come to my fiddle camps in Tennessee and just hang out on the porch of the mess hall playing away until way past the sun going down. For all of that and more, I will think of you and love you forever John Hartford.
I also love your home there looking over that Cumberland River. The thoughts of you dreaming about the old steamboats coming past you from days gone by is a poignant one at this time.
I was on the nomination committee of the Kennedy Center Honors last year and did nominate John Hartford. I bet one day you will get that one too John. May God be with you.

Mark O'Connor

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 May 01 - 07:19 PM

My heart is on the ground about this, I actually saw him right here in lil' ole Torrington courtesy of an Arts Council Grant. I wish him an easy passage, and hope someone lets us know when it happens, so that we can all observe our own memorial moment.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: IvanB
Date: 11 May 01 - 07:54 PM

harp, thanks for that beautiful tribute. I only had the chance to see John in person once, but I've had his music surrounding me for many years through tapes and CD's. When I listen to one of John's CD's I can still see him dancing and playing all over the stage. Wonderful performer and full of energy.

My heart goes out to John, his family and friends. May you find the riverboat of your dreams in your new life, John...

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: BRG
Date: 11 May 01 - 08:44 PM

"Way Up on the Hill where they do the Boogie" often bounces through my head at unexpected moments. Thanks to John for that and so many (and so much) more.

Bruce

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Art Thieme
Date: 11 May 01 - 09:56 PM

I'm pretty much speechless and numb having said most of what I've felt about the man in several other places here at Mudcat. I just keep thinking of one of John's favorite quotes from his mentor, Captain Fred Way. Nothing is real but the river and all else is sham. Somehow, I figure John is out on that river and heading for the sea---as are we all.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Jeep man
Date: 11 May 01 - 10:11 PM

I don't know John personally. I have never seen him. I only know him by his music. It tells me everything about the man.

I have an ache somewhere inside that won't go away. It gets better when I remember Tom T Halls,"Clayton Delany"

"It could be the good Lord likes a little pickin too."

Nuff said. Jeep is sad

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Jeep man
Date: 11 May 01 - 10:47 PM

REFRESH

Subject: Lyr Add: WISH WE HAD OUR TIME (John Hartford)
From: walkinman
Date: 12 May 01 - 08:29 AM

WISH WE HAD OUR TIME
by: John Hartford

Couldn't go to sleep
got up an' hit the light
tried to write it down
in the middle of the night
lookin' for the words
but they won't come right

Just wish we had our time again
wish we had our time again
wish we had our time again
wish we had our time

If not for love
I couldn't see
I looked at you
and you looked at me
memory of love
won't let me be

Oh me oh my
how the time does fly
makes no difference
an' we all know why
dear ol' friends
have to turn to rye

wish we had our time again
wish we had out time again
wish we had our time again
God, I wish we had out time

GOD BLESS JOHN HARTFORD

WM

---

Line breaks fixed --JoeClone

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: walkinman
Date: 12 May 01 - 08:44 AM

Sorry for that..

"lookin' for the words, but they won't come right, just wish we had our time again, God, I wish we had our time"

Sadly,

wm

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: kendall
Date: 12 May 01 - 09:09 AM

Same for me Jeepman. Never met him, but, always liked his music.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Art Thieme
Date: 12 May 01 - 12:21 PM

One time on the Julia Belle Swain (out on the 7 mile wide pool #13 with flocks of white pelicans ) John did a set and changed those words to "I wish we had Art Thieme again"---'cause I'd just finished my set. But I prefer your sentiments at this terribly sad time.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Jeep man
Date: 12 May 01 - 04:23 PM

TO ORIGINATOR OF THIS THREAD; Please keep us up to date about John. I don't read the paper and would like to know any developments. Jeep

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 May 01 - 05:14 PM

yes

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: BDenz
Date: 12 May 01 - 05:31 PM

Thanks Dharmabum, for the poem on living. If nothing else, it's a vivid reminder of the man.

