Bob Hardwick

Last updated

Bob Hardwick is an American bandleader, pianist, and composer. He is best known as the bandleader of two long-established dance orchestras based in New York City, The Bob Hardwick Sound and The Bob Hardwick Sound Sensation.

Contents

The Bob Hardwick Sound is a multi-style big band dance orchestra that performs swing, society/two-step, rock, pop, soul, funk, R&B, disco, jazz, and latin. The Bob Hardwick Sound Sensation is primarily a pop-rock band, performing a full range of current and past Top 40 hits including rock ‘n’ roll, disco, funk, and R&B.

Hardwick and his musicians continue to be society regulars throughout the decades, performing for royalty, five Presidential Inaugural Balls, charity balls, and collaborating with musicians such as Paul McCartney and Natalie Cole. [1]

Early life and education

Hardwick was born in Louisville, Kentucky to parents John H. Hardwick, a banker and chairman of Louisville Trust, and June Warden, a model. [2] [3] Born with perfect pitch, he began playing the piano and composing at age four. [1] [4] He began taking classes at the University of Louisville School of Music when he was twelve. [5]

Hardwick earned a B.A. from Centre College in Danville, KY, and continued his education at the University of North Texas, with a concentration in classical and jazz music. [6] Hardwick also studied composition with Hall Overton at Juilliard School of Music, and attended Berklee College of Music on a scholarship from DownBeat magazine. [5]

Career

After his studies, Hardwick went into banking. He worked for Citibank in New York for nine years before joining the U.S. Trust as vice president. [6] Hardwick juggled careers in banking and music for over a decade by performing on weekends and holidays. Eventually, he decided to focus on his music career full-time in 1990. [2]

The Bob Hardwick Sound has gone on to perform throughout the U.S., England, France, Italy, Ireland, Bermuda, and the Caribbean, with audiences including Presidents, British royalty, and celebrities. Today they can be heard at weddings, private parties, benefit galas, and corporate events, including performances at Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing. [7] Hardwick has been known to play over 300 engagements in one year. [8]

Bob Hardwick is a past composer of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. Hardwick's original theme scores can be heard in the television series America Goes To War: The Homefront in World War II and Hunters in the Sky. [9] [10]

Hardwick has worked with artists such as Tex Beneke, Buddy Morrow, and Joe Reichman. [11] Two of his pop compositions are featured on the album Motivation by singer-songwriter Bob Crewe, originally released on Electra and later reissued under The Complete Electra Recordings on Real Gone Music (Rhino Entertainment Company). Bob Hardwick is also featured as a singer on the companion album Street Talk. [12]

Awards

He won a Coca-Cola Talent Contest and the Youth Talent Exhibit in Louisville, KY for a song titled "Keep-a-Going." [13] Hardwick is also the recipient of two songwriter awards from The Castlebar International Song Contest, the second richest song contest in the world. [14]

Discography

Personal life

Bob Hardwick works and resides in New York City with his wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Wills</span> American musician (1905–1975)

James Robert Wills was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing. He was also noted for punctuating his music with his trademark "ah-haa" calls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big band</span> Music ensemble associated with jazz music

A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Les Brown (bandleader)</span> American bandleader

Lester Raymond Brown was an American jazz musician who led the big band Les Brown and His Band of Renown for over six decades from 1938 to 2000.

Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early '30s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era, when people were dancing the Lindy Hop. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, and Django Reinhardt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artie Shaw</span> American clarinetist and bandleader (1910–2004)

Artie Shaw was an American clarinetist, composer, bandleader, actor and author of both fiction and non-fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Barnet</span> American jazz saxophonist, composer and band leader (1913–1991)

Charles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chick Webb</span> American jazz and swing drummer and bandleader (1905–1939)

William Henry "Chick" Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer and band leader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buddy Rich</span> American jazz drummer and bandleader (1917–1987)

Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer, songwriter, conductor, and bandleader. He is considered one of the most influential drummers of all time.

Western swing is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s until a federal war-time nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louie Bellson</span> American jazz drummer (1924–2009)

Louie Bellson, often seen in sources as Louis Bellson, although he himself preferred the spelling Louie, was an American jazz drummer. He was a composer, arranger, bandleader, and jazz educator, and is credited with pioneering the use of two bass drums.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. E. Smith</span> American songwriter

George Edward Smith is an American guitarist. Smith was the lead guitarist for the duo Hall & Oates during the band's heyday from 1979 to 1985, playing on several albums and five number one singles. When Hall & Oates took a hiatus in 1985, Smith joined the sketch-comedy show Saturday Night Live, serving as bandleader and co-musical director of the Saturday Night Live Band.

