Jack Hardy's Mission by Richard Cuccaro Can Artists Survive in the Age of Gentrification? On November 18, Suzanne Vega will headline a benefit concert at the Bottom Line Cabaret to defend the home of the nation's oldest songwriter's exchange and the birthplace of Fast Folk. Jack will open for Suzanne and there will be cameo appearances by members of Jack's Monday Night Songwriter's Exchange One of the monumental figures in the history of the New York-based folk scene is under fire. Jack Hardy is fighting an eviction notice. His landlord wants him out of the rent-stabilized, 3rd floor walk-up railroad flat in the West Village. The charges of non-primary residence (Jack is on the road so much of the time) are spurious, and Jack will win, but court costs are steep. The tentacles of real estate in the hands of ravenous landlords and agents are busy and deadly. The road to this juncture begins in Colorado, where Jack grew up, and detours through Connecticut and Europe. Jack graduated from the University of Hartford in 1970 and then spent the next four years traveling Europe, playing music on the streets. In late 1974, he came to New York City to pursue a career as a singer/songwriter. For the first few months he slept on the living room couches of fellow folksingers, predominately the one belonging to the Roche Sisters, who were also in the early part of a stellar career. In February of 1975, he found the apartment that is now at the core of this struggle. The primary hangout for folksingers back then was Gerde's Folk City. Later, another venue to prove critical would be Kenny's Castaways. One particular week in 1977, Jack was playing two shows per night there for six nights. On Thursday night, a New York Times reporter came in for the late show. This resulted in Jack's first review in a major New York daily. A later article in the Times, exploring the new singer/songwriter scene would feature Jack, The Roches and Steve Forbert. Jack was spearheading a group of songwriters who met every week to swap new songs. For six years, the swap was held at The Cornelia Street Cafe. When the Cafe decided to upgrade to a fancier restaurant , the group was asked to leave (an early harbinger of gentrification). It was moved to Jack's apartment, and there it still resides. There was no waiting around for the muse to strike. Jack and the group attacked it head on. They challenged each other to come up with at least one new song each week often throwing in a stipulation about the song's content, such as a historical figure or event or even a particular word. In one instance, the word was "elevator." Jack's clever contribution still provokes gales of laughter today. The first wave of folk music's popularity had come and gone and nothing was happening. So Jack decided to make it happen. The songs each week were of such high caliber that Jack had the idea to record them, and along with lyrics, put them out on the market. Thus, in 1982, The Fast Folk Musical Magazine was born. Jack has said that one key to getting the project off the ground was the participation of Dave Van Ronk. Once Dave participated, everyone else accepted the idea and joined the effort. Among the talented people in the early days in addition to Van Ronk, were Suzanne Vega, John Gorka, David Massengill, Shawn Colvin and Cliff Eberhardt. The primary idea was to treat songwriting as an art, something outside the boundaries of sales figures. The Speakeasy, a small restaurant/club on MacDougal Street that hosted folk music in a back room had opened in 1981 and was an offshoot of the songwriters' collective. Many artists who performed there, including Lyle Lovett and Greg Brown, were invited to contribute to The Fast folk Musical Magazine. Throughout this period, the song swaps continued at the apartment which, except for a few years of donated space elsewhere, also housed the offices of the magazine. When the Speakeasy closed in the early '90's, Jack searched for 1 1/2 years before finding a space in TriBeCa to create The Fast Folk Cafe. For a brief period, the cafe housed the magazine and was used for the song swaps. After a while, Jack decided to hold the swaps back at the apartment, with it's more intimate setting. It also allowed him to get back to serving his specialty, the Jack Hardy "Killer Pasta," (my appellation) complete with hot peppers (on the side), bread, salad, beer and wine (donated by the songwriters), an expression of hospitality unrivalled anwhere. Jack left the cafe and magazine in the mid '90's to concentrate on his career. As others have since discovered, running a venue and a publication are hugely draining activities. The cafe has disappeared, collapsing under the weight of its own expense, and the magazine is now in the hands of the Smithsonian Institution. Jack continues to create an impressive body of work. His latest CD, the twelfth, Omens, on the Prime CD label, contains fourteen brilliant songs. It was reviewed on our website last June and the review can still be read in the archives. We include the lyrics to one song "Only One Sky," below.
