Musician Dan Hartman with the Edgar Winter Group in 1975 (third from left)
Published on Apr 13, 2012 From album 'New Green Clear Blue' (1989) A video I have published in honour and memory of a great artist. The overwhelming beauty of the music he composed a few years.
- Hartman's next studio album appeared in 1989 as well, was called New Green Clear Blue and tackled yet another genre, New Age music. From this album, this is Hope of No End: From this album, this is Hope of No End.
- Keep The Fire Burnin’ (Duet Starring Loleatta Holloway), 2. The Love In Your Eyes, 3. Living In America, 4. I Can Dream About You, 5. The Name Of The Game, 6. We Are The Young, 7. Vertigo / Relight My Fire, 9. Instant Replay, 10. Countdown / This Is It, 11. Keep The Fire Burnin’ (Duet Starring Loleatta Holloway) (That SFB Feeling Mix).
- Hartman produced and co-wrote 'Living in America', a No. 4 hit for James Brown which appeared on the soundtrack of 1985's Rocky IV. The song was the last of Brown's 44 hit recordings to appear on the Billboard Top 40 charts. In 1989 he released his last studio album New Green Clear Blue, an instrumental new.
Daniel Earl Hartman (December 8, 1950-March 22, 1994) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.
Quotes from Dan Hartman[edit]
- As an artist, I don’t like being able to be seen…If you’re having difficulty getting a part, it adds to the tension when the assistant engineer, engineer, producer and producer’s wife are hanging out. With the School-house, my engineer’s in the control room, and I could be doing vocals while stretching my T-shirt over my head and it wouldn’t matter. Everyone who’s worked here has gotten used to this nonvisual communication and actually found it to be advantageous. That’s what home studios are about — that funky thing.
- On his recording studio dubbed “The Schoolhouse” in “Dan Hartman: Rockin’ in the Schoolhouse” in Rolling Stone (1979 Jun 28)
- I'm the least technical person I've ever met...I hate anything with digital numbers on it. I just go by instinct. It's the same with a new AMS as it is with a synthesizer for me. I never read manuals. I just sit down with the thing for a couple of days and fiddle with the knobs until I figure out what it can do. And get what I like out of it. When it comes to producing too I just go for something that will jump off the record and into people's heads. Again, it's a question of what feels right. I try to make records which have a point of view to express and so you always have to concentrate upon the voice. When we did my album we tried very hard to keep the sort of R'n'B danceability in the vocals you'd expect from a D Train or Gloria Gaynor, but still keeping that Rock conviction you get from Foreigner.
- On being deemed a technical producer in “Dan Hartman takes Chas De Whalley to the US of AOR” in The Producers (Nov 1985)
- The bass suit was actually one of the first cordless guitars in existence, and I invented it. It was built right into this silver bodysuit so it looked as though the bass was coming out of my body, and the volume and tone knobs were on the sleeve...When it worked it was great, but the tunings were a little strange, plus I can’t tell you how many times I got shocked. It wound up being just one more thing that we had to worry about on tour: ‘Well, I wonder if this will work tonight.’ After a while I couldn’t stand wearing it anymore so I gave it up.
- On his famous 'Guitar Suit' in “Dan Hartman’s Bass Guitar Suit, 1974” as quoted in Vintage Daily News (2020 Jan 31)
- In my mind, recognition has never been something to be obtained…I’m happy that more people appreciate what I’m doing, and are hearing my music. When I write, I communicate my own message, my own feelings and passion. I’m glad that they are being accepted.
- On becoming recognized after having been involved over a decade in the music business in “Fletch to the Beat” in Orange Coast Magazine (Aug 1985)
- Sure. It does lean more towards the industry standard rather than towards my roots. But I meant it to be that way for a reason. To begin with this is my first album in about three years and my first for a new label. So I wanted the album to have the same basic listenability throughout and I wanted the record company to feel that they could hear four or five potential singles on it. Tracks that would work on the radio. Because that was what I was aiming for, I had to make sure that each song would capture an exact feeling which would get across to the most number of people. I always like to make records like that. I hate records where all the musicians or the artiste are really saying is 'Dig Me!' You can lose a lot of your potential audience by making self-indulgent statements. Unless, of course, you're so neat and groovy that people say 'Wow Man! Come All Over Me!'. Now I think I am pretty neat and groovy, but I prefer to make the sort of records which will make people think about themselves, not about me. Pop music shouldn't really express the innermost thoughts of the artiste as much as giving the listeners a feeling of exuberance or pain or power or whatever. To give them a sense of their own selves. Once you start making music with that sort of end in mind, you realise that you have to make it less jagged and more compartmentalised. And so the reason I Can Dream About You sounds maybe as Industry Standard as it does is because it was designed to get through to as many different sorts of people as possible. And that isn't necessarily a negative factor.
- On being asked if his album I Can Dream About You was a little too sanitized and mainstream in “Dan Hartman takes Chas De Whalley to the US of AOR” in The Producers (Nov 1985)
- ...People get confused because they want the boxes your talent comes in to be always the same shape and the same colour. If you don't do that then people lose track of who you are. They say 'Oh, he doesn't know himself'. But I know who I am. The energy is the same, the expression is the same and the work diligence is the same. Always. It's just that sometimes it all comes in different boxes and different colours. It may be weird to some people but it surely doesn't bother me.
- On how people might not know what to make of Hartman given his propensity to straddle different genres in “Dan Hartman takes Chas De Whalley to the US of AOR” in The Producers (Nov 1985)
- It seemed to be a natural period when I wanted to stop doing pop records; it came with a falling-out between my record company and me...There was a hole in my career. Instead of a valley, it became a peak to me. I decided I was going to do something that I hadn’t really had time to do.”
