Aereo-Plain is John Hartford's masterwork, a 1971 album that effectively named and defined the newgrass and progressive acoustic music movement before those terms had fully formed. Recorded for Warner Bros. with a cast that included Norman Blake, Vassar Clements, Tut Taylor, and Randy Scruggs, the album fused bluegrass instrumentation with Hartford's idiosyncratic songwriting sensibility — playful, literary, obsessed with the Mississippi River and the steamboat era. Tracks like 'Steamboat Whistle Blues' demonstrate the album's range, all filtered through Hartford's singular perspective. The album's influence on subsequent acoustic music, from Norman Blake's solo work to the New Grass Revival, is difficult to overstate.
Tracklist
- 1 Turn Your Radio On Source Recording 1:22
- 2 Steamboat Whistle Blues Source Recording 3:25
- 3 Back in the Goodle Days 3:40
- 4 Up on the Hill Where They Do the Boogie 2:43
- 5 Boogie 1:42
- 6 First Girl I Loved 4:35
- 7 Presbyterian Guitar Source Recording 2:02
- 8 With a Vamp in the Middle 3:27
- 9 Symphony Hall Rag 2:48
- 10 Because of You 1:02
- 11 Steam Powered Aereo Plane alt version 3:43
- 12 Holding 1:49
- 13 Tear Down the Grand Ole Opry 3:29
- 14 Leather Britches alt version 3:45
- 15 Station Break 0:17
- 16 Turn Your Radio On Source Recording 1:22