Biography

 

Michael Hardie was born in the heart of the piney wood swamps of southeast Texas about 20 miles from the Louisiana border.  This place also gave birth to the blues, gospel and country roots that color his music.

At 19 years of age Michael moved to Houston and began playing professionally.  At 21, Michael Hardie started his first blues band, “Blues Tool”.  They opened for Lightnin’ Hopkins in 1977.  Michael also began his solo career during this period in Houston and continued to play bass with blues, country and rock bands (Michael played piano since the age of 7; at the age of 13 he began playing bass and writing his first original songs.).

January of 1978 found Michael moving to Los Angeles where he spent the next 10 years learning about the music business, and the world-at-large, playing with many great musicians of every type.  During his time in L.A. he met Jesse Ed Davis (Jesse played with Taj Mahal, John Lennon and many, many of the legends of rock n’ roll and blues). Jesse played on Michael’s first vinyl record (“Michael Hardie”, Punch Records, 1982).  This was the beginning of Punch Records which is still Michael’s artist-owned, independent record label. Before leaving California, Michael’s blues band opened for Buddy Guy and Jr. Wells in Long Beach.

In 1987, Michael moved back to Austin, Texas to get back to his musical roots.  He refocused on his solo career and songwriting.  He also spent some time playing bass with his cousin, Freddy Steady (Freddy Steady’s Wild Country). In 1988, one of his songs, ‘Sometime Girl’ was recorded by blues great Phillip Walker.  All of this led to a studio album titled “Houston Blues” (Punch Records) in 1991.  The album featured Michael’s original songs and vocals and a guitar player named Milton Hopkins (Milton is from Houston and played for 20 years with B.B King’s band.  He also played with Little Richard in the ‘50’s).  Cousin Freddy played drums and wrote “ ‘Dat Crawfish”.  The band was made up of Milton, Freddy, Derek O’Brien (guitar, Antone’s Records), Russel Jackson (bass), Gary Primich (harmonica), and Ned Allbright (keyboards and Producer).

On the strength of  “Houston Blues”, Michael was asked to perform in Berlin at a music conference (Berlin Independence Days) and had his first European concert at the Quasimodo in October of ’91.  7 months later he moved to Berlin (the former ‘East’ Berlin) and stayed there for the next 5 years playing all over Germany at clubs, blues festivals, etc.  This was a very productive, artistic period for Michael in which his style really came together and he wrote many new songs (‘Angel of Berlin’, ‘How Far Will You Go’, ‘Married Woman Blues’…).  In August of 1996 Michael Hardie recorded his second CD, “The Berlin Demos” (Punch Records).  Michael was playing solo with electric guitar and wanted to capture that sound.  The album was recorded with Michael singing and playing his Fender Stratocaster accompanied by Christian Rannenberg (a well known German blues piano player who he first met at the BID showcase where he played with Buddy Ace) and Ted Pierce (acoustic guitar).  “The Berlin Demos” was recorded live in the studio with no bass or drums and no ‘overdubs’.

In 1996, Michael returned to Austin.  He continued to write songs and appeared at the Kerrville Blues Festival in 1999.  Michael remained in Texas playing clubs and festivals and writing songs.  He played gigs from Louisiana to Colorado to California. 

In June of 2001, Michael moved, once again, back to Berlin.  He is currently living and playing music there.