I just spent almost the entire day saying goodbye again to a dear friend I lost exactly 14 years ago, John Hartford. Started yesterday morning when I was packing up the last of some old posters and I found John's picture... complete with his careful signature in the elegant writing style he so loved doing. Looked very like the John Hancock signature. John didn't write his poetry on a computer or a typewriter, but on those cards he carried around in his pocket. The house in Tennessee his children have kept up in his honor is full of John's lovely poetry, not as elegantly written as that signature, but in his very readable handwriting. I have managed to rid myself of some of my beloved books, but I shall die owning the little volume of John's poetry... and hope that someone else loves it enough to read it and keep it forever.
His wonderful song "Gentle On My Mind" is his poem only John Hartford could have set to music and sung so beautifully that many others, even Sinatra, tried to sing it. No one sang it like John... I weep through it every time I hear him do it... it has an added meaning to me, for those feelings I gave to K, though I doubt that he understands that. I am so glad of one thing... someone, I suppose his children, got John to record himself playing and singing a great many of his songs, so that he will be well remembered by those of us who loved him... and the next generation and more will be able to see and hear one of the most versatile writers and musicians of my generation... a man who could not only write great 'folk songs' for us all, but could also sing them with gusto. Who could clog dance while doing so and playing them on any stringed instrument made. Who could play the fiddle with such ability to make you weep, then turn it down to strum it like his guitar, bow still in his hand. What a joy you were, John Hartford. I loved you and I miss you, a real 'only in America' gentleman, who loved his land. One of the greatest real folk singer/songwriters of our time, a true friend, an artist of so many talents and an under-appreciated musical genius.
