James Timothy Hardin died of a heroin overdose in late December 1980, three weeks after John Lennon was shot. He was 39 years old. A fine singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist; his greatest work was released on the Verve label, best known for their jazz records. Despite his considerable talent – and his early death – his reputation and cult hasn’t ever reached the levels of, say, the Buckleys, or Nick Drake. Perhaps he wasn’t pretty enough. But his songs – Reason To Believe, If I Were A Carpenter, Black Sheep Boy, How Can We Hang On To A Dream, Red Balloon, The Lady Came From Baltimore – are much more famous than he; largely because his music has always been popular with musicians. He has been covered by, to name just a few, Scott Walker, Johnny Cash, The Four Tops, Nico, The Small Faces, Neil Young, Bobby Darin, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Carpenters, Rod Stewart, Astrud Gilberto, Robert Plant, Cher, Paul Weller, Okkervil River, Leonard Nimoy, and um… Cilla Black.
Hardin’s reputation seems to rest almost entirely on his first two albums, helpfully titled 1 and 2, and released in 1966 and 1967 respectively. There isn’t much to choose between the two. The first is blues-ier in places, and closer in spirit to Fred Neil; with whom he played, and took heroin, in Greenwich Village. Tim Hardin 2 seems to be the consensus ‘best’ Hardin album, and might just be slightly more consistent, although Don Rubin – who co-produced it – said: “Frankly, I think Tim Hardin 1 is better”. In any case if you look around you’ll be able to find both albums collected on one CD.
More readily available is the excellent compilation An Introduction To Tim Hardin, with which I first acquainted myself with his music way back when I was ‘studying’ at University College London in the early Noughties. If memory serves – and it so rarely does – I liked his music instantly; some of it an awful lot. But it didn’t hit me quite as hard emotionally as other similar artists (Drake, Buckley, Neil).
With hindsight I suspect this is because Hardin’s songs have an uncommon lightness of touch and economy about them (notwithstanding the overdubbed strings and what-not that adorn some of the tunes, apparently much to his displeasure). Of the ten songs which make up Tim Hardin 2, only two pass the 3 minute mark. Five don’t even make 2 minutes! Unfortunately the backing musicians went uncredited, as there are plenty of fine contributions; the percussion work in particular is often wonderfully inventive. One supposes that much of the credit goes to Don ‘Knight Rider’ Peake, who arranged the record, and boasts a more than impressive CV.
no peace for the wicked 