Artist · chart history · #633 in indie & aaa artist polls
John Hartford
Solo artist New York United States
John Hartford is an artist from New York. John Hartford has 5 chart appearances on 3 radio countdowns from 2 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2020. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Gentle On My Mind”, which appears on 2 lists with a best position of #397. The station that charted John Hartford most often is WFPK (Louisville, KY), with 3 appearances.
John Hartford, born in New York in 1937, was a bluegrass man with a head full of Mississippi River lore and a hand for just about any instrument with strings: banjo, fiddle, guitar, mandolin. His voice was his own, odd and warm, and his lyrics had a sly wit that made even his gentlest tunes crackle.
His big one is "Gentle on My Mind", from his 1967 album Earthwords & Music, a loose, rambling, easy-rolling tune. It won three Grammys and made BMI's list of the top 100 songs of the century.
Onstage he was a one-man hootenanny, trading off fiddle, banjo and guitar as each number called for them and clogging on an amplified sheet of plywood while he played, a shuffle-tap step he dreamed up himself. He died in 2001. The Americana Music Association gave him its President's Award in 2005, and the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame took him in in 2010.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by John Hartford on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gentle On My Mind | 2 | #397 | – | – | |
| 2 | Boogie | 1 | #463 | – | – | |
| 3 | Steam Powered Aero-Plane | 1 | #987 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 926 | Gentle On My Mind | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2006 | 636 | Artist ranking | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Artists (2006) |
| 2001 | 397 | Gentle On My Mind | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2001 | 463 | Boogie | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2001 | 987 | Steam Powered Aero-Plane | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time |
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