20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection: Best of Tim Hardin

Album review

The Tim Hardin number in Universal's 20th Century Masters -- The Millennium Collection series of midline-priced compilations is a barebones effort, but it does constitute Tim Hardin 101. Hardin's best-known compositions -- "If I Were a Carpenter," "Reason to Believe," and "Lady Came From Baltimore" -- are all included. Hardin recorded for Verve Records, now part of the Universal catalog, in the 1960s, and seven tracks are drawn from his debut album, Tim Hardin/1, plus four from Tim Hardin/2 and one from the concert album Tim Hardin/3. There is nothing at all from Tim Hardin/4, an album of cover material, or from Hardin's later albums on Columbia and Antilles. The economics of song publishing probably limit albums in the series to 12 tracks, and in this case, since Hardin's recordings tend to be brief, that results in a running time of less than half an hour, which is skimpy for a CD, even a lower-priced one. But the collection presents the popular highlights of Hardin's career as a songwriter and gives a sense of him as a performer.

© William Ruhlmann /TiVo