John Hartford String Band
Rooster Creek Show (Morning Show)
11/1?/2000
Live on KFAL-AM 900, Fulton, Missouri

Ron Lutz - host

John Hartford - Fiddle
Mike Compton - Mandolin
Larry Perkins - Bass Fiddle
Chris Sharp - Guitar



1. Chicken Reel (during which Ron, the host says "It's Saturday Morning...it's Rooster Creek")
2. Intros
3. Love Grown Cold (Kyle Brown? on dobro)
4. Ads
5. Across The Wide Missouri (harmonica?) Howard Marshall on fiddle
6. Ads
7. Greenville Trestle (Mark Olson singing)
8. Ads
9. Six White Horses
10. Ads
11. Evansville, Missouri
12. Ads
13. Outro

POSTED TO johnhartford.com, http://www.johnhartford.com/wwwboard/messagesc/288.html:

Posted by Howard (Rusty) Marshall on June 26, 101 at 09:14:15:

Many of us here are mourning the passing of John Hartford. One element in John's saga that hasn't been stressed is the weight John placed on growing up around St. Louis. Thus location gave him access not only to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers and those boats he loved, but also to the fiddling scene in Missouri. He visited (and tape recorded as early as 1958) legends like Cleo Persinger, Roy Woliver, Ed Tharp, and Gene Goforth. I hope those recordings John made with his running mate Clifford Hawthorne can be distributed on CD at some future time. John was a storehouse of rare Missouri tunes, like "Moselle" and "Hamilton Iron Works."

Among John's qualities was an ability to make you feel like you were important. Rather than jabber about his latest exploit, John would ask you about your thoughts about the music. His letters about "fiddling Tommy Jefferson", as well as his musings about the fiddlers on the Lewis and Clark expedition, were delightful, since John was a great writer even when writing a letter. He was a generous person and took pains to give due credit to others instead of trying to grab the credit for himself. He had a way of complimenting you not for the sake of courtesy but because he meant it, such as saying he was playing our "Fiddling Missouri" CD on the show bus and trying to learn some of the more obscure tunes we put on it.

The last time I was with John was on his trip to Fulton, Missouri, in November 2000, when he booked a date at Westminster College. Everyone had a great time and lots of old timers in our area knew John from way back. Some of John's Cowan kinfolk are buried a few miles north of Fulton. John was in good form and this band -- Mike Compton, Bob Carlin, Chris Sharp, Curly Perkins -- is an exceptional group. I chauffeured John around while he was here and we talked about his rambles around Missouri recording fiddlers in the old days. The depth of his knowledge was superb and he was full of theories about every aspect of the fiddler's art. Knowing I try to writeabout fiddling, he sat me down in his bus and let me pour over the latest draft of his massive book on Ed Haley, and hopefully this book will now be published.


A highlight of John's last visit was a reunion with Ron Lutz, who for many years was the top DJ on KFAL AM radio in Fulton. John stayed with Ron and Mary during his time in Fulton some 40 years ago. Some of John's incredible stage presence and stage personality was honed working on stations like KFAL. Ron is a legend himself, and Hartford kept breaking up at Ron's colloquialisms; always the curious thinker, John got out his note pad and scribbled down one of Ron's current sayings, "It ain't right, but it's so."

During his visit here, John and his band were guests on Ron's live radio show on KFAL, "The Rooster Creek Show" (started in 1957). The show is a rather unpredictable affair, with a mix of classic country and bluegrass standards together with the patter and commercials done without rehearsal by Ron and the band members. Hartford's friendship with Ron and Mary Lutz went back to 1961-62, when Hartford came through town selling Starday records out of the back of his Chevy station wagon. He stayed with Ron and Mary for two months while Ron found a trailer for him to live in, and Ron got John a DJ job at KFAL. Hartford played fiddle and banjo with Ron's band, and here John got introduced to the fine art of playing dances in tough local country dance halls.

Ron's Rooster Creek Show is now one of the few live country music radio shows left standing. The show's theme tune is "Chicken Reel," and when we taped the November 2000 live show, John rendered the evergreen in his fluid, swooping fiddle style. Playing a tune was like a conversation with the music, and an exciting thing to see as well as hear. I was also a guest fiddler on the show, and it was a thrill to hear John introduce me on the air. He said "play me a tune I've never heard before," and my mind raced to think of something that a guy like Hartford had never heard (almost an impossibility). It was a pleasurable, exhausting two days with Hartford and an experience that will stay with me.
John Hartford was an original. And he is gone from us. "It ain't right, but it's so." Rest in peace, John.

Howard (Rusty) Marshall
Fulton, Missouri