The Full Time Hobby label’s tribute compilation to the late Tim Hardin collects thirteen acts interpreting the work of an important and too often overlooked American singer-songwriter. In personalizing and modernizing his work, Reason to Believe: the Songs of Tim Hardin has the expected share of successes and failures, but in its diversity it largely misses the sustained qualities that continue to make Hardin such an engaging and accessible cult figure.
Music has a lot of hard luck stories, and the tale of Tim Hardin, a prolific and oft-covered songwriter that was unable to find commercial success through his own acclaimed recordings, certainly qualifies. If a tough narrative, as part of the ‘60s folk boom Hardin’s lack of popular recognition was hardly unique; the same fate befell fellow folkies such as Fred Neil, Phil Ochs, Tim Buckley, and Townes Van Zandt. If his marketplace neglect found him in strong company, Hardin’s end was his own; dead of a heroin overdose in 1980 at age 39.
Long before his demise Hardin had achieved a strong following with discerning listeners, but the closest he ever came to a hit single was in 1969, with the Top 50 appearance of “Simple Song of Freedom,” a tune written for him by Bobby Darin. And it was Darin who took Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter” all the way to #8 in 1966, a circumstance that might’ve stung a bit as he landed his biggest seller.
If commercial validation largely eluded him, it wasn’t for want trying, Hardin releasing seven albums in the second half of the ‘60s, five of them through a fruitful contract with Verve Forecast that continues to serve as the strongest part of his enduring reputation. His first two albums, Tim Hardin 1 and Tim Hardin 2, released in ’66 and ’67 respectively, are simply brilliant documents of folk-derived erudition.
