Suzanne Vega

Jack Hardy Dies 3/11/2011-Singer Songwriter-Fast Folk Music Mentor: A Remembrance.

On a day when an earthquake brought a devastating catastrophe to Japan, when the Middle East was facing unprecedented political upheavals, not even making the headlines was the untimely passing of Jack Hardy.  Singer-Songwriter, one of the founders of the Fast Folk musical cooperative, and for about three decades the leader of the "Songwriters Exchange", Jack Hardy died of complications due to lung cancer on March 11th, 2011 at the age of 63.  Far beyond a singer-songwriter, we lost one of the driving forces behind the world of contemporary songwriting.

I was sitting in my office, caught up in my work, when suddenly a long time friend of mine, who knew I used to frequent the Songwriters Exchange, sent me a text message. There in the hurry of the day were the words: "Jack Hardy had died".  I just stopped, and I could not focus on anything, or do any more work.  I stopped and reflected on the passing of Jack Hardy.  

Born in the mid-west he eventually lived in New York City in a railroad flat by Houston Street and 6^th Avenue.  Since the 1970s he was a singer-songwriter and he released a series of independent, self-produced albums.  With a gravelly-raspy voice his songs, while being steeped in the contemporary singer-songwriter tradition, had their own identity. Blending American and Celtic influences he wrote finely crafted songs, sometimes overtly political and sometimes deeply personal.  His love of Celtic music would make you feel that Jack Hardy was an Irishman mistakenly trapped in the body of a Midwesterner. 

At his Songwriters Exchange he would play a new song he wrote every week.  He often sang about "common man" characters including his songs Al Cormier or Willie Goggin's Hat.  His music always seemed to be rooted deeply in the earth and close to home.  You would not hear Jack Hardy singing about Star Wars or the Internet.

I think the first time I became aware of Jack was when I started to follow the New York folk scene when I finished graduate school in the early 1980s.  I knew he occasionally played at Gerdes Folk City and I saw him several times at the at the old "SpeakEasy" club (Which he helped run).  As the Fast Folk musical magazine grew in popularity and there were wonderful annual songwriter showcase shows at the Bottom Line club, I learned that Jack Hardy was one of the main organizers behind the folk scene. 

I had read many times about his leading a weekly meeting and pasta dinner where you got to play a new song and have it critiqued by other songwriters.   I had searched the Internet to try to find where the Songwriter’s Exchange was held.  I could never find any information, and I assumed it was not promoted so the meetings would not be overwhelmed, especially with fans of the artists who were known to frequent the meetings, including David Massengill and Suzanne Vega.  Finally after I saw Jack perform at Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair, I spoke to him after the show and he gave me his card and told me where to find the weekly meetings.  He encouraged me to come and laid out the basic rules: each week you could play a song, but it either had to be new, or at least it had to be a song you had worked on in the last week. 

The funny thing is, for all the time I spent trying to learn about the Songwriters Exchange on the Internet, in fact it was ridiculously easy to find out where the meetings were held.  Jack kept his number listed in the phone directory.   In one call you could find his number.  In the next phone call you could get his answering machine that would announce when the next Songwriters Exchange meeting was.  I think that answering machine was about as high-tech as Jack would get.

At that time in my life I was unemployed for the better part of a year.  If you believe there is something positive that comes even from the most adverse situations, that was one of the periods of my life I had the time to stick to the Jack Hardy "write one new song a week" regimen.  Over that time I regularly frequented Jack’s weekly songwriter exchange meetings.   

While I never knew Jack that closely, I did get acquainted with him at the Songwriters Exchange meetings.  He was one of the least pretentious people you could ever hope to meet.  His trademark green satin jacket he wore when he played in concert was about as flamboyant as he ever got.  When I attended the Songwriters Exchange it ran like clockwork.  You could show up early for pasta dinner, wine or beer, and conversation with the many people who came to play their songs.  At exactly eight o’clock the conversation would stop and the guitar would begin being passed around.  Sometimes there were only five people in that little (and I do mean small) Houston Street apartment.  Sometimes the room was packed with twenty or thirty people.  By eleven o’clock, the weekly ritual would end.

Everyone was treated as an equal at the Songwriters Exchange.   Anyone could play his or her song and anyone could comment on anyone else’s song.  It did not matter if you were a first time attendee or if you were Suzanne Vega, everyone was treated the same.   If you came to the Songwriters Exchange to play your masterpiece or your next big hit, and expected to get lavish praise, you had come to the wrong place.  The Songwriters Exchange was a place to give birth to a song, and have it critiqued directly, candidly, and sometimes have it rather bluntly criticized.  There was part of the Exchange that was work, but through the experience, no matter what your starting-point was, you could learn something about the craft of songwriting and write a better song.

