John Hartford “Housing Project”

Unfamiliar with John Hartford, it was certainly the album cover that compelled me to pay my money and take my chances. It’s 100% collage—a chaotic grouping of mostly rectangular photograph fragments—it sort of looks like a taped-up memorabilia wall or bulletin board. There’s no photo here more than a couple of inches wide—though there are some tall ones—and they look like they could all be personal property of the artist in question, John Hartford—but I have no way of knowing. My favorite is a tiny one of a straight-backed chair sitting at the base of some industrial looking stairs—classic smoking area! Yet, there’s no one there. Maybe it was a spot where John Hartford sat and entertained some coworkers with his pickin’ and strummin’—why not. If this record is any indication, he was an entertaining guy, both with the spoken word witticisms and philosophy and the instrumental prowess. He’s got one of those crystal-clear voices that sounds like he just got out of sound-like-you’re-from-Ohio broadcasting school—every word as distinct as a glass shard, especially in the talking stuff. Though, when singing along with banjo there’s a tinge of the South. Where was he from? New York City, but grew up in St. Louis—okay, with particular interest in the Mississippi River—perfect for a boy. A year older than my mom, which doesn’t put anything in any kind of perspective, but I always take notice—I’m human. This record came out when I was eight—1968—but it took me over half a century to find it. His third or fourth among a ton of records.

He's a songwriter—ever since I looked him up, I keep seeing his name pop up in other people’s song credits—or maybe my dreams, I don’t know. “A song is a room…” is how this album starts out—he’s monologuing a fine intro (called “Housing Project”)—a profound mini-essay on the song—worth the price of admission—it could fit in front of any collection of the classic song-form. I’m tempted to type it all out, it’s so good—but laziness prevails. That leads into a bluegrassy folky political song with no small amount of humor, called, “I’m Still Here.” That’s a certain kind of folk song, and the next one, “Crystallia Daydream,” is another style, more abstract, poetic, ephemeral sounding, instrumentally—though his voice is still clear as pre-digital Ma Bell. There are no musician credits—so perhaps he’s playing everything, as he’s a guitarist, fiddl’r, and banjo-leer, and no doubt a natural percussionist. He also wrote the liner notes—fragments of wit an’ ’icisms—poems, jokes, humor, bits of philosophizin’—more or less a collage of words—very good. I normally don’t paraphrase, but the first part is so excellent, I’m going to—however, inserting slashes for his line breaks—it goes: “someone told me a long time ago/don’t go over there and look at that/or even listen to it/from over here… it will only confuse you/and it was then I realized/how badly I needed to be confused/because I found myself confused/wondering why I shouldn’t be confused.”

I guess I was thinking it’d be a record I’d enjoy the cover, read the liner notes, and play once through while scribbling some incomprehensible gibberish adjacent to it, as is my wont, but I’ve caught myself thinking about it more than I’d be comfortable with, as if it’s working its way into the dream receptors. Maybe it has something to do with those nighttime visits I’ve been having with that hilly town with twisting roads and odd but spacious living places I only visit after waking at 3 a.m., and falling back to sleep. There is something about it that grows on me, I suppose—partly it’s his voice, sounding like he’s sitting across the table with coffee—and partly the lyrics—which I feel compelled to return to. I’ll likely pick up more of his records. But for now, I’m listening to this one some more. I’m not crazy about all the songs—some are too jaunty folkish for me—but I like them all okay. And some I like more than a lot—the ones mentioned above—along with, let’s say, “I Didn’t know the World Would Last This Long” (great title), “The Category Stomp,” “Go Fall Asleep Now,” and “Big Blue Balloon”—but I like all of ’em!

8.8.25