Saturday, February 15, 2025

Crawlspace Collectables Dept. - John Hartford

 

By request, eight by the late and great J.H.

 

Have a weekend! 

 

 

15 comments:

  1. Aero-Plain, Earthwords And Music, Gentle On My Mind, Housing Project, Iron Mountain Depot, Looks At Life, The Love Album, and *mystery disc* Radio John.

    https://workupload.com/file/2Dfs9M7AuRQ

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  2. Steam Powered Aereo Plane is worth the price of admission alone. Many thanks

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    1. I can't remember anything about Radio John except doing a cover.

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  3. Cover?...what cover? I don't see no steenkeen' cover!

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  4. Huge thanks for the re-up! This should help keep the place warm 'n cosy on this -25 celsius winter evening.

    Brian

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  5. Replies
    1. If you mean "Radio John", that's a cover I made for a collection possibly submitted by a 4/5g© - the album doesn't feature at Discogs.

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    2. It's embedded in the file, snorky! Do try to keep up!

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    3. Sorry, you're right. i see it when the individual song pops up, but not as a separate file. It's a GREAT buncha elpees!

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  6. I downloaded this only to find that I had all of it from 2020, probably from the Island's largess. What's odd though, is Radio John. You're right, the album is nowhere to be found on the innerwebs. However, in my charmingly anal-retentive way, I always dive into the web to find composer names, recording dates, reviews, etc. for my downloads, which I then embed in the album's metadata. My Radio John has a Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. AllMusic review attached. Is our history being deleted?

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  7. AllMusic Review by Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.

    John Hartford's death in 2001 has brought a number of issues and reissues, but none have been more important than Camdem Deluxe's release of his six early RCA albums along with the never-before-released Radio John. These albums offer a sidelong view of Hartford in the mid- to late '60s, prior to his Aereo-Plain days. Both John Hartford and Iron Mountain Depot, the fifth and sixth RCA albums, will probably surprise fans weaned on his more traditionally minded work from the '80s and '90s. While Hartford remains a fine songwriter here, the overblown production gives the impression that he's cutting a joint effort with Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Strings and horns smooth out the rustic banjo on pieces with bizarre names like "Dusty Miller Hornpipe and Fugue in A Major for Strings, Brass and 5-String Banjo." "Mr. Jackson's Got Nothing to Do" is vaguely reminiscent of a mid-'60s Dylan putdown song, while "The Poor Old Prurient Interest Blues" offers a bit of wacky nonsense about nudity. Perhaps Hartford was growing bored with the music business, but he still managed to churn out nice pieces like "The Wart" and "Like Unto a Mockingbird." Oh yeah -- and make sure to stick around for an instrumental version of "Hey Jude" at the end of Iron Mountain Depot.

    Radio John is an entirely different story. Hartford decided to get back to the basics, or at least closer to them, and cut an album with no overdubs. The arrangements -- mostly guitar, bass, guitar, and percussion -- work pretty well, though the drums seem too loud. Radio John provides the missing link in Hartford's career, complete with early versions of "In Tall Buildings" and "Skippin' in the Mississippi Dew." There's also folk-rap ("Self Made Man"), rock & roll-tinged vocals ("Bed on My Mind"), and straight-up bluegrass ("Orange Blossom Special"). Radio John alone makes this CD set worth having.

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