AUDIO: First Listen - Tim Hardin's 'It'll Never Happen Again' from REASON TO BELIEVE

Tom Hardin has just released a single from his upcoming album Reason To Believe - The Songs of Tim Hardin, set for release February 26th on Full Time Hobby. Listen to the cover of Okkervil River's "It'll Never Happen Again" below!

Acclaimed Oregon troubadour Tim Hardin is one of the most influential and respected singer-songwriters of all time, not that the man himself cared much for the title. "My songs aren't personal," he insisted before his death in 1980. "They sound it 'cos it was me who revealed them, but it was my head that got the lightning shot through it." An interesting choice of descriptive, seeing as how for his many devotees, his bewitching folk music has the same knockout power as a ten thousand volt lightning strike from the sky - instantaneous, bruising, beautiful, electrifying.

Among those devotees are some of the most exciting alternative voices of the last fifty years - like Nick Drake and Tim Buckley before him, Hardin was a musicians' musician, the inspiration behind a great many artists whose limelight he never procured for himself. Johnny Cash, Paul Weller, Rod Stewart, Echo and the Bunnymen, Scott Walker, Nico...Hardin's music has been covered by countless icons of contemporary counter-culture. Now that tradition is set to continue with the release of Reason To Believe, a tribute album collecting specially recorded cover versions from the impressive likes of Screaming Trees legend Mark Lanegan, the beguiling Hannah Peel, indie favourites Okkervil River and many more.

"So many people's entry point to Tim has been through cover versions," says Full Time Hobby co-owner Nigel Adams, responsible for the release. "It felt fitting to bring his songs up to date with contemporary artists approaching his music with the hope listeners would then go beyond the well known and dig into some of the wealth of songs he wrote and recorded". The album comes as a sequel of sorts to the label's 2006 release, Dream Brother: The Songs of Tim and Jeff Buckley, and is the next in a gradual series of releases that puts the spotlight on artists whose impact was more profound than their fame would suggest, whose names may have drifted into obscurity but continue to burn brightly in the hearts and record collections of many music lovers.

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