He will be sorely missed.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Jeep man
Date: 12 May 01 - 09:24 PM

Refresh,refresh, REFRESH

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 12 May 01 - 11:32 PM

Bowler hat, vest and brogan shoes
Fiddling a melody and clogging out the beat
You were all by your lonesome
in the spotlight
I was the guy called out
"John, do the Golden Globe Award!"
And you grinned and said
"Man, I can't do that
That's a nasty song"
and then "Aw Hell, alright"
and you played what we wanted
and used that fiddle-bow to cock that bowler brim
to a jaunty angle
Feet propelling you across the stage
like some manic mechanism
whose operation you cheerfully observed

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 May 01 - 01:15 AM

LeeJ, that is beautiful.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 13 May 01 - 08:25 AM

I saw John perform this past July at the Grey Fox Festival (formerly Winterhawk). He was battling cancer then, and had a band with him. He would play his fiddle and sing a bit, and then fade to the back of the stage where he would sit down for a few minutes to catch his breath, then back to the front again for another bit of song.

In a conversation during the weekend with Mary Tyler Doub (producer of Grey Fox), she told me that it was the performing that energized him and gave him strength to keep on fighting the disease. Her eyes filled with tears when she talked about "that dear, dear man."

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: harpgirl
Date: 13 May 01 - 09:18 AM

sweet Leej, you would ask for that song!

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: BDenz
Date: 13 May 01 - 04:40 PM

What kind of cancer does he have? It sounds like this battle has been going on for awhile.

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 14 May 01 - 01:42 AM

The great ones are becoming fewer and fewer...let's treasure the ones we have left. I was driving home tonight from a road trip and a taped show - E-Town was playing on the radio. It was the one with RetroGrass - John Hartford, Mike Seeger and David Grisman. They were wonderful! And John mentioned that he had not been traveling due to ill-health, and he did not sound too strong. I was in tears listening to it, knowing that he's in serious condition. I saw him perform twice, and I came away each time awestruck at the enormous talent and gentleness of the man. John, you'll always be gentle on MY mind.

Seamus

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Kim C
Date: 14 May 01 - 12:37 PM

I thought it started as prostate cancer? I don't really know, I think that's just something that I heard.

I remember this joke he told when I saw him onstage. Imagine that voice of his.

There was a man who heard about a woman in his town that would do ANYTHING for $100, so he decided to seek her out. "She'll do ANYTHING, right?" he asked his friends.

"ANYTHING," they told him.

So he went to the house, and he knocked on the door. A woman answered. "May I help you?"

"Yes, I'm looking for the girl who will do ANYTHING for $100."

"Just a moment, please."

A little bit later a beautiful young woman returned. "Yes?"

"I heard you would do ANYTHING for $100. Is that true?" he asked.

"Yes it is," she said.

"Would you paint my house?"

:-)

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 May 01 - 04:34 PM

John had a cancer removed from his neck back in the early 90's I think it was--maybe late '80s. His eating of garlic and other things sort of endeared (!?) him to many of us then. He seemed to've beaten the damn thing--but it returned. The diagnosis I heard was bone cancer. John was tired from the chemo as well as the cancer. He never quit his music though. Actually, it has kept him going I'm pretty damn sure. He travelled in his bus with a band in recent months and didn't dance hardly at all. Having the band on stage with him helped to ease the load. And then things got worse.

Man, it hurts to write this...

Art

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: Stewart
Date: 14 May 01 - 05:07 PM

I was just sitting here listening to the radio when they played "Where does an old-time riverman go" by John Hartford -- it really broke me up. I first met John at Festival of American Fiddletunes 1999 in Port Townsend WA. What a great performer and musician. I will miss him.

S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: John Hartford - Update
From: GUEST,Winters Wages
Date: 14 May 01 - 10:17 PM

This is too too sad. My prayers are with him and his family. I know maybe just a little bit of what he has been going through. This is a sad time W. Wages