by Nel #2

Nel said...
Hi Lizardson,
Thanks again for the great music on your blog!

I read in the comments of Tim Hardin - Hang on to a dream, that someone asked for the album "Suite for Susan Moore".
In 2000 a cd was released with this album and also "bird on a wire".


Tim Hardin
"Suite for Susan Moore..." 1970





















Hardin's first album for Columbia was a darker, more subdued, and altogether stranger affair than the relatively accessible material he had recorded for Verve just two or three years previously. Even at the peak of his popularity, Hardin was not always the most straightforward of songwriters, and Suite for Susan Moore took a turn toward the oblique. The "songs," actually running together into a loose suite, were divided into the mysteriously titled sections "Implication I," "Implication II," "Implication III," and "End of Implication." Often they sounded like an outpouring of stream-of-consciousness romantic emotions and thoughts, rather than compositions deliberately constructed for ease of listener comprehension. Some of the cuts had foggy, druggy textures with slow tempos, tremeloed guitars, and watery electric keyboards; not lethargic or laid-back, but the kind of stuff you're always tempted to boost the volume on to make it easier to grasp. Even the folkier and more upbeat tunes had a casual and distended air; Hardin added to the strangeness by occasionally reciting somber poetry, both unaccompanied and to meandering, jazzy instrumental backing. The drowsy mood, both affectionate and vulnerable, is more important than the message on this haunting album. That means it's not recommended as the first Hardin recording for neophytes, but it is recommended to those who already like Hardin and are up for something more obtuse than his early records. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

Cover: Front, Back, LP label


"Bird on a Wire" 1971





















Tim Hardin was mostly known as a singer/songwriter, and a most prolific one at that, based on the number of originals he generated on his albums during the second half of the 1960s. Bird on a Wire was, thus, something of a surprise, turning up as it did with only six originals on it. Perhaps Hardin was in a bad way creatively -- given what fans know now, it's difficult to picture a time in his life after 1966 when he wasn't, at some level -- but as compensation, he did beautifully soulful renditions of the title track (a Leonard Cohen song), Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind," John Lee Hooker's "Hoboin'," and more. Ironically, Cohen was supposed to be Columbia Records' resident singing literary figure, but in "Andre Johray" and "Moonshiner," Hardin merged serious personal poetry and his compositional and interpretive skills in a startlingly intimate and affecting manner. The singing is exquisite, poignant, and powerful and the production is as tasteful and eloquent as any in Hardin's output. This might not be the place to start listening to Tim Hardin (though there are worse places for that as well) in terms of finding out what he was about, but it's also as essential as anything in his output and a lot closer to the core of who he was than, say, Tim Hardin 4. This was also Hardin's last American studio recording and one of the last records that he made before the physical consequences of his drug problem became obvious. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide