No Jack Hardy thread, one of 20th century America's finest songwriters

I swear I started a thread on Jack Hardy a decade ago and got minimal response, but I can't find it now, so maybe it was a dream I had.

Jack Hardy ought to be mentioned alongside the great American songwriters like Guy Clark, Bob Dylan, Tom T. Hall etc.
He made consistently good records for decades, all while running a songwriting workshop out of his NYC apartment and editing the Fast Folk series of LPs.

A lot of his work is dense w/ historical or mythological allusion, and he can certainly come across a little bit writerly, but not to the degree of someone like Leonard Cohen IMO. And most of his records are still cheap, and fairly plentiful at least in NYC and New England.

You want a record to listen to? Mirror of My Madness (w/ extensive backing vocals by the Roches), The Cauldron or The Nameless One. Some of his stuff in that middle period has a bit of "celtic folk" vibe, so sometimes his records end up stuck in those bins. But he's very much a songwriter, a writer of songs. I've heard it suggested that his writing and singing are both "a bit much" or overdramatic; in general I disagree. But that's just personal preference imo.

Ok try these
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPMNKvFvbkA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcnWVqPeNSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EhifF4OerY

Great thread idea, ian. Jack Hardy deserves to be heard, always.

While the conviction was later overturned on appeal, Hardy remains the only person in the history of the United States that has ever been arrested and convicted of libeling the President of the United States.

lol i'm in

At first I thought this said "Jack Handy."

ahhh vino rosso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCtkOJrc9I