Tim Hardin - Troubadour, Los Angeles, CA, 2-2-1970

Singer-songwriter Tim Hardin made some great music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and some of the songs he wrote then are classics. But there are very few worthy live recordings of him from that era. I found a decent audience bootleg and significantly improved the sound quality.

At the time of this concert, from a distance, Hardin's music career seemed to be going well. He'd released a few albums that had gotten a lot of critical praise. In late 1969, he'd even had what would turn out to be his only hit single, with "Simple Song of Freedom," a song written by Bobby Darin. (Darin previously had a hit song written by Hardin, "If I Were a Carpenter.) But Hardin was a mess. His biggest problem was that he was addicted to heroin. In 1969, he went to a rehab clinic to try to get clean, but that didn't work. He also suffered from stage fright. He rarely performed live, and when he did he was erratic. 

So we're lucky to have any bootleg recording from this time period at all. There is a nice recording of him playing with a band at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, and there's a good official live album released in 1968 called "Tim Hardin 3: Live in Concert." But other than that, this is the only other recording I know from this time period. As I mentioned above, it's an audience bootleg, with merely decent sound quality. But luckily it's a solo acoustic performance, which is easier to record than full band performances. 

I did my usual audio editing tricks to improve this, using the program MVSEP. Boosting the lead vocals in the mix helped a lot. So did getting rid of hiss. But probably the biggest improvement was using Adobe's vocal enhancer to make his banter between songs more understandable (though sometimes he still mumbles and can't be heard well). 

This concert features a guest appearance by Doug Kershaw. Kershaw had a country hit with the song "Louisiana Man" back in 1961. It got a lot of cover versions after that and became a minor classic. He performed that song in the middle of this set with Hardin.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is better, and worthy, in my opinion, but it still has its flaws. But I think it's a lot better than previous versions of this recording. 

01 talk (Tim Hardin)
02 Reason to Believe (Tim Hardin)
03 talk (Tim Hardin)
04 Red Balloon (Tim Hardin)
05 Moonshiner (Tim Hardin)
06 talk (Tim Hardin)
07 Simple Song of Freedom (Tim Hardin)
08 talk (Tim Hardin)
09 Louisiana Man (Tim Hardin & Doug Kershaw)
10 talk (Tim Hardin)
11 Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (Tim Hardin)
12 talk (Tim Hardin)
13 Don't Make Promises (Tim Hardin)
14 Till We Meet Again (Tim Hardin)
15 talk (Tim Hardin)
16 Once Touched by Flame (Tim Hardin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hhg7Ut6K

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/b5oKQhpNqvvelgT/file

The cover image is from an appearance on a BBC TV show on September 1, 1970. (I wish I had the audio from that, but I don't). The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Ask Gemini program.