Review: John Hartford Gets Fitting, and Jam Heavy, Adoration with 'On the Road: A Tribute to John Hartford'
The life of a songwriter is sometimes a lonely one. People know the music you wrote by heart, but very few know your name. Often, the way to truly tell the legendary songwriters is to look at the list of musicians who revere them. For John Hartford, the list of admirers includes pretty much every Americana, folk, or bluegrass musician of the last 40 years. But on a new tribute album, On the Road: A Tribute to John Hartford, the tracklist looks much more like one you'd see at Lock'n or Peach Festivals than at Americanafest or Merlefest. Jam-heavy, the album shows the true breadth of Hartford's influence.
One of the album's best tracks is the first one, Sam Bush's blistering version of “On the Road.” This should be any surprise since Bush is even money to own any tribute album he's a part of, but also because “On the Road” has been a semi-regular part of his touring setlist for some time, including when we caught him earlier this year in Nashville.
Another more Americana-oriented favorite is Todd Snider's simple guitar-and-harmonica rendition of “I Wish We Had Our Time.” While Snider has done his share of jam band work, especially with his band Hard Working Americans, anyone that knows his work knows that Snider's sweet spot is this kind of stripped down barefoot folk. “I Wish We Had Our Time” is about as perfect a Hartford song to accentuate it as any.
From there, the list get super heavy on jam and especially jamgrass. Old favorites Leftover Salmon take on the infectious “Category Stomp”. Railroad Earth gives an understated take on “Delta Queen Waltz.” Fruition turns “Back in the Goodle Days” into a duet.
On the jamgrass side, prog jammers Yonder Mountain String Band are surprisingly restrained from their usual “bluegrass on Red Bull” style with “Holding.” The Travelin' McCourys show off their genre-bending chops with “No End of Love” and The Infamous Stringdusters get the pole position with Hartford's most well known song (via a Glen Campbell cover) “Gentle on My Mind.”
But the two true highlights of the album, and the ones I come back to most, are on complete opposite ends of Hartford's songwriting style, arguably his silliest tune and unarguably his most somber. On the silly side is, of course, Keller Williams. Williams is, I believe, contractually obligated to attend every jam festival in the world yearly and he continues to be booked because he balances a goofy personality with a guitar virtuosity that makes for a great festival set. Here Williams is joined by frequent collaborators The Travelin McCourys for “Granny Wontcha Smoke Some Marijuana.” If you haven't heard the song, it's exactly what it sounds like, a hippie anthem about a pot smoking senior citizen with the earworm chorus “granny wontcha smoke some? Granny wontcha smoke some? Granny wontcha smoke some mary-jo-wana!”
On the other end is John Carter Cash and Jamie Hartford's rendition of “In Tall Buildings.” It's a song you've probably heard on its many TV and movie placements, or possibly from the Gregory Alan Isakov cover. It's one of the most poignant and frankly depressing loss of innocence songs every written, as a young man looks back at his carefree childhood and forward to a moment when “they'll sell me a suit and cut off my hair and send me to work in tall buildings.” Cash and Hartford play it straighter than almost any song on the album, and that's the right choice. The song is impactful enough on its own that it doesn't need embellishment, flourish, or unique arrangements. Those lyrics speak volumes that no instrument could ever reach.
If you want to check out On the Road: A Tribute to John Hartford, it's available now at your favorite indie record shop. If you needed any more reason to order, all net profits from the record will be donated to Musicares, an organization that provides financial assistance, mental health services, and substance abuse treatment for musicians. It's a more important charity than ever right now with most independent artists reeling from an entire summer touring schedule wiped out.
