Below are three articles published in newspapers and magazines. They are provided here for the benefit of fans. If the holder of the copyright of any article is unhappy with their publication on this website, they need merely e-mail me and I shall remove them.

First is a piece that appeared in The Independent in January, 2004, under the banner "Forgotten Heroes" by Bill Kenwright, the London theatre producer and chairman of Everton FC, interviewed by Charlotte Cripps.

 

Who is he?

An American folk singer/songwriter with a jazz obsession.  His sound was brooding pain and melancholy lyrics that asked endless questions.  Born in 1941, he produced an impressive body of work in the late sixties, without ever achieving mainstream success, mainly because he had a serious drug problem.  He tried to make a comeback in the early seventies, with the help of Billy Gaff, Rod Stewart’s ex-manager, but Hardin quickly fell back into old habits.  He died of a heroin overdose on 29 December 1980.

What did he do?

He came on to the music scene in the mid sixties as an average blues singer but by the time he had made his 1966 debut, he was writing confessional folk-rock. But sadly, Hardin’s work achieved far greater fame through covers from other singers – Rod Stewart’s version of Reason to Believe or Bobby Darin’s If I Were a Carpenter.  Commercially, his success looked more unlikely as his health deteriorated.  He did make an appearance at Woodstock 1969, but his albums grew more erratic and weird and sales fell.  He did not complete any albums after 1973.

Why do I admire him?

There are certain people that don’t fit into any category and it is very hard for innovators to survive.  But if ever there was a Renaissance Man, it was Tim Hardin.  I am surprised more people don’t worship him.  He once said, “To know jazz is to know God.”  I’m no jazz aficionado, but if you hear his voice – especially on the song Hang On To a Dream, which was my first choice on Desert Island Discs – well, I still think I’ve died and gone to Heaven.  Undoubtedly, he was his own worst enemy and by the mid-seventies his creative juices had dried up.  But in the mid to late sixties, his music was breathtaking.  He was a true romantic, writing simple songs about the promise of love and the disappointment of love.

 

The final article was published in a little-known Los Angeles magazine, WET, that existed in the late seventies and early eighties, but is now defunct. The article consisted of an interview with Tim, published in September 1980, four months before his death. It was conducted by Ann Bardach. I have edited the article somewhat - primarily to remove the profanities (of which there were many). Please bear in mind, when reading this interview, that he was not well and his views on events in his past were largely perceptions coloured by his drug intake. I am aware that some of the content is quite upsetting to Susan Hardin, to whom I passed a copy before putting it on the website. Nevertheless, she kindly gave me permission to make it available to website readers.

The Heavy Heart of Tim Hardin

An Interview by Ann Bardach

Before there was Bob Dylan, there was Tim Hardin. "He was the greatest," recalls a fan. "When I left home in '66, I knew every Tim Hardin song word for word. Everybody did." Indeed, there were a few years in the '60s when Tim Hardin turned out hits (Misty Roses, If I Were a Carpenter, Reason to Believe, Long Time Smuggling Man, etc.) with the speed and aim of a Gatling gun on remote. It wasn't just a repertoire of songs that went 'gold' or 'platinum', it was songs with indisputable claim as classics.

Quite simply, Time Hardin is the stuff of legends. Like Piaf, his personal tragedy was as well known as his songs. Music mags in the '60s chronicled his drug addiction, busts, shattered romances, and endless litigation over the millions of dollars of royalties earned by his songs. Music industry insiders speculate that Tim Hardin's songs have been recorded by more artists than any other songwriter of the '60s (e.g. Frank Sinatra, Rod Stewart, Joan Baez, Marianne Faithful, and Bob Singer, to mention a token few), yet Tim Hardin is broke. It's always been that way. An endless series of lawyers, agents, managers and record companies adept at labyrinthine contracts have kept Hardin on his knees begging for his dinner for more than a decade. Some will coolly cite Hardin's legendary heroin habit as the source of his poverty. Yes, to some degree - though many allegedly drug-addicted musicians live comfortably, if not luxuriously (Keith Richards takes a limo to his beach house in the Hamptons).

It's been almost 20 years since Hardin's heyday. For the last few years he has lived quietly with his companion Janet in a small West Hollywood apartment in the rear of a shingled cottage. Some half dozen gold and platinum records are on the wall, hung as indifferently as potholders. It is a tidy, clean place, with no frills - its furnishings are strictly utilitarian. By all reports, Hardin is "Clean, healthy and trying to trim his waistline." And he's just finished writing an album of new songs, which he is currently recording.

