Photo:David Schenk

"My dreams are all in the last century, I guess. I'm a Victorian at heart... but also too I'm very much of a realist. I love books. We've got stacks of books around this house, but I'll bet if you went through all these books you probably wouldn't find more than a few pieces of fiction here... My big thing in life is working hard to be able to learn how to play better and sing better and get more of the tones and tunes that I really feel in my heart and then be able to write better and everything like that...."

Once upon a musical time, circa 1967, a flash of brilliance in the form of a song seeped into the collective psyche of a generation. The number was “Gentle On My Mind," popularized by good-time singer Glen Campbell. But the writer of that uncommonly poetic piece quickly surfaced as a performing force in his own right. We saw him playing banjo from the audience at the start of each installment of Campbell's weekly television variety series, and he made a significant impact as one of the creative renegades who contributed to the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour's" ingenious irreverence. After that challenging stint, carving out a lasting career as a fiddler and banjo wizard in the folk-bluegrass arena was a piece of cake for this gifted individual. Add to the resume a license to pilot boats up to 100 gross tons and you have the core of an enormously multifaceted personality. The saga continues. John Hartford is living happily ever after on a solid foundation of musical chops and his love of the river.

Hartford is one of those people who elicits smiles, positive comments and critical accolades from nearly everyone whose path he crosses. Whether they only know him as the crafter of the mega hit “Gentle On My Mind," they've been a die-hard fan for nearly 30 years, or they have memories of some artistic interaction with Hartford, the feelings are the same. Maintaining that image is not an artificially calculated effort on Hartford's part, but stems instead from his sincere effort to be a good person. “I don't know," he said. “I have tried to be a nice guy simply because I know that at one time I maybe wasn't so nice a guy. I also know at heart in the deep, dark, black, negative recesses of my heart I'm a real sarcastic person.... Oh God, yes! So, I think I'm very aware of that bottom line that we all experience when we're children and we're tremendously mean to each other. And I have tried over the years to study people that I greatly admire, who seem to be real gentle and real easy with people... and what I consider the social graces."