#751: Simple Song Of Freedom by Tim Hardin
Peak Month: August-September 1969
7 weeks on CKLG’s Vancouver Charts
1 week Hit Bound
Peak Position ~ #6
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #50
YouTube.com: “Simple Song Of Freedom”
Lyrics: “Simple Song Of Freedom”
Tim Hardin was born in Eugene, Oregon, in 1941. Before he was born, Hardin’s mother had previously been employed as a classical pianist. And his father had earned a living as a bass player. But it was his strict grandmother who spent much of the time raising him. Hardin considered his childhood an unhappy one. After he dropped out of high school in 1960, he joined the United States Marines. Like numbers of other soldiers, Tim Hardin developed a heroin addiction. Once he was discharged in 1961, Hardin got involved in the folk music scenes in Greenwich Village and in Boston in the early ‘60’s. He enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Art in Greenwich Village. However, he was expelled due to skipping too many classes. In 1964, Hardin got to audition with Columbia Records. However, he was still using heroin and his audition was a fiasco and he got no contract with the label. Fortunately, Tim Hardin found his way to Verve-Forecast Records by the end of 1965. He released his first single in February 1966 titled “How Can We Hang On To A Dream?” The single was his first from his Hardin debut album titled Tim Hardin 1. It was a hit in England and the Netherlands. One of the other tracks on the album was “Reason To Believe”, was a hit for Rod Stewart in the early 1970’s.