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After penning the Glen Campbell mega-hit "Gentle on My Mind" and appearing repeatedly both on Glen's weekly variety show and on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, John Hartford could have taken the show biz glide path to financial security and ease. Instead, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist (and steamboat enthusiast) moved back to Nashville from L.A., signed a contract with Warner Bros., and proceeded to create two of the most influential and groundbreaking albums not just in bluegrass but in modern country music as a whole. For 1971's Aereo-Plain, Hartford assembled a veritable supergroup consisting of fiddler Vassar Clements, dobroist Tut Taylor, guitarist Norman Blake and bassist Randy Scruggs to play a set of mostly original tunes that were unlike anything the staid bluegrass community had ever heard before. Fresh, irreverent, funny and always except for the hilarious Dr. Demento favorite Boogie tuneful, and played by an absolutely scintillating band, the songs on Aereo-Plain pointed to a new stylistic direction for bluegrass, one quickly coined "newgrass;" as Sam Bush of the New Grass Revival says, "Without Aereo-Plain, there would be no 'newgrass' music."The predictable result of Hartford's bold experimentation was that the album failed to perform commercially, so Warner Bros. elected not to promote its successor, 1972's Morning Bugle, but it's a classic as well, sporting a stripped-down line-up of Hartford, Blake and famed jazz bassist Dave Holland. Songs like "Nobody Eats at Linebaugh's Anymore" and "Old Joe Clark" continued Hartford's novel fusion of hippie ethos and bluegrass tropes, and the musicianship was, needless to say, sublime, often completing each song in one take.Now, Real Gone Music is proud to announce the release of Aereo-Plain/Morning Bugle the Complete Warner Bros. Recordings, a two-CD, 35-track set that devotes a CD to each of these landmark albums and tacks on four unreleased tracks from each album session for a total of eight unreleased tracks! Liner notes are by Hartford scholar Andrew Vaughan, and the Hartford family has generously contributed photos from John's private collection. This collection is destined to be one of this year's most talked-about country/bluegrass releases it's an essential addition to any library of modern American music.