So many of the postings I’ve read remembering Jack Hardy quote him as saying "shut and play the song" at the Exchange meetings.   Yes he did say that, but he also imparted far more important insights about songwriting.  He found great importance in the work of constantly writing.  He told me that the essence of writer’s block was trying to write your masterpiece.  He believed in writing all the time, keeping and refining your good material and leaving behind what was not as good.  He believed that songwriting was deeply personal and he could not understand how people could collaborate songwriting.  He was also known to say, write something personal and you would write about a universal sentiment.  Through that process would come a great song. 

Jack would never say you had written a great song.   He might refer to a song as a "keeper".  For Jack a "keeper" was a song that should be refined and become part of your repertoire.   Sometimes Jack would tell you if he enjoyed your song.  On occasion he would sit and work with a songwriter who he felt had promise that most people would never think had much potential.

Jack told me that the difference between the Songwriters Exchange at his apartment and other similar songwriting workshops was that everyone was welcome to come to the Songwriters Exchange; no one was ever turned away.  He told me over time you learned who you liked to listen to and who you were not interested in and that different people would have different interests.  

As a result there was an amazing range of creativity at the Songwriters Exchange.  You could hear songs from the most gravelly Tom Waits inspired left-of-center songs to Judy Collins style traditional folk.  There was one person there who used to play the most amazing Appalachian style folk songs that would put Gillian Welch to shame.  Astoundingly this was someone who was born and raised in Jersey City whose primary musical inspiration was the soundtrack from: "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou".

I also learned that Jack Hardy did not live the easiest of lives.  He had been married and divorced more than once.   His brother Jeff Hardy died in the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11.   He had successfully fought off the landlord of that tiny rent controlled Houston Street apartment who tried to evict him.  I remember when I frequented the Songwriters Exchange he had a great challenge to complete the applications needed to get financial aid for one of his children to attend college.  Once he commented he hoped his children did not want to become folk-singers expecting to make money.

If there is one thing I took away from the times I went to the Songwriters Exchange, it is a sense of the immense dedication and sacrifice an individual makes to pursue a career in the performing arts, especially in something that is not always popular like folk-music.  You have to pursue it with an undying love and dedication and be willing to sacrifice almost everything.  I still find it remarkable that people who pursue careers in songwriting, who can lead such hard lives, can write light and joyous songs.    

If there is one thing I learned about Jack Hardy that set him apart, it was that he possessed an iron willed, sometimes super-human, determination to accomplish those things he felt were important.  I remember one night Jack was about thirty minutes late to get to his Houston Street apartment for the weekly Songwriters Exchange meeting.  The group gathered for the meeting patiently waited for Jack to arrive.  Jack drove up and held the meeting after driving straight to New York from a gig in Texas!   That was Jack Hardy.

After I found employment and returned to work I only went to the Songwriters Exchange sporadically.  You never know what you get out of immersing yourself into an endeavor in life. Some time after I frequented the Songwriter’s Exchange my daughter had her Bat-Mitzvah.  Now at some times during the reception for these affairs, long speeches are given, or still popular are video/photo montages of highlights and memorable moments in someone’s life.  We did not have a lot of relatives to make speeches for my daughter.  I am not the most tech savvy individual to put together a video montage.

Instead I wrote and performed a song for my daughter.  I wrote it from the Jack Hardy "school of songwriting".  It was composed quickly over a couple of weeks, and was simple and heartfelt.  When I sang it at the Bat-Mitzvah reception I had the lyrics nearby in case I forgot the lyrics.  To my surprise, my guests gave me a standing ovation.  Some guests told me I had raised the bar for fathers praising their kids at similar celebrations.  I think I embarrassed the hell out of my daughter, who did not know I would be singing her a song.  I think in the long run that will be a very memorable moment between my daughter, my family and me.  In many ways I owe a little debt to Jack Hardy and the Songwriters Exchange for what I learned about how to write a song and for giving my family that moment of endearment.    

The last time I saw Jack Hardy is when I ran into him at Loudon Wainwright’s performance of Charlie Poole songs at the Highline Ballroom back in the fall of 2009.  After the concert, Jack was talking to Loudon about how much he enjoyed the show and how much he enjoyed songwriting projects like Loudon’s tribute and interpretations of Charlie Poole songs.   I said hello to Jack and asked him if he was still holding the Songwriters Exchange meetings.  With pride he told me there was a meeting last week and he encouraged me to come back, write songs and play them to the group.  I never did get my act together to make the time to return to the Songwriters Exchange, which is something that I very much regret.