<i>You Were Never Lovelier</i> 1942 film by William A. Seiter

You Were Never Lovelier is a 1942 American musical romantic comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth. The supporting cast also features Adolphe Menjou, Xavier Cugat and Adele Mara. The music was composed by Jerome Kern and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The picture was released by Columbia Pictures and includes the elaborate "Shorty George" and romantic "I'm Old Fashioned" song and dance sequences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Anthony</span> American bandleader and trumpeter (born 1922)

Ray Anthony is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter, and former actor. He is the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Robert Stanley Crewe was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, and record producer. Crewe co-wrote and produced a string of Top 10 singles with Bob Gaudio for the Four Seasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pee Wee King</span> American country music songwriter and recording artist (1914–2000)

Julius Frank Anthony Kuczynski, known professionally as Pee Wee King, was an American country music songwriter and recording artist best known for co-writing "Tennessee Waltz".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shep Fields</span> American jazz bandleader

Shep Fields was an American bandleader who led the Shep Fields and His Rippling Rhythm orchestra during the 1930s. His distinctive Rippling Rhythm sound was featured on big band remote broadcasts from historic hotels nationwide and remained popular with audiences from the 1930's into the early 1960's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hal Kemp</span> American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, and arranger

James Hal Kemp was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, composer, and arranger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Elgart</span> American musician

Lawrence Joseph Elgart was an American jazz bandleader. With his brother Les, he recorded "Bandstand Boogie", the theme to the long-running dance show American Bandstand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Garber</span> American violinist (1894–1977)

Jan Garber was an American violinist and jazz bandleader.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buddy Morrow</span> American trombonist and bandleader

Buddy Morrow was an American trombonist and bandleader.

References

  1. 1 2 "Swing and a Hit". Quest Magazine . April 2014, p. 80
  2. 1 2 Farnham, Alex (Jan 15, 1996). "Casting Off Three Who Did It Right". Fortune Magazine. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  3. ↑ Kay, Joy (Jan 29, 1985). "Band leading, banking keep Louisville native busy in his N.Y. home". The Courier-Journal .
  4. ↑ "Going For It: Banker with a Big Band Beat". People Magazine. Jun 1, 1998. Retrieved Oct 1, 2017.
  5. 1 2 "Julep Ball announces entertainment celebrity guests". University of Louisville School of Medicine. 2014. Retrieved Oct 1, 2017.
  6. 1 2 Scott, Dorey Finn (Feb 19, 1981). "Bob Hardwick Can Bank On His Musical Talents". Palm Beach Daily News.
  7. ↑ Aloff, Mindy (Jul 3, 1998). "In a Starry Ballroom, To the World's Beat". The New York Times. Retrieved Oct 1, 2017.
  8. ↑ Travis, Neal (Mar 31, 1999). "Tina fine-tunes Talk". New York Post.
  9. ↑ Deni, Laura (Oct 14, 2007). "And The Band Played On - Bob Hardwick Playing For The Rich And Famous". Broadway To Vegas. Retrieved Oct 1, 2017.
  10. ↑ Potter, Anthony Ross. "Sacrifices and Shortages". University of Missouri.
  11. ↑ "Barbara Mandrell To Highlight Swan Ball". The Nashville Banner. May 16, 1990.
  12. ↑ Unterberger, Richie. "Bob Crewe". AllMusic. Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.
  13. ↑ Kay, Joan (Jan 19, 1977). "'Noted' banker lives an orchestrated life". The Courier-Journal . Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.
  14. ↑ McGuinness, Paddy (2017). The Castlebar Song Contest 1966-1988. Ireland: Paddy McGuinness. ISBN   978-1527202306.
  15. ↑ Hardwick, Bob. "Dancing With The Rich & Famous". Amazon. Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.
  16. ↑ Hardwick, Bob. "Dancing with The Rich & Famous". Murfie Music. Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  17. 1 2 3 "Bob Hardwick Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.
  18. ↑ Hardwick, Bob. "Millennium Mornings". CD Baby. Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  19. ↑ Hardwick, Bob. "High Society Dance Hits". CD Baby. Retrieved Oct 3, 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  20. ↑ "Elizabeth Scheffler Bride of Robert Hardwick". The New York Times. Sep 25, 1977. Retrieved Oct 1, 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.