Rachel Baiman not only appeared on “Julia Belle: The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 2,” but she also graciously wrote the liner notes, which were nominated for an IBMA Industry award in 2025! We love her thoughts on John so much, and we’ve posted them here so you can read them, too.

I have been asked many times over the years what John Hartford’s music means to me, and I find it a surprisingly easy question to answer. I first encountered Hartford’s music as a young fiddle player slowly falling in love with songs and songwriting. Discovering records like Radio John and Wild Hog in the Red Brush taught me the difference between Art and Craft. Perfection is an undefinable goal, yet it has become more and more attainable with modern recording technology, which allows every note to be parsed out, tuned, and moved into time, as dictated by a grid. In order to make a great record in the era of digital recording, one must learn how to embrace and build around imperfections, rather than how to eliminate them.  

Hartford was a master of the perfectly imperfect. His music was about meaning, history, heart, and soul. Uncovering his records was like finding a new lens with which to see the world.  He made music that moved in and out of metronomic time without ever losing groove, that featured out-of-tune, scratchy fiddle which was simultaneously completely correct, and lyrics that occasionally made no sense at all and yet undeniably resonated with the essence of human experience. My little musical mind was blown right open, and it has never been the same. 

Since John Hartford’s passing in 2001, his daughter Katie Harford Hogue, assisted by a small army of musicians deeply touched by Hartford’s music, has been working to ensure that his music lives on for generations to come. Anyone familiar with Hartford’s work will know how prolific he was, tirelessly creating to the extent that his work far outpaced his life.  

After his death, Hartford’s estate included a collection of over 2,000 previously unrecorded (and mostly unheard) fiddle tunes, written in spiral bound music journals that had been kept in a file drawer in his office. In 2018, this overwhelming collection of handwritten sheet music was condensed and edited by musicologist Greg Reish, fiddle player Matt Combs, and Katie Harford Hogue, into a book called John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes (StuffWorks Press). The book contains 176 of Hartford’s original tunes, along with notes and stories about his love of fiddle music. In 2020, seventeen of these tunes were recorded and released as The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Volume 1. The album, produced by Matt Combs and Katie Harford Hogue, garnered critical acclaim and was nominated for a GRAMMY in the Best Bluegrass Album category. 

With so many tunes from the Mammoth Collection still unrecorded, Hogue now brings us Volume 2 of the Fiddle Project, co-produced with Sharon Gilchrist and Megan Lynch Chowning.  Volume 2 carries over the strengths of Volume I, catchy tunes played by a variety of world-class fiddlers, each bringing their unique voice and regional influence to Hartford’s composition work. The second volume, however, has expanded on the spirit and vision of Hartford’s tunes, including instruments outside of the traditional string band genre, and also reimagining classic Hartford songs amidst the fiddle tune collection. 

At the musical helm of the project, Sharon Gilchrist and Megan Lynch Chowning have brought a fresh perspective to the concept of string band music. Gilchrist is known for her breadth of skill on the mandolin and bass, as a member of foundational string bands like Uncle Earl and the Tony Rice Unit, but has also done composition work for film and art installations.  Lynch Chowning is a lauded contest fiddler who spent years touring on the country circuit as a member of the Pam Tillis Trio. The combination of these musical perspectives brings a new lens to Hartford’s fiddle tunes, pushing them into a variety of spaces where they continue to thrive, and in some cases, suddenly become clear.  

The work of Hartford has always represented, to me, an undying commitment to openness and creativity.  Where there was more to be learned and explored, there he went.  Volume 2 of the fiddle collection takes this idea to heart in its approach to varied arrangements and combinations, such as the Maddie Witler/Natalie Haas mandolin and cello duet “Gasoline Alley No. 1”, or the fiddle and feet number “Merry Christmas”, interpreted beautifully by Ottawa Valley fiddler and step dancer April Verch. As none of these tunes were written with chord changes or arrangements, a lot of their success as recorded music depends on the uncovering of a context that will suit their melodies and intentions. In this Volume, the vast possibilities for this are illuminated.

The purpose behind sharing these unrecorded tunes has always been to place them in the folk lexicon so that amateur and professional musicians alike can have a chance to learn and play them in their communities. Some tunes from Volume 1, such as “Tennessee Politics”, have already made their way into the festival jam scene, and can be heard floating through the air as one passes from campsite to campsite. With the release of Volume 2, one can only imagine the thrill that Hartford might get from knowing that his tunes made their way into woodwind jams around the country, long after his death.  

Five “legacy” covers accompany this collection of fiddle tunes, sung by artists innately connected to them. Hartford’s first wife, Betty Harford-Gilbert, sings “No End of Love”, a song written for her, and performed with an understanding and context that only she could possess.  When asked about the inclusion of these cover songs amidst the tune collection, Hogue explains that the idea for them took shape very organically. “It started when we decided to name the album ‘Julia Belle’ which of course required a cover of that song. Then Alison Brown came to us with the idea of a cover of ‘Steam Powered Aereo Plane’. After that, it was kind of like a freight train that we couldn’t stop, so we just jumped on board.” she says. The result is a compilation that presents original work for current and future students of the fiddle to enjoy and also reminds us of the richness of its source. Hartford’s contribution to the folk music canon is inarguable, immense, and irreversible. It has touched nearly all of us. 

As with any tribute project, a challenge emerges to respectfully honor a legacy while bringing its culture firmly into the here and now. Volume 2 is named after Hartford’s song “The Julia Belle Swain,” so I’ll let John speak to that himself…

“Now the Julia Belle Swain is a women’s lib boat, the first I ever knew

Got girls in the pilothouse and girls on deck and a lady in the engine room

Now Donna’s she’s got her license; Cindy’s learning to steer

Little Julie keeps Moon outta trouble by wandering off everywhere

By wandering off everywhere”

Rachel Baiman, 2024