Ellis and Hartman pay Loving Tribute
Sometimes, music can get by for nothing more than its exquisite beauty. Dear John doesn’t reflect the times, doesn’t break new aural ground, doesn’t offer a single new word or idea to the folk music lexicon and certainly doesn’t challenge listeners — and it is sublime.
Songwriter, fiddler, banjoist and purveyor of Mississippi River folklore John Hartford is the subject of the album’s title, fashioned charmingly and fittingly as a letter. Singer/guitarists Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman are its senders and their connection with and love for this material seep from every note.
Hartford is not well known outside of modestly intense country/folk/bluegrass fandom. Hopefully, Dear John changes that. His words and compositions are (demonstrably) timeless and are here interpreted timelessly on nothing but acoustic guitars by the duo. Their pairing lends some of the songs an emotional gravitas even the original renditions lacked. “Gentle On My Mind,” one of Hartford’s greatest successes (also notably covered by Glen Campbell), is a fundamentally lonely love song, and one obviously constructed from a traditionally masculine perspective, so hearing the male and female voice locked together through its immortal words makes for a wholly unique experience. The extended instrumental coda added by Ellis and Hartman lets the lyrics reverberate for longer while continuing in wordless dialogue and delves on transcendent.
The interplay of the pair’s guitars is extraordinary throughout, as delicate and seemingly effortless as their gorgeous harmonies. The virtuosic Ellis takes the lead and would also qualify as the lead singer of most songs here, but Hartman’s role cannot be overstated, elevating the project by pushing the material further from its original context. Her guitar is a reliable bedrock under Ellis’ while her voice rests over his like frost, but the perspective songs like the aforementioned are lent in their realization as duets is what most distinguishes them, with “Right In the Middle of Falling For You” and “Delta Queen Waltz” other standouts.
The time the two have spent with these songs and each other is clear, so natural and lovely is their musical rapport. That familiarity allows them to imbue Dear John with that rare quality that only seems to emerge when a master is doing work they know is not their most significant, or is perhaps not theirs at all. Defenses are lowered, artistic insecurity is absent, there aren’t obvious stakes, they are simply allowed to breathe the material and screen it through their individual styles, taking a sort of rest stop before continuing with their careers proper. It’s in the way the lines are handed over to Hartman mid-verse in “Morning Bugle” and the breakneck strumming that Ellis unleashes to conclude an effervescent “Up On the Hill Where They Do the Boogie” — a carefree “anything-goes” attitude that the technical skill of the musicians feeling it transforms into distinctive art. With it, Dear John forms as fine a tribute to Hartford as can be imagined.
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