Marie Hartford remembered as a good friend to songwriters

Family, colleagues mourn death yesterday

By Jim East Staff Writer
The Tennessean - Nashville, Tenn Date: Jan 1, 2002

Marie Hartford, a beloved business figure on Music Row and widow of the late Grammy-winning songwriter and performer John Hartford, died of lung cancer yesterday. Mrs. Hartford, 67, worked at Glaser Publishing, booking the studios at the Glaser Brothers' Music Row operation, the site that bred the so-called Outlaw movement in country music.

Family members said that she had been diagnosed with cancer Christmas Eve and was told Dec. 27 that her death was imminent.

John Hartford, who wrote and performed Gentle on My Mind, among other hit songs, died of cancer June 4.

"I think Marie was one of the most-loved people ever on Music Row," Hazel Smith, an entertainment journalist and longtime friend, said yesterday. "She was a friend to songwriters famed and near-famed."

Visitation with the family will be 2-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. today at Spring Hill Funeral Home, 5110 Gallatin Pike at Briley Parkway.Services will be at 3:30 p.m. tomorrow at the funeral home.

"She was a wonderful mom, and we're really going to miss her," said Sherry Bourke of Triune, one of her two daughters.

At her husband's funeral, Mrs. Hartford told her friend Ken Spooner that Hartford had promised to build her a dream house years ago when they moved into the small home in Madison overlooking the Cumberland River. "He did it. It just took awhile," she told Spooner.

Mrs. Hartford also had worked with the late Shel Silverstein, a well-known songwriter, cartoonist and author who died in 1999. A tribute on Spooner's Web site quoted her as telling the story of how she invited Mr. Silverstein to their home for dinner after first meeting him many years ago.

"What are you having?" Mr. Silverstein asked. "Spaghetti," Mrs. Hartford replied. "Spaghetti and what?"
"Just spaghetti!" an aggravated Mrs. Hartford said she answered, as she said she thought, 'Who the blankety blank does this guy think he is?' "Well you can't have just spaghetti! You gotta have a salad or something!" Mr. Silverstein shouted.
Mrs. Hartford said that began a dear friendship based on mutual admiration for John Hartford's writing and musical crafts, the Hartford family's hospitality and her cooking.

Other survivors include another daughter, Christy Bennett, Old Hickory; two sons, Rickey Barrett, Jackson, Miss., and Gerry Barrett, Nashville; her mother, Susie Fielder, Hendersonville; a brother, J.W. Fielder, Madison, Miss.; and six grandchildren.