| Bird on a Wire | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | June 1971 | |||
| Genre | Folk | |||
| Length | 36:06 | |||
| Label | Columbia (CK-30551) | |||
| Producer | Ed Freeman | |||
| Tim Hardin chronology | ||||
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Bird on a Wire is an album by folk artist Tim Hardin, released in 1971. It was Hardin's second release on Columbia Records. It peaked at No. 189 on the Billboard Pop Album charts and was his last album to chart.
Hardin had one of his few commercial successes with his single of Bobby Darin's "Simple Song of Freedom", which reached the US Top 50. He did not tour in support of the single and failed to capitalize on its success. For his second Columbia release, producer Ed Freeman had most of the backing tracks recorded in advance for Hardin to later come to the studio and perform his vocals. Although Hardin later considered it one of his best performances, calling it "good clean superiority", the album did not sell well. Shortly after its release, Hardin moved to England. [1] In contrast to Hardin's previous releases where he had written all his own material, Bird on a Wire includes cover songs for four of the ten tracks. By this time, his drug addictions were beginning to take a larger toll on his live performances and songwriting output. [2] It was his last recording done in the US. [3]
The sessions featured contributions from numerous jazz musicians including Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitouš and Alphonse Mouzon of Weather Report, Glen Moore, Ralph Towner and Collin Walcott of Oregon, and future Peter Gabriel/King Crimson bass guitarist Tony Levin (at the time, still working mainly in the jazz and fusion field).
Bird on a Wire was re-issued on CD by Sony in 1989 and Sony Japan in 2005.
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [3] |
In his review for Allmusic, music critic Bruce Eder wrote "The singing is exquisite, poignant, and powerful and the production is as tasteful and eloquent as any in Hardin's output. This might not be the place to start listening to Tim Hardin (though there are worse places for that as well) in terms of finding out what he was about, but it's also as essential as anything in his output and a lot closer to the core of who he was than, say, Tim Hardin 4." [3]
All tracks composed by Tim Hardin; except where indicated
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer Alphonse Mouzon as well as American percussionists Don Alias and Barbara Burton. The band was initially co-led by Zawinul and Shorter but as the 1970s progressed, Zawinul became the primary composer and creative director of the group. Other prominent members throughout the band’s history included bassists Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson and Victor Bailey, drummers Chester Thompson and Peter Erskine, and percussionists Airto Moreira and Alex Acuña. A quintet of Zawinul & Shorter with a bassist, a drummer and a percussionist was the standard formation for Weather Report.
Sweetnighter is the third studio album by American jazz fusion band Weather Report, released by Columbia Records in 1973.
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