Tim Hardin born 23 December 1941

James Timothy Hardin (December 23, 1941 – December 29, 1980) was an American folk music and blues singer-songwriter and guitarist. In addition to his own success, his songs "If I Were a Carpenter", "Reason to Believe", "Misty Roses" and "The Lady Came from Baltimore" were hits for other artists. 

Tim Hardin was born in Eugene, Oregon to Hal and Molly Hardin, who both had musical backgrounds. His mother was a violinist and concertmaster of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and his father played bass in jazz bands in the Army and in college. While a student at South Eugene High School, Hardin first learned to play the guitar. When he was 18, he dropped out and joined the Marines, improving his guitar skills and building a repertoire of folk songs. He first tried heroin while stationed with the Marines in Southeast Asia. 

After his discharge in 1961, Hardin moved to New York City, where he briefly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (AADA). After his dismissal for truancy, he began to focus on his musical career by performing around Greenwich Village, mostly in a blues style. In 1963, he relocated to Boston, Massachusetts where he met record producer Erik Jacobsen who got him signed to a recording contract with Columbia Records which didn't pan out and in 1964, he returned to Greenwich Village. 

After moving to Los Angeles in 1965, Hardin met actress Susan Yardley and returned to New York with her. He signed with Verve Forecast and released his first album, Tim Hardin 1, in 1966, which included "How Can We Hang On to a Dream", "Reason to Believe" and the ballad “Misty Roses" to critical acclaim and mainstream radio airplay. That same year, he played at a Saturday afternoon workshop of contemporary and protest songs at the Newport Folk Festival. 

                                   

Hardin was admired for his singing voice, described by a Los Angeles Times reviewer as "a voice which quavers between the tugs of the blues and the tender side of joy. He can sing nasty, but his forte is gentle songs whose case allows him to slip and slide through a rainbow of emotions." However, Hardin said in another interview: "I think of myself more as a singer than a songwriter and always did. It happened to be that I wrote songs. I’m a jazz singer, really, writing in a different vocabulary mode but still with a jazz feel. I don’t ever sing one song the same way. I’m an improvisational singer and player.” 

He recorded "Black Sheep Boy" in 1966, a song about his drug use and the alienation from his family. Bobby Darin, Ronnie Hawkins, Bill Staines, Joel Grey, Scott Walker, and Don McLean recorded cover versions of the song. In 1967, "Tim Hardin 2" was released which contained "If I Were a Carpenter." By this time a wide variety of artists were covering his songs and he was in demand to tour Europe and the United States. However, the quality of his work was in decline partly because of "his own combativeness in the studio, his addiction to heroin, his drinking problems and his frustration with his lack of commercial success". 

Tim Hardin was loved by the critics and admired by other performers who recorded his songs, but his extreme stage fright and addiction to heroin made him an unreliable live performer. He canceled or skipped scheduled shows, and when he did appear, he was often not fit to perform. He reputedly fell asleep on stage at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1968 and his tour was cut short after he contracted pleurisy. 

Other albums were released including "Tim Hardin 3" and "Tim Hardin 4" and in 1969, he performed at the Woodstock Festival, re-signed with Columbia and released a single of Bobby Darin's "Simple Song of Freedom" that reached the U.S. Top 50, as well as three additional albums, "Suite for Susan Moore and Damion: We Are One, One, All in One" (1969), "Bird on a Wire" (1971), and "Painted Head" (1972). During the following years, he moved between England and the U.S. His heroin addiction had taken control of his life by the time his last album, "Nine," was released on GM Records in England in 1973 and released in the U.S. on Antilles Records in 1976. 

After several years in Britain, Hardin returned to the U.S. in early 1980, writing ten new songs and recording them at home for a comeback. However, on December 29, his longtime friend Ron Daniels found him dead on the floor of his Hollywood apartment at the age of 39. The police determined that there was no evidence of foul play, and it was initially believed that Hardin had died from a heart attack. The Los Angeles coroner's office later confirmed that the cause of death was an accidental heroin overdose. Hardin was interred at Twin Oaks Cemetery in Turner, Oregon. Virtually forgotten by the public, his only apparent legacy was his songs that others performed, until a tribute album in 2013 revived interest in the man behind the songs. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & Bethel Woods)