Obit: Jack Hardy - (1947-2011)

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: GUEST,Brandon Persinger
Date: 24 Jun 11 - 01:21 PM

I knew Jack in the late 60's and early 70's, spending summers in Aspen. He was my friend Jeffery's older brother. I'm sure he considered me more of a pest than a musician, but he occasionally listen to us of let us play with him. I remember being in the recording studio when he recorded his first album. Quite by accident, I found him on Facebook and connected with him in March, after 40 years,,,, by then he had already passed. What a loss!

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: GUEST,John Gavin
Date: 30 Mar 11 - 08:31 PM

I first heard Mr Hardy in Poughkeepsie New York in about 1985 when "Cauldron" was out on vinyl. He and his group were the featured performers at the Hudson Valley Folk Guild. He was wonderful and "Cauldron" was added to my record collection. I was on Jack's mailing list for several years and purchased his then CD boxed-set when it came out. My daughter, Christine, became a fan and heard Jack play in the Village several times. Last call Christine and I drove down to Paddy Reilley's Bar on Second Avenue to hear Jack with his wonderful daughter and great bass and guitar players. During the winter we hear Jack at his most political best in a church basement just below 34th Street. We accurately, but jokingly, told Jack that we were the "Poughkeepsie Jack Hardy Fan Club".

At intermission at Paddy Reilly's I told Jack that one of my daughter's boyfriends had absconded with my CD of the "Cauldon" (from the ten CD set) which is my favorite. He told me to send an email and that he might have a copy in his Houston Street closet. I sent the email and said I'd send payment. The CD arrived in the mail free of charge. I thanked him the last time I saw him.

My daughter discovered that Jack has died when she checked his upcoming performances now that the snow has melted.

Jack, we'll miss you. I played and sang Gretna Green again today as a local memorial.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: CupOfTea
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 02:42 PM

Sympathies to those who mourn this great guy, most of whom had more numerous, more substantial, and deeper deeper memories of Jack than my brief, happy exposure.

I've been late to the party way too many times, never getting to see performers whose work I'd later come to cherish, like Kate Wolf and Stan Rogers. I got to see Jack Hardy for the first time in 2009 at Fox Valley (Illinios) Folk Festival. He played solo and with "Folk Brother" David Massengill. I was enchanted with Jack, with intentions to catch-up with getting recordings of him.

Meeting him so late in his alloted span is tragic on the face of it, but in another, a prod to listen more to friends telling me "You have GOT to hear this guy/girl/band." There are SO many good folks out there, good people, great performers, brilliant writers, astounding players, it might be impossible to know them all if you're not part of the music industry.

Rather than kicking myself for "how could I have MISSED this guy for decades?" (Or Brian Peters or Mick Lane or any other recent introductions), I'm aware of delight yet to come. I still have Jack Hardy albums to listen to for the first time, and I'll be sad that it's not after a live concert, but he (and others) still bring the musical joy to us as long as recordings exist. How fortunate to live in a time when this is so.

Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 08:20 PM

from 1976

"this songs for you Jack
I pray you don't turn back
I know that someday they'll see
till then just keep going
and I hope it helps knowing
your singing means so much to me"

He didn't, they will, it still does

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 12:18 PM

Difficult to imagine he's really gone; I had many a pasta dish with him and Angela at his house in Liberty. When I first met him, I said to myself, "He's the real McCoy." Got to know him quite well, we stayed up drinking wine, talking poetry, politics and him playing his new songs.
A real folk hero
Good bye my dear friend Jack.

Elliott

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: GUEST,C. Ham
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 10:37 AM

A very sad loss. I never saw Jack Hardy perform on stage but did get to hear him swapping songs with other singer-songwriters late one night at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival campsite. He was clearly the best of the lot and also the most supportive to everyone else. I bought a CD from him and always meant to order more (which I will now do).

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: EBarnacle
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 09:35 AM

I first heard that Jack had died late at night on Saturday. I was talking with Rick Nestler after his party and asked why Peggy Atwood had not been there. When they had called to confirm that she was coming she told Rick that she would not be there due to upset over Jack's sudden death.

He had been diagnosed with lung cancer a couple of weeks ago. When he went in for his first chemotherapy, he did not respond well. Although he was admitted to the hospital, he did not survive the night.

Jack was significant in incubating several careers, including Suzanne Vega and Lyle Lovett, as well as running, in various guises, his salon.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: Beer
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 08:42 AM

Please go to Mike Regenstreif's Blog and have a look what Mike had to say.
Ad.

http://frfb.blogspot.com/2011/03/jack-hardy-1947-2011.html

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy - 11 March 2011
From: GUEST,kicksave7
Date: 14 Mar 11 - 04:30 AM

I met Jack at the Gengras Student Center at the University of Hartford in 1973. He was somewhat of a legend on campus since graduating in 1970 and when I saw him sitting and people watching, I mustered up some courage and made my way over to him to introduce myself. We had some mutual friends so it was an easy way to start a conversation. We met up again the next day and my friend and I agreed to give him a ride to his family home in Durham. Along the way he talked about his music and asked us a lot of questions about school, our goals etc...I gave him my address when we dropped him off and about a year later he wrote me a postcard from Germany where he was touring. We both ended up in New York at the same time and our paths crossed again several times, once right on West 4th Street as he was making his way to Folk City.