Ann Bardach: Let's start with the album, Tim Hardin I. Legend has it that Dylan once said you were the greatest song writer of our time when that album came out.

Tim Hardin: Yea, I played him part of the album one night and he started flipping out, you know...

How?

Man, he got down on his knees in front of me and said: Don't change your singing style and don't bleep 'a' blop...

When did you first meet Dylan? Was it before Tim Hardin I?

I met him when he was taking bennies and coming by saying, "I wrote a new tune, I wrote a new tune."

What year was that?

'62, '61.

When did you break with Dylan?

We never got together. He's a cold man. He was thinking, he was listening to what everybody said all the time and going, "Umhum, yup," and writing it down in his little photographic memory, you know what I mean? Taking pictures of everything and reproducing the whole lick for himself. Then he learned to give somebody else a little credit, by having their picture on the album or something.

Did you ever play with him?

Yeah. And Jesus. (laughs)

When did you make your first album?

I made This is Tim Hardin in 1961 and then it came out in 1967. The guy in the studio sold it to Ahmet Ertegun.

Did you have any problems?

What do you mean? Problems about collecting dough? (loud laughter) Aw, hey. I never got any money off him.

Did Tim Hardin I go gold?

There's not a record I've made that didn't.

Four albums?

Thirteen.

Albums?

Yeah. Two of them were anthologies so we're really talking about eleven, and two of them were repeats of other stuff, so we're talking about nine. But as far as releases go, it's 13. Right now, I'm so down and disconcerted, you know. People always wanted a piece of me, a piece of my songs. I don't have no protection, no contracts. I just talked to Johan Vigoda (rock star lawyer) the other night and I told him what happened. He flipped out. We were sitting in front of The Troubadour, Johan, who's a multimillionaire, is sitting there chewing on his own matchbook going "Tim, that's not legal. They couldn't have done that to you." . But they did it to me and it is legal.

What did you talk to him about?

I told him how I don't own any of the songs.

When did you start using junk?

I started using junk when I was sixteen.

How old are you now?

Thirty-seven. I've stopped.

Really?

Yeah, except for when I can't.

That's some way of stopping. You look clean.

I am clean.

And you've put on the traditional clean-up tummy.

The traditional fifty pounds.

You started using junk when you were sixteen?

In high school, playing football in Eugene, Oregon.

How did you get junk in Eugene, Oregon?

In a drugstore.

You mean you bought morphine?

No. I stole it.

You stole heroin, pharmaceutical heroin?

Dailudin, Pantathon, morphine.

But how did you know about it...?

I read about it. I was going out with a girl whose old man was a doctor and I got into his PDR [Physicians Desk Reference]. I like to read. I got a broken collar bone playing football so I went, "Hey, I can go right over to the Rexall. I know my way in." I lifted the safe, the whole thing.

Because you had a bad shoulder or because you had some pain between the ears?

No. Physical pain. I never even thought about stopping. First time I got off on smack I said, out loud, "Why can't I feel like this all the time?" So I proceeded to feel like that all the time.

Did you finish high school?

No. I went into the Marine Corps.

What year was this?

'59 is when I went in.

So you were in Korea.

No, no. We were busy startin' Vietnam.

Were you using dope while you were in the Marine Corps?

Oh, yeah.

How did you get it?

Corps men, Navy corps men. Spelled c-o-r-p-s-e men.

How did they get it for you?

They had a key.

To the medical safe?

Yeah.

When did you start playing guitar?

I got back from the Marines and my high school drama coach, who's a heavy named Ed Racazino. Mr Racazino. I still call him Mr Racazino. I can't call him Ed. You know what I mean? He sent a letter to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and I go over to New York. I got a scholarship behind an audition that I just made up.

You learned how to play the guitar at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts?

No. I left there after about six weeks. I went in there one day and the subway had goofed and I was late and I was rushing to class. They stopped me at the damn office. "Just a minute," and they gave me a pink slip for being late. So I go, "Aw, heck, not high school again." I had two twenty dollar travellers cheques left and I bought a Harmony nylon string guitar that cost exactly forty dollars. The guy saw that's what I had. I couldn't even afford a guitar book to learn chords with. I figured out some chords on my own and wrote a few tunes to fit what I knew on the guitar.

What year did you meet your wife, Susan?

