‘BOOGIE’-MAN HARTFORD KEEPS ON ROLLING ALONG

Folk musician John Hartford’s two best-known songs appear to be at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. “Gentle on My Mind,” Glen Campbell’s signature song, was recently honored by the music-licensing agency BMI as the No. 1 country song in its catalogue, with more than four million radio plays since its release in 1967. Detractors, however, write it off as a prime example of drippy sentiment.

On the other end of the scale is Hartford’s second-most famous song, “Boogie.” Familiar to listeners of Dr. Demento’s radio show, the song features Hartford as a gruff-voiced dirty old man wheezing and grunting through lascivious lines. It’s as hilariously lewd as “Gentle on My Mind” is sappy.

To Hartford, however, there’s not that much difference between the two.

“They’re both love songs,” he maintained, his rich baritone over the phone smoother, but otherwise not too far from that of his drooling boogie-meister. “They’re not topical songs so they always work. They’re not dependent on the times.”

Though “Gentle on My Mind” ranks at the top of his resume, it’s “Boogie” that reveals more of Hartford’s personality--not the leering quality, but the humor.

“I just wrote ‘Boogie’ as a joke, but it’s a pretty good joke,” Hartford said from his Nashville home just before departing on a concert swing that brings him to McCabe’s on Saturday. “I take seriously not taking things seriously.”

One thing Hartford, 48, definitely doesn’t take seriously is the lure of the limelight. He believes that on the strength of “Gentle on My Mind” and his role on Campbell’s late-’60s television show--as the banjo picker in the bluegrass jams--he could have become a huge star.

“It was a heady experience,” he said of his television experience. “We were the No. 1 show in the nation. We were all famous.”

Hartford pulled away from that, though, leaving the show while it was still a hit. He had enough financial security from “Gentle’s” success to pursue his own path.

Along with the likes of Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Newbury, Hartford became one of the leading figures in what he terms the “Bohemian movement” that was taking place on Nashville’s Music Row in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

“Johnny Cash was kind of into that, too,” Hartford recalled. “We were all starting to listen to Bob Dylan and looking into that outside folk-music influence.”

Sporting long hair and a beard, and spicing his music with hippie humor (including occasional pot-smoking references), Hartford was nothing if not an outsider in those conservative Nashville days.

It was only natural, then, that after recording for major labels RCA and Warner Bros., Hartford settled into the comfortable world of independent music on the small, folk-oriented Flying Fish label in the mid-’70s. At the same time, armed with fiddle, guitar and banjo--plus an amplified piece of plywood for foot percussion--Hartford became a favorite on the folk and bluegrass concert circuit.

The relative freedom of that life also allowed Hartford to plunge headfirst into another long-time passion: river boats. Like other folk musicians, he logs thousands of miles each year by bus and plane. Unlike others, though, he averages two days a week from Memorial Day through October piloting the Julia Belle Swain on its 67-mile Mississippi River tourist run between Peoria, Ill., and Starved Rock State Park.

“It’s one of only five steam-turned wheel boats on the Mississippi,” Hartford said proudly.

Hartford has spent enough time on dry land to get back on a major label, with a new album, “Annual Waltz” due out in January on MCA/Dot. But despite the big-label release, the new record will feature the usual idiosyncratic mix of bluegrass and old-timey sounds he’s developed over the past 20 years.

“I never have tried to pigeon-hole it,” Hartford said of his style. “Somebody the other day told me it’s just John Hartford music. All my records are made just to be my records, wherever they come out.”

For the record, Hartford is proud of “Gentle on My Mind,” no matter what the critics might say. He generally opens his concerts with it, and he points to the company it keeps at the top to support his feelings.

“It was the most-played song in the BMI catalogue, then ‘Yesterday’ came along and went to No. 1,” he boasted, perfectly content to be beaten out by the Beatles classic. “I’ve always been a Paul McCartney fan. No complaint there.”