“Long Hot Summer Days” is an original song by John Hartford, the singer, fiddler, banjoist, and songwriter whose deep love of riverboat life shaped much of his music. He recorded it for his 1976 album “Mark Twang.”
The song draws directly on Hartford’s own years on the water. He had earned a riverboat pilot’s license and worked the rivers, and the lyric is a worker’s-eye picture of that life — long, hot days on the Illinois River, towboats nudging barges along the channel — set to an easy, rolling rhythm.
“Long Hot Summer Days” has had a strong second life among later acoustic and country acts; a recording by the Turnpike Troubadours, in particular, carried it to a new audience, and Billy Strings is among the others who have taken it up. It remains one of Hartford’s most-loved river songs.