I moved away in 1977 and never saw him again. I got married, had three kids and only came into the city a couple of times of year. A few years ago, I sent him an email when I had read about his brother dying in the World Trade Center disaster. He wrote me back immediately and apologized for not having kept in touch over the years. Jack was one of kind...he never forgot his friends and always made time to make new ones. His music was his life and passion. I always envied his ability to know exactly what he wanted to do with his life the minute he graduated from college. We all struggled to find our way but Jack knew what he wanted and did it.

He'll be missed by many and may his music live on forever.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 08:47 PM

A friend of mine just mentioned that Jack Hardy had died and it's good to see that there is already a thread here.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 08:05 PM

"Willy Goggin's Hat" performed by Jack Hardy at Duncan's House Concert Series in Ventura, Ca. on April 19, 2009 (on YouTube as linked in the NY Times obituary).

~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 08:02 PM

Jack Hardy, Folk Singer and Keeper of the Tradition, Dies at 63

By BRUCE WEBER
New York Times
March 12, 2011

The cause was complications of lung cancer, his son, Malcolm, said.

Mr. Hardy wrote hundreds of songs — protest songs, political talking songs and romantic ballads — his lyrics often consciously literary, his music tinged with a Celtic sound. With a singing voice raspy and yearning, he performed in clubs and coffeehouses in New York and elsewhere and recorded more than a dozen albums, many of them self-produced, though two boxed sets of his work were released by a small, independent label in 2000.

"I'm undoubtedly the least famous person with a boxed set," he boasted in an interview that year.

Perhaps he wasn't famous, but he was, in his way, influential.

In the early 1980s, after Bob Dylan had gone electric and folk music had been shunted aside by disco and punk, Mr. Hardy helped found a musical cooperative for like-minded folkies. It established a performance space and made more than 1,000 low-budget recordings of local performers and distributed them to subscribers and radio stations, along with a newsletter, under the rubric the Fast Folk Musical Magazine.

Lyle Lovett, Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman and Shawn Colvin all recorded first for Fast Folk, according to the Smithsonian Institution, which holds tapes of the original recordings and the magazine archives. (A two-CD set is available from the institution's nonprofit record label, Smithsonian Folkways.) Mr. Hardy's song "St. Clare" was covered by Ms. Vega and appears on her 2001 album "Songs in Red and Gray."

Since the late 1970s and up until recently, when he entered the hospital, Mr. Hardy was the host of Monday night workshops at his railroad flat on West Houston Street. Songwriters from as far away as Boston and Philadelphia would come to share a pasta dinner and their brand-new songs. Critiques were expected; the rule was that no song was supposed to be more than a week old, a dictum, Mr. Hardy said, that forced writers to write. Ms. Colvin, Ms. Vega and Mr. Lovett are all alumni.

John Studebaker Hardy was born in South Bend, Ind., on Nov. 23, 1947. His mother, Lillian, is a painter; his father, Gordon, is a musician and the past dean of students at the Juilliard School and a past president of the Aspen Music Festival.

Young Jack grew up in New York City, Aspen, and Durham, Conn.. He graduated from the University of Hartford, where he edited a student newspaper and in 1969 was convicted of libeling President Nixon for publishing a vulgar cartoon depiction of him. (The conviction, and a $50 fine, were overturned on appeal.) He moved to the Village in 1973.

Mr. Hardy was married and divorced twice. In addition to his son, who lives in St. Louis, and his parents, who live in Manhattan, he is survived by a brother, Christopher, of Coeur d'Alene, Ida.; a sister, Susan Suechting, of Elk Mound, Wis., three daughters, Morgan, of Manhattan, Miranda, of Syracuse, N.Y., and Eva Peck of South Lake Tahoe, Nev., and two grandchildren.

Mr. Hardy said the "fast folk" idea was born out of a need to keep the music alive.

"The whole idea was to do it fast," he said of the music that he and others recorded and distributed in the 1980s and 1990s. "You could hear a song at an open mike or songwriters' meeting and two weeks later it was being played on the radio in Philadelphia or Chicago. It was urgent, exciting. It was in your face."


~ Becky in Long Beach

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: GUEST,jeff
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 07:53 PM

Met Jack at a festival in upstate NY in '82. Rod MacDonald, Frank Christian, David Roche, Suzanne Vega, Elaine Silverman and several other forgettable acts were part of the festival.

