Tim Hardin 2 – TIM HARDIN****

If I Were A Carpenter/Red Balloon/Black Sheep Boy/Lady Came From Baltimore/Baby Close Its Eyes/You Upset The Grace Of Living When You Lie/Speak Like A Child/See Where You Are & Get Out/Its Hard To Believe In Love For Long/Tribute To Hank Williams

Tim Hardin 2 comprises another collection of exceptional folk songs by gifted songwriter Tim Hardin. Again, many are better known by the versions covered by other artists. Like his debut this LP was a bit on the short side.

"This is just beautiful folk from Hardin. Quite a bit more introspective than the earlier stuff, this contains some of Hardin's best, and best known material, such as If I Were A Carpenter. Here Hardin is moving away from blues towards jazzier phrasings. Hardin's guitar and beautiful voice are upfront, but he is also backed by drums, piano, vibraphone, bass, and some tasteful string arrangements. I would go as far as to say that this was probably Hardin's best studio album and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone looking for romantic folk sung from the heart."

"Again, like the first album, Tim Hardin 2 is ridiculously short. Brevity aside though its a decent enough album and worth owning for the opening four tracks alone, and it's not like it is going to take up too much of your precious time to hear it either."

"Tim Hardin's second album contains some of his best-known songs, which are, in fact, some of the best songs of the era: the simple, affecting, much-covered If I Were A Carpenter and the wryly humorous Lady Came From Baltimore. Other songs here are the equally memorable, prodigal son story Black Sheep Boy, the hushed, jazzy Speak Like A Child, and the emotional, elegiac Tribute To Hank Williams. But two things keep this album from being a true classic: it's extreme brevity and arrangements which are sometimes syrupy and overbearing that seem to work against Hardin's more unconventional jazz and blues phrasings."

"Hardin's second album opens with his most famous composition, If I Were A Carpenter, which was subsequently taken into the top ten by Bobby Darin. Hardin's version is more introspective and raw and while apparently too sparse for top 40 radio, its powers as both a song and a performance are still quite evident. By 1967 Hardin had moved with the times from his earlier blues works into folk-rock, and here into a slightly more mystical sound. The jazz phrasings giving way to a more pensive and introspective style that's often accompanied only by acoustic guitar and light rhythm."