As I looked at that text message on my cell phone, conveying the news that Jack Hardy had passed, it became very clear what a remarkable man he was and how remarkable were his achievements.  He was a fine and amazingly prolific songwriter.  His audience may have been small but he had fans all over the world. 

I don’t think he ever spent much time working for the established music business, but when he wanted to, as in the case of the Fast Folk records and shows, he could make the music business work for him.  He came out with many self-produced records bringing his music to a wider audience.  Long before the days of downloads and software to record songs on your home computer, Jack Hardy and a group of dedicated songwriters put together the Fast Folk musical magazine, which was a vinyl LP of music from new songwriters and articles and interviews about contemporary folk music.

Between 1982 to about 1997 Fast Folk released over 100 albums and recorded over 1,000 songs.  The ones I purchased are among the most treasured recordings I have in my record collection. For many years during this time the Fast Folk Cooperative had a wonderful, almost always sold-out annual music review at NYC’s Bottom Line club.   Also during this period, in the back of a MacDougal Street falafel restaurant and bar, Jack helped organize, and (with fellow songwriter Richard Meyer) literally built the stage for the "SpeakEasy" club.  I daresay the SpeakEasy was as much, if not a more vibrant folk music venue, than Gerdes Folk City several blocks away. 

For over an amazing three decades, except when he was out of town, he steadfastly held his weekly Songwriter’s Exchange meetings.   Each week at the Exchange for three decades Jack would write and sing a new song.  For three decades, at each Exchange meeting, Jack would improvise and prepare the pasta dish!  I can’t imagine the dedication and fortitude it took to achieve all that.

He was someone who worked in both the spotlight and the sunlight.  The music of the Fast Folk cooperative and the Songwriters Exchange were as important to him as his own songwriting. Through his efforts he provided venues for songwriting and performing for an untold number of songwriters some famous, some that you will never hear of.  He provided forums to hone the quality of their songwriting.  The more famous artists who either participated in the Songwriters Exchange, appeared on a Fast Folk record or played at the SpeakEasy include: Shawn Colvin, Suzanne Vega, Lucy Kaplansky, John Gorka, Richard Shindell, Michelle Shocked, Judy Gold, The Roches, Nanci Griffith, Steve Forbert, Christine Lavin, Richard Julian, David Massengill, Cliff Eberhardt, Rod MacDonald, and the list goes on and on.

He was never a household name, and I doubt he sold a large number of his own records.  If someone’s worth is measured by number of people you touch with your deeds and actions, think of Jack Hardy for a moment.  Think of everyone who bought one of his records, a Fast Folk record or attended a Fast Folk concert.  Think of everyone who attended or played a concert, or sang at an open mic night he and his friends helped produce and promote at the old SpeakEasy Club in Greenwich Village.  Think of all the aspiring songwriters who wrote a better song because of being able to participate in the Songwriters Exchange.   If someone’s life worth is measured by the number of people they touch, Jack Hardy was a wealthy man indeed.

That little railroad apartment by Houston and 6^th Avenue, was the epicenter of amazing creativity where the Fast Folk Cooperative and the Songwriter’s Exchange had a home for many years.  That apartment should be declared a historic landmark. I hope someone in the City memorializes that home.  Close to that apartment they should name a street: "Jack Hardy Place", just as there is a "Dave Van Ronk Place" several blocks away.  That would be appropriate to acknowledge the life and work of a man who made such a major contribution to sustaining and growing the music that was such a vital part of the performing arts and the vibrancy of Greenwich Village.         

In that apartment Jack Hardy kept a figurine of Saint Clare, who in the 12^th century in San Damiano ran a convent that became known as the "Order of Poor Women".   Among St. Clare’s miracles is she was able through intervention with prayer to send an army of soldiers fleeing who came to attack the convent.   Jack Hardy wrote a song referencing St. Clare and her power of protecting the vulnerable (As her fans well know, Suzanne Vega covered the song on her album: "Songs in Red and Gray"). 

If you look at the picture in the New York Times obituary for Jack Hardy you can see that figurine of St. Clare looking over Jack’s right shoulder in his apartment.   I used to think that St. Clare was there to look over and protect that vulnerable Houston Street apartment that the landlord tried to force Jack Hardy out of.  I thought St. Clare was the silent protector of all the singer-songwriters who ventured in and out of that apartment.    I believe in Jack Hardy’s passing, Saint Clare will look over and protect Jack Hardy’s spirit on its journey to whatever its next destination may be.

With great sadness,

Some thoughts respectfully submitted,

BB.