The best part were the all-night jams. Rod knew every Animals song ever recorded. Frank Christian is the best musician nobody's ever heard of and David Roche is thee most talented individual to never make a dent in the musical world. Far, far more gifted than his 3 older siblings.

Jack Hardy and I spoke for a few hours about songwriting. We both decided that Ms. Vega would make it out of everyone there. Very perceptive man was Mr. Hardy.

He was very complimentary re my songs as I in turn admired his work. Though we didn't remain in touch I'm deeply saddened at his passing. He was truly well intended and as is said 'one of the good ones'.

RIP, Mr. Hardy

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: Mary Katherine
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 03:40 PM

http://www.beachamjournal.com/journal/2011/03/jack-hardy-folk-singer-songwriter-and-playwright-dies-in-new-york.html

March 11, 2011
Jack Hardy, Folk Singer, Songwriter and Playwright, Dies in New York

Jack Hardy, folk singer, songwriter and playwright of great influence
to many performers, has died in New York.

Beginning in the mid-seventies, Hardy hosted Monday night pasta
dinners at his apartment on Houston Street, which were open to all
songwriters. He also began a small, informal songwriters' group at The
English Pub in Greenwich Village, which later became a more formal
songwriters' night at the Cornelia Street Cafe in December 1977.

This group would later evolve into the Songwriter's Exchange,
releasing an album on Stash Records in 1980. Eventually, the group
formed a cooperative, led by Hardy, and in 1981 took over the booking
of the "Speak Easy", which became a thriving venue for songwriters.
Hardy was also the founder and first editor of Fast Folk Musical
Magazine in 1982.

He frequently toured with long-time friend and fellow songwriter David
Massengill as a duo called the Folk Brothers. They are pictured below
at last year's 50th reunion concert at Gerde's Folk City.

The hundreds of songwriters who frequented Hardy's apartment
gatherings over the years included Suzanne Vega, Richard Shindell,
John Gorka, Jeff Gold, Wendy Beckerman, Richard Julian, Christian
Bauman, Linda Sharar, Rod MacDonald, Lucy Kaplansky, the Gregory
Brothers and Christine Lavin.

RIP, Jack Hardy.

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: GUEST,Camp Coho - Kerrville Folk Festival
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 01:32 PM

We are all greatly saddened by the departure of our dear friend, Jack. We will be having some blue margaritas in his honor and singing our Camp Coho anthem written by Jack - Everything's Bigger in Texas. Kerrville won't be the same without you dear troubador! We love you and extend our deepest sympathy to your wonderful children who you are so proud of as well as all of us who love you!

Subject: RE: Obit: Jack Hardy
From: Uncle Phil
Date: 12 Mar 11 - 10:50 AM

Sad news indeed. I enjoyed seeing Jack perform with David at Woodyfest and also meeting him in the cool depths of Lou's Rocky Road Tavern one bisteringly hot Okemah afternoon. He sure was one of the good ones.
- Phi

Subject: RE: Jack Hardy
From: GUEST,Bryan Kelso Crow
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 06:28 PM

I just learned of Jack's death today, March 11, 2001. I had the pleasure of accompanying him on the accordion on his great song "If I Ever Pass This Way Again" when he performed at our Cousin Andy's Coffeehouse in Carbondale IL in 2008. He was very gracious in trusting that I could play it adequately, since we had no time to rehearse it before the concert. But we did trade some conversational lines in Irish as we were setting up for the concert, and I think he would want it to be known here that he not only learned the Irish language but was also active in teaching the language in New York. His compilation CD "The Tinker's Coin" is his "Celtic Anthology" of original songs about his times in Ireland, and is a great album for any newcomer to Jack's music who has an interest in Irish music and culture. He will be missed by many. I was honored to share his company for that one night, as we talked in the green room before the concert and also in a late-night kitchen conversation session. "...mar na beidh ar leitheidi aris ann."

Subject: RE: Jack Hardy
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 02:19 PM

This is sad news. Jack was such a prolific songwriter. I also saw him with David Massengill within the last two years or so.

Subject: RE: Jack Hardy
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 02:13 PM

I'm devasted. Jack did a concert with David Massengill for us at the Hurdy Gurdy last year.   I've known Jack since the early 1980's. He was a MAJOR influence on the contemporary folk scene through his creation and work of Fast Folk as well as his legendary Monday night pasta dinners and songwriter sessions.   He touched so many lives.

Subject: RE: Jack Hardy
From: GUEST,Mary Katherine, sans cookie
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 12:46 PM

After Sing Out! Editor Mark Moss posted it on Facebook I went to Jack's Wikipedia entry and found that it has been changed to reflect his death, but his own home page, when I checked, has not been updated in awhile.

Subject: Jack Hardy
From: Mark Ross
Date: 11 Mar 11 - 11:53 AM

I infer from some postings on FaceBook that Jack Hardy has passed away. Does anyone have any news? I haven't seen him in 35 years.

Mark Ross