Tim Hardin - 1967 - Tim Hardin 2

Quality: 4.5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 3.75 out of 5

Tim Hardin ups the musician's quality in pretty much every area.  I know I'm pushing the Tim Buckley comparisons, but Tim Hardin 1 and 2 are somewhat analogous to Buckley's debut and "Goodbye and Hello." The production becomes more gossamer and textured while the tunes themselves become more transcendental.  Most of the blues grit from the debut has been scrubbed away, but the sound becomes more widescreen punctuated with adventurous percussion patterns.

There's straight away some money in the song titles - you'll now spot some stone cold classics like "If I Were A Carpenter" and "Lady Came From Baltimore."  Of course, they were popularized by others, but these do have the benefit of being the originals.  Plenty of other tunes here could've ended up with the same fate - the only one that doesn't do it for me is the Old West music hall scrapping "See Where You Are and Get Out."  "Tribute to Hank Williams" certainly leaves an impression - sort of a spiritual forbearer to Mark Kozelek's more modern burst of melancholic nostalgia as Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon.  That mid-60's L.A. session groove settles in a little deeper on many of the tracks, but they do better to serve the songs here and up the cinematic quotient.

Whereas Tim Hardin 1 deserves more recognition, Tim Hardin 2 is a classic that hasn't really seen its proper due.  I wasn't around for the man's actual career.  Maybe he had a screaming band of followers that we've all forgotten about.  But in the here and now, the fellow's been flying under my radar for too long.