{"id":12214,"date":"2014-05-19T09:42:35","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T16:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=12214"},"modified":"2014-05-19T19:33:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T02:33:42","slug":"tim-hardin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2014\/05\/tim-hardin\/","title":{"rendered":"TIM HARDIN"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

\"Tim<\/h1>\n

TIM HARDIN<\/h1>\n

One of the Great Tragedies in Rock<\/h2>\n

It was an odd coincidence and a nice little twin-spin of sorts the other night in New York at back-to-back shows featuring Tim Hardin songs.<\/p>\n

First up at Joe\u2019s Pub was Tammy Faye Starlite\u2019s magnificent performance of Marianne Faithfull\u2019s 1979 album masterpiece Broken English, the third song of which is the Hardin co-write \u201cBrain Drain.\u201d Then it was over to City Winery for Colin Blunstone\u2019s solo show, in which the legendary Zombies vocalist performed Hardin\u2019s \u201cMisty Roses,\u201d which appeared on his 1988 album One Year.<\/p>\n

Tim Hardin. One of the great tragedies in rock of the 1960s and \u201970s, Hardin having died of a heroin overdose in 1980 after missing out on a significant solo career. But his songs, clearly, live on\u2014though not as frequently in performance, perhaps, as this one night in New York in May.<\/p>\n

\"TimHe remains best known for \u201cIf I Were a Carpenter,\u201d which was a major hit\u2014incredibly\u2014three times in the span of four years\u2014for Bobby Darin (Top 10 pop, in 1966), Johnny Cash and June Carter (No. 2 country, 1970), and the Four Tops (Top 20, pop and soul, 1968)\u2014and \u201cReason to Believe,\u201d sung most famously by Rod Stewart (it was the flip side of \u201cMaggie May\u201d in 1971 and a Top 20 hit for him in 1993 when he recorded a live version) and The Carpenters, who included it in their breakthrough second album Close to You.<\/p>\n

Faithfull also recorded \u201cReason to Believe,\u201d as did everyone from Cash to Neil Young, Billy Bragg, Cher, Andy Williams and Glen Campbell. Not many songwriters can boast that kind of coverage\u2014let alone for just one song.<\/p>\n

\"TimAt Joe\u2019s Pub, Starlite prefaced \u201cBrain Drain\u201d with a long, hysterical monolog including a recitation from Hamlet, Faithfull having played Ophelia opposite Nicol Williamson\u2019s Hamlet in Tony Richardson\u2019s 1969 screen version. No drama from Blunstone ahead of his beautiful reading of \u201cMisty Roses,\u201d but he did give proper credit to its songwriter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMisty Roses,\u201d by the way, was one of two songs Hardin sang at Woodstock, the other being \u201cIf I Were a Carpenter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob O\u2019Connor blogged about Hardin for Yahoo! Music in 2008, and noted that when he died on Dec. 29, 1980, he was \u201cleft in the shadows where he spent his entire career\u201d by John Lennon\u2019s death earlier that month. In one final coincidence, then, I left City Winery to go catch the end of Judith Owen\u2019s show at the Cutting Room, and got a ride there with May Pang.<\/p>\n

Jim Bessman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TIM HARDIN One of the Great Tragedies in Rock It was an odd coincidence and a nice little twin-spin of sorts the other night in New York at back-to-back shows featuring Tim Hardin songs. First up at Joe\u2019s Pub was Tammy Faye Starlite\u2019s magnificent performance of Marianne Faithfull\u2019s 1979 album masterpiece Broken English, the third […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4976],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12221,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12214\/revisions\/12221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}