'64...'65. I'm not good on dates. Susan came by to see the guy who was taking care of my pad, raking leaves and sweeping out the house, you know. She was the main star of The Young Marrieds, a soap opera which was the highest rated show on TV then, including prime time, and so she comes to the door. I'd never seen her before. She's good looking, you know. I said, "John's not here" and took her right back out the door. We went down and got a hamburger or something and went over to her pad and got it together. It was great.... We ended up at her house eating hamburgers, you know. We also ended up eating each other. You know what I mean? I dug her pad. She had dough on her and everything.... Then Susan comes up and moves into my pad, but this guy, Archie, a hit man I copped from all the time in New York shows up all of a sudden.

Why was Archie there? He was a hit man?

Yeah, but he's also a friend of mine and he decided to take over the pad, you know, because I owed him a couple of bucks. One night Archie says, "Listen, man, lend me your car. I got to cop." And I says, "No, man, I can't lend you Susan's car because that's the only car around."

In the morning Susan and I wake up and we go into the kitchen and we look out at the damn place where the car is supposed to be. We look out and the car isn't there. Then we realize, "Heck, man, the keys are gone."

About ten minutes later there was this terrible shriek, a shriek of car and tyres, and sca-plow right into the house across the street, right through the living room window. That was Archie who had stolen the car and was rushing back in desperation because he couldn't find the dough he's taken to cop with.

I said, "Archie, don't come back in here. I got a .44 magnum." I gave the gun to Susan and ran down the street to distract his attention. He ran after me. He was going to kill me. He could have done me so easy, but I could run. I was down on the corner by a liquor store when the cops came and I said, "He-ulp." Archie ran over my foot and tripped and the cops jumped out and got all of us.

Did you have dope on you?

Boy, did I ever. There was an ounce in the brick wall outside the house.

They busted you and Susan?

The cops goofed because they didn't have a search warrant or nothing.

It got thrown out of court. Where did Susan's father [Judge Morris] come in?

Susans' father was a judge. He was called while we were both in jail. I goofed on Archie. I told on him. I couldn't help it. I had to.

So what happened to him?

Archie got sent back to New York.

And you had been married for how long?

We weren't married until two weeks before Susan left me.

Your son Damian was already born when all of this happened?

I was holding Damian in my arms at the wedding.

So you were with Susan two years before you got married?

Call it five. She said, "Let's get married," made up little matchbooks and little mementos and everything. We had fifteen neat people come by and all. I wrote the ceremony myself. The Justice of the Peace was crying it was so beautiful.

And then two weeks later she was off.

Yup.

The two of you have never gotten it back together?

No. She asked me. She said, "Tim, please." I said, "I can't make love to you anymore. You can't make love to someone you really, you really basically hate."

It's rough for a non-junkie to live with a junkie.

But I was cool. I had gone on a methadone program. Everything was okay, man.... Well, I hit her a couple of times.

You hit her when you were angry?

It's a killer crime. People ought to be hung for it. It's a bad thing. Guys can kill girls easy. And it kills me that I did it, it just kills me (sobs. Five minute interruption.) I never lied to her. She taught me how to lie because her disapproval was so heavy. I couldn't stand it, you know, the dumb peasant. I don't mean peasant. I can't even think of the word. She made me feel bad.

There was a class thing there?

Which was part of the reason I loved her so much. I married a girl on the hill. But I'm smarter than she is. She dug that.

Do you see Damian?

Yeah. That's his school right over there. He's had his father all the time.

You're about the only musician alive right now who isn't a born-again Christian. Why do you think they're all into that?

Because they might die someday or something. I don't mind. I can watch people die. I've seen them. I've seen people croak and I've thrown them out the window. "Aw hey, man, Manny just died. What are we going to do with Manny?" Out the window because you don't want the body in the pad. You might get busted anyway for what you're doing already.

Busted for murder?

Who wants that?

Why did you stop using junk?

It got so inconvenient and I got broke.

Are you in a methadone program now?

Nope. I was on methadone for seven years. It's the hardest work there is. I kicked methadone, speed and Valium. That's how come I look fat. It's been two years now. I'm in perfect shape except for being overweight.

You look twenty pounds over and that's it.

Try fifty. You didn't ever see me at 140. I weight 190 pounds now. Do you believe a guy 5'6½" that weighs 190 pounds and can still move?

This interview was published in September, 1980 and Tim died in December, 1980.