Only One Sky © Jack Hardy only one sky sometimes in blue and sometimes gray only one sky can hold the stars in just this way though all the weight of wishes makes them fall though all the flight of feathers that intuition calls through all the storms that lash the shores till clouds have blown away only one sky can hold today only one moon shining on down through those trees only one moon transposing darkest melodies whether searing smile or hallowed full tucks us in at night or drowns us with its pull when first they told us that our love could never be this way only one moon could show the way only one time will I embrace you in this way only one time will time unlace this passing day when all the time we hold within our hands slips on through the cracks of feelings we try and understand only one time will I love you will I love you then only that time will never end
Suzanne Vega, from a quote in a NY Times article, helps us to fully perceive Jack's monumental achievement with this statement: "I was involved in Fast Folk since the beginning. Jack came up to me one day and said he was thinking of starting a magazine with a record included. I was skeptical. He saw it as a journal of the scene as it was at the time - he was interested in catching what was out there and documenting it, not in creating a finished work of art in these records. I think he pulled it off." Jack's records can be purchased at www.primecd.com He can be contacted at jackshardy@aol.com Visit his website at www.jackhardy.com His upcoming gigs include: Nov. 11, The Vanilla Bean, Pomfret, Conn. The corner of routes 44, 169, and 97 860-928-1562 Nov. 12, Uptown Coffeehouse 4450 Fieldston Road, The Bronx, N.Y., Prime CD Anniversary show with Mindy Jostyn, Susan McKeown and Sloan Wainwright 718-549-5478 or 718-885-2498 Nov. 18, The Bottom Line 15 West 4th Street, New York City, (opening for Suzanne Vega - benefit for legal fees to defend Jack's apartment, location of Songwriters Exchange meetings) 212-228-6300 Dec. 9th Black Stone River Theater, Cumberland R.I. (401) 725-9272 www.riverfolk.org Feb. 24, 2001 Roaring Brook Nature Center 70 Gracey Road, Canton, Conn. split bill with Margo Henebach 860-693-0263
Tim Robinson: In His Own Write by Richard Cuccaro In 1994, when I arrived at the Fast Folk Cafe to lend a hand, it was still in it's shell form. Tim Robinson was already there, hanging sheet rock. He had been "there," on the Fast Folk scene for a couple of years already, a fixture in the songwriting circle. Jack Hardy calls him "one of the best songwriters in the country," and decries the fact that "nobody's heard of him." We agree. Tim is flat-out, without-a-doubt, one of the greatest lyricists around. Some major artist will, one of these days, discover the wealth in his songs and mine the hell out of them. He is, however, not an avid performer. Usually, he'd rather write and play his songs for the other members of the song exchange. He performs sporadically at the Poscrypt, The Living Room, The Underground Cafe, or any other place that wants to engage a serious songwriter. About performing, he says: "Look, I'm not Liza Minelli. I have no desire to be on a stage in any theatrical sense at all. I'm put off by songwriters who do. I don't care to watch practiced behavior. When Dylan plays songs differently each time, with his head in his... head, some people complain. I like that. I'd rather see a train wreck with credibility than watch someone hit their marks." Other answers to some questions posed to him give more insight into this gifted, prolific writer. On songwriting influences: The first lyric-toting songs I remember obsessing over were "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and "Tangled Up in Blue." Wish I had a more unusual answer, but as a kid taken with words and stories, Dylan had me. Later on, John Prine. He's very special to me in terms of language. That dance between poetry, plain talkin', cliche and just oddball genius captivates me. Anyone who doesn't have a soft spot for guys like that is missing a very cool little boat to nowhere special with an open bar and a kick-ass view of their own silly demons, that's for sure. "Sam Stone," "The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness"... C'mon! I like something Southern in the mix for some reason. I love Steve Forbert's midlife-crisis efforts. I love Chuck Berry's groove. Who doesn't? I am a big believer in Greg Brown. Check out Joe Henry. Townes Van Zandt... nothing to say that hasn't been said, but his music is important in a "glad that guy came along" way. Honesty; pure, beautiful pain. You don't want to walk in those shoes, but you'd shine 'em if he asked; he wouldn't have. His view of Jack & the song swap: That probably amounts to more than I can get my hands around. Jack Hardy is a guy that little storms are always swirling around. People have trouble with his directness and the uncompromising nature of his purpose. He's been a friend and mentor to me since I met him. In truth, a lot of people owe this guy a drink. That's why he's so damn thirsty. I'm no singer, no killer on the guitar, and a "what's he doin' up there" kind of performer. Jack didn't even notice and asked to read my lyrics. I thought "I can hang with this guy." So I do, and we have a hell of a good time. The song swap also threw me in the soup with stalwart buddies Bob Hillman and Frank Tedesso. Now, these guys write from different corners of the universe, but they have each rubbed off on me in ways I hope they've noticed. And new people come through that door each week who careen off my consciousness in various unique, sublime, ridiculous ways. In a forum as democratic as that, you suffer for each revelation. That's the beauty of it. Can't have great songs without horrible songs. I've thrown away a Frankenstein monster worth myself. On the subject of Jack's writing. It's WRITING, you know? Art for the purpose of dislodging boulders of the soul and such. There's a lot of ego-maniacs who want to be watched while they sing a little song. Jack wants to be listened to while he sings a huge one. There's no better songwriter out there. Better dressers, but not songwriters. "Only One Sky," "Eclipse," these are pretty masterful ditties. The turning point in moving toward songwriting: Started real late, alas. But when I did, it felt like something I'll never stop doing. I had thought I would be a painter and while I was letting that slide into forever, I picked up my guitar again. I was more pleased with that process, or my results from that process. I felt like I understood why I would do such a thing. Not that I did, I just felt that way. Still do. Once, after a song swap when Tim brought in four killer songs, I said to Jack, "Tim should just put the guitar down and write a novel." Jack shot back in mock horror, "Oh no! Then we'd all have to read it!"
Out on the Edge © Tim Robinson 8/5/99 it's not the heat, it's the humanity it's the density, god damn it it's not the sun, it's not the moon at the edge of the planet on the digital horizon it's the shadow of my doubts singin' doo wah diddy diddy dumb daddy dig your doorway out I'm not paranoid, I'm bitter it's a fine line but it works it's not the spin on the sound bites it's the smiles on these jerks at the edge of the millennium out here lining up their ducks they're singin'doo wah daddy you're a dinosaur and time don't give a fuck out on the edge… out on the edge…out on the edge …way out on the edge I'm goin'north, gonna wander grow a beard and learn to hunt learn to mumble in canadian act as foreign as I want beyond the arctic circle with an eskimo girl we're singin'doo wah diddy there's a dream dyin' at the edge of the world …CHORUS it's not the mukluks, not the igloo it's her primitive smile it's not the snow, it's the silence can I stay with you a while under your big fur blanket in your oil lamp light singin' doo wah diddy do ya dare daddy close your eyes tonight …CHORUS:
Tim is looking to play out more , in additional venues and he's trying to find backing for a modest recording. He's an illustrator/designer. He created the ad for Suzanne & Jack at the Bottom line on the back cover of the printed newsletter. It's the first ad in "This month's sponsors section on this website." He can be e-mailed at: timrobinson@mindspring.com