Last month we refused to say goodbye to Joey Ramone, keeping him with us for an extra month. He had passed away early in the month, so we had time to get the graphics together for that. Even though it would have seemed repetitious, I would certainly have asked the staff their opinions about doing the same thing for John Hartford. While nowhere near as universally known, Hartford was an amazing man. He shunned the posh penthouse and limo life he could have had and chose instead to live a simple life, playing his country/folk music and piloting his riverboat. Those things made him happy. As a matter of fact, our Associate Editor, Shaun Dale, tells me John pops up regularly in the comic strip Gasoline Alley, tootin' into town on his riverboat. I never did get that comic. This almost makes me wish I had.

He was best known in the early 70s as Glen Campbell's sidekick on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, where he played all the stringed instruments you can name in 60 seconds, sang, and even danced a special, gentle kind of soft-shoe dance, the name of which escapes me. What most people don't realize is that John, or "Johnny," as he was always called on the show, had actually written Campbell's biggest hit, "Gentle On My Mind," and that song has been recorded something like 3,000 times. In those days, songwriters sold off the rights to their songs for a grand or two all the time, but John decided to hold on to the rights to this song, and as a result he never had to worry about anything ever again.

Except cancer. Cancer doesn't care what your record sales are. John fought his cancer for two full decades, very quietly, according to all sources. The loss of John Hartford at the age of 63 is indeed a sad one, for it's the loss of a fine human being as well as a man who played honest music from his heart, and God knows we need as many of those people as we can get down here. This official but very touching announcement is currently posted on his website:

"JOHN HARTFORD
1937 - 2001

At 4:30 p.m. June 4th, 2001, after a long struggle, John Hartford passed away at Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, TN.

For the last several weeks, John had been joined at his home by his family and friends telling stories and reliving a wonderful life. He enjoyed having some of his musical heroes play old songs and recount stories of "show business".

Although he could no longer join in, he delighted in listening to the music that he so dearly loved and spent a lifetime creating. What more can you say about a man who touched so many. Rest in peace, John Hartford. "

On a terribly selfish note, I feel an added sting with the news of John Hartford's passing. His homepage has been bookmarked in my browser for ages, as well as several fan pages. They were re-bookmarked after our virus crash-n-burn. I've got my Hartford CDs carefully stacked together for easy access, waiting for the day I'd begin research for my John Hartford interview. Let's face it, he was the consummate Cosmik Debris interview subject: his music covered more than one style, he only played music he wanted to play because he could afford not to try for commercial success, and he lived a lifestyle that is the stuff movies are made of. Most of all, he was the perfect Cosmik Debris interview subject because I wanted to bring him to the attention of people who might not have caught on to him before. I wanted to help him tell his amazing story to a new audience and add some numbers to his fan-base. And I just never put the ball in motion on that interview. I kept thinking "I'll do that next month." Truth is I ripped off the readers of Cosmik Debris because you didn't get to know this most unusual and wonderful man, whose songwriting talents only began with "Gentle On My Mind."

Do this for me, please. Do a Google search, or a Yahoo/AltaVista/whateveryouchoose search on John Hartford with the word Biography in the search field. Read about him. Listen to his music. You're smart people or you wouldn't be here. You'll catch on to what it was that set him apart. You're familiar, of course, with the expression "he was something else." It's overused on a daily basis to describe someone who played a guitar lick slightly different than anyone had heard before or wore a long feather in his hat while negotiating his baseball contracts. It has lost meaning, but there was a time when it referred to people who were different enough to overcome the expectations of others so completely that the person they became was a wonder to others. Back then, it was a hell of a great phrase. It may have been coined for John Hartford.


Start here, at www.johnhartford.com, John's homepage.

(C) 2001 - DJ Johnson