May 28 – 30, 2015
Hey
The John Hartford Memorial Festival
May 28 – 30, 2015
Horseshoes & Hand Grenades at the 2014 festival.
~ by Mark Blackwell
“
Babe, ya wanna Boogie?” was the musical question John Hartford asked back in1971 on his album entitled, Aereo-Plain. If you answer John’ s question with a“ Yes,” then the John Hartford Memorial Festival is the place for you. This festival, in its fifth year, is a good place to hear an eclectic line up of the best acoustic music and musicians in the Midwest.
This year the festival is hosting forty-six bands— and that’ s not counting campground pick up groups. I am talking top drawer, A-one, headliners like Hot Rize, Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers, New
60 Our Brown County • May / June 2015
Riders of the Purple Sage, and the Hackensaw Boys. It also features local favorites The White Lightnin’ Boys, the Whipstitch Sallies, and the New Old Cavalry. Other acts include jug bands like The Fried Pickle Project. It is a very eclectic line-up and that’ s because John would have wanted it that way.
John Hartford was an eclectic musician himself. He didn’ t like to be pinned down or pigeon-holed. He liked what he liked and if you liked it, too, then“ Things couldn’ t get no better.” That’ s another Hartford-ism— in fact he worked it into a song called“ Get No Better.” The refrain goes,“ Just when you think it can’ t get no better, then it does.” That is an example of John’ s abiding optimism, which was one facet of a complex but fairly uncomplicated musical genius.
John was a study in“ resolved” contradictions. He grew up in Missouri and learned to play the fiddle and the banjo by the time he was thirteen. He finished high school and attended Washington University in Saint Louis. After four years of working on a commercial arts degree, he dropped out to pay more attention to his music. He moved to Nashville( the one in Tennessee) to try his hand at making a living in the