- On the career fugue that led him to create the album New Green Clear Blue in “Dan Hartman Manages to Turn a Career Valley into Peak” in Mohave Daily Miner (1989 Mar 7)
![Dan hartman new green clear blue Dan hartman new green clear blue](/uploads/1/1/4/1/114184751/552782486.jpg)
- I started reading books about the subconscious mind and intuitiveness, and what makes people tick when they hear songs that excite them, make them feel romantic or melancholy. I was in and out of bookstores and libraries. I read a lot of texts, including on primitive man and the workings of the way we emotionally react to things. It wasn’t scholarly or scientific. I read and skimmed and when I thought something was nonsense, I just moved on…
- On the researching process for his album New Green Clear Blue in “Dan Hartman Manages to Turn a Career Valley into Peak” in Mohave Daily Miner (1989 Mar 7)
- In a lot of ways this music is soothing. I think there’s a place for music that is peaceful and soulful unto the spirit. After plane bombings, AIDS and everything that has come upon us in this decade, I think we can use a little solace and reflection.
- On what he aimed to communicate with his album New Green Clear Blue in “Dan Hartman Manages to Turn a Career Valley into Peak” in Mohave Daily Miner (1989 Mar 7)
![Dan Dan](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/RZIAAOSwTZ9eOg-M/s-l400.jpg)
- I don’t necessarily do music for the pure art sake of my own self-expression, which is why a lot of people make music—to express themselves. I really feel that the work I do, be it writing, singing or producing, I do in order to help communicate feelings to other people, hoping they might feel the same things, that they somehow relate to it or get an experience from it that they can share with themselves.
- On the the concept of self-expression in “License to Chill” in SPIN Magazine (Nov 1989)
- The reality of Andy Warhol’s 15 minutes is here, only if he were around now, he’d say “Now it’s five.” We’re going so fast, we don’t know what’s going on inside anymore. We’re becoming external, not feeling anything.
- On the advent of technology in the late 1980s in “License to Chill” in SPIN Magazine (Nov 1989)
Dan Hartman New Green Clear Blue
- I have a bit of anger about some things going on in the world that I know I want to sing about. I’ve never done that on a solo album before; they’ve been mostly about romance and relationships…The concept is Dan Hartman, so whatever’s happening to me when I begin to put out the feelings will be what the album is about. Whether I’m in love, out of love, or the next plane blows up…whatever, I just want to stay creative and hopefully keep people thinking and feeling…At least feel something.
- On the solo album that he was working on at the time of the interview in “License to Chill” in SPIN Magazine (Nov 1989)
- I think James Brown has made a lot of good records (in recent years)…But it was that purist James Brown thing that he was doing in the beginning and people won’t let him do that anymore because time marches on…That stuff is classic to me, but other people get bored with it. The challenge is to present something that is him, yet sounds fresh to listeners. That’s usually hard for (a veteran artist) to do. It helps to have someone step in from outside…I am proud of what we did on the album. I think it does present a contemporary James Brown. It’s not candy-coated. It has a lot of statement and a lot of heart.
- On his work on James Brown’s Gravity album in “HARTMAN: JAMES BROWN’S GODSON OF SOUL” in the Los Angeles Times (1986 Oct 19)
- When you get into the areas of eroticism, politics, and belligerency, you have to be careful. Some of it will get out. Both Charlie and I have slanted minds. If “Relax” or “Sugar Walls' can be hits, there is a place for that kind of stuff, too. It's fun and interesting to write about that. Or with politics: Third World people own the bomb. That's probably where the nuclear war will start. They have nothing to lose. You can write about that. It'll be just another record from a romantic cynic.
- On what he considered 'weird' when discussing the concept of his next album (which would go unreleased) in 'Dan Hartman: Instant Replay of Success' in Modern Recording & Music (June 1985)
- They said the scene was going to be patriotic, with the flag and Apollo fighting the Russian, and it had to be pro-American. We said we didn’t really want to go flag waving. We just wanted to have a good time, write a funky number and sing about America.
- On the conception of the song “Living in America” that was to be performed by James Brown for Rocky IV in “Hartman to Produce James Brown Album” in Billboard (1986 Apr 5)
Quotes about Dan Hartman[edit]
- Dan was the first person I enlisted for The Edgar Winter Group. It was a huge talent search; I listened to hundreds of demo tapes to choose talented people for what I wanted to be the quintessential American rock band...The thing that I loved about Dan was that he had a youthful innocence and enthusiasm. He loved commercial music, and he didn’t have to try to be commercial. He had a natural ability to come up with simple ideas that were never overdone...he was originally a guitarist...I had to talk him into playing bass. He was a multi-instrumentalist like myself, but he was not a virtuoso player. Yet he would always find the right part to complement the song. Rock solid, and with the right groove. As well as being a great songwriter, he knew what to play and when to play it.
- On why Edgar Winter selected Dan Hartman to be a part of The Edgar Winter Group in “The Edgar (W)interview” in Musoscribe (2016 Aug 25)
- Dan always liked to have a lyric before he wrote a melody and created a track. He reasoned that he needed to know the essence of the song in order to inspire his creative process. As a result, we would discuss an idea and I would then write lyrics. Often, I would throw out some lines or titles before proceeding to ensure that Dan agreed on the direction. If he concurred then I would go on to complete a lyric. Dan was very tough and uncensored in his assessments but our dynamics allowed for this. Being satisfied with the final work was all that mattered. However, because of his unvarnished critiques, I developed a system wherein I would write many alternative lyrics so that Dan could have choices.
- Charlie Midnight on Dan Hartman's writing and composition processes in “Memories of Dan Hartman: Charlie Midnight” (May 2006)
External links[edit]
Wikipedia has an article about:
Dan Hartman - New Green Clear Blue
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