John Hartford - Update

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: 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: 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: Dharmabum
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:46 PM

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

DB.

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: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 May 01 - 04:30 PM

That's beautiful, harp.

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

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

CC

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: SINSULL
Date: 11 May 01 - 01:32 PM

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

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: Kim C
Date: 11 May 01 - 01:02 PM

There's always time to pray for a miracle.

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: kendall
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:21 PM

DAMN.

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: 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: Mrrzy
Date: 11 May 01 - 12:14 PM

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

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."