John Cowan Hartford, born John Cowan Harford on December 30, 1937, was an
American country-folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who grew up in
St. Louis, Missouri. Early in his career, he played banjo in local bluegrass
groups with Doug and Rodney Dillard, later recording the collaborative albums
Dillard-Hartford-Dillard (1977) and Dillard-Hartford-Dillard (1980). Following
school and military service, Hartford worked as a radio disc jockey and moved to
Nashville, signing with RCA in 1966, when label executive Chet Atkins inserted
the "t" into his surname. He issued h...