By Heidi Bailey
Blair Hardman is one smooth talking guy.
And he should be. For the past 25 years Hardman has recorded hundreds of musical artists, written scripts and read for radio commercials, read and recorded audio books and has recorded several big names for television voiceovers, among recording numerous individuals with various recording-type requests.
According to Hardman, the recording bug has always been with him and runs in his blood. His dad was “really into sound,” he says, and sparked an interest in him at age 12 when he began his journey on to what would be a lifelong career. He now owns Blair Hardman Productions and Zone Recording in the back of the Zone Music building in Cotati.
The early days
“My dad had an old recorder at home,” said Hardman. “It was one of those early reel-to-reel recorders and I used to interview the neighborhood kids. I’d make pretend radio shows; I just loved the radio.”
When he was in his teens, his dad brought home a ukulele and Hardman began to play music, adding the banjo and guitar to his repertoire, starting a folk music group and performing small gigs. “It was the first thing I did in high school that made me somebody important.
“All of a sudden I was being invited to parties. It changed my life.”
It didn’t take long before he met people with connections in the business, starting with country singer and song writer Country Joe McDonald, renowned for Country Joe and The Fish’s song, “Fixin’-to-die-rag” and their performances at Woodstock in the 60s.
But before Country Joe added The Fish half, Hardman and Joe performed together as a duo, recording an album together. “I’m told in catalogs the album is worth about $1,000 now since only 200 copies were made,” Hardman said, pulling out the original 12”vinyl he keeps behind his desk.
Raised in Southern California, he began migrating north after high school, moving to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district and eventually to Sonoma County, where he attended SSU to take music and psychology classes.
“Psychology has really come in handy in this business,” he said. “I spend many hours a day in very close proximity to other people who are trying to realize their dreams and I’m trying to help them produce their music, or whatever it is they’ve come in to do that is a dream of theirs.” He says working with people this way he has to work through their moods with patience and understanding, know when to push and when not to.
Making a name for himself
Once he moved to Sonoma County he realized nearly everyone played guitar, so he started to play bass with various groups. Through a friend who worked for Prairie Sun Recording Studio in west Cotati, Hardman landed a job as a studio bass player. “I kept hanging around the engineers asking ‘what’s that knob do and what’s that for?’ because I was real curious about the behind-the-scenes technical stuff so they started explaining it to me and that’s how I started learning about the recording part.”
Then he met Steve Jaxon, a “legendary radio guy,” who still can be heard on a local newstalk radio station. They became friends and Jaxon put him on his morning show. Together they were heard every morning for two years doing comedy, improv, games, pranks and “wild wacky stuff,” Hardman said. “We had a high-rated show. But the hours were killer. Getting up at 5:30 and having to be funny, it was tough.” Jaxon didn’t like the mornings much either so they “slowly evolved out of that.”
Destiny in one life moment
Hardman says the radio show faded out also because he’d begun to develop his own recording studio by then. That opportunity came about when he dropped in to Zone Music one day and met Frank Hayhurst.
Hayhurst told him he was thinking of knocking out a wall and expanding. Hardman, noticing another space there, asked Hayhurst what he was going to do with it. Hayhurst told him he wanted to rent it out as a recording studio or to a guitar teacher. At the time Hardman had been giving private guitar lessons in his home. He also had a little 4-track cassette machine with the ability to record the drums, a bass player, a guitar and a voice and then merge them together. After thinking about it, Hardman decided to rent it out.
“And those are the little moments in life when everything turns and determines so much. If I hadn’t come in that day… it was fate, total destiny. It opened up a whole career, which might have happened anyway but not as perfectly and as wonderfully as it did.”
The biz
Business grew fast for Hardman who attributes it to his popular radio persona and customers patronizing the shop. “No one at that time could record at home so they always needed to find someone else or some place to record their music and they’d come in the store and see my studio – so it was a lot of foot-traffic that generated (business).”
Over the years, his space expanded, along with technology. He now has a sound room, a wall covered with over 20 awards he’s won and his chair is surrounded with all the latest recording gizmos and gadgets, along with old style reel-to-reels for people who need old recording tapes transferred to CD. He even has the capability of recording cell phone voice messages to a CD.
He tells the story of a songwriter who needed that very service. “She’d sing to her voice mail every time she’d think of a song,” he grinned. “And in between her voice mail songs, she had messages from her boyfriend who she was having problems with.” So he spent some time separating the two. “It was definitely interesting.”
Recording tone-deaf singers is a challenge he gets a lot. “In some cases I can change their tone with my equipment or change their timing, but others hear themselves and realize they can’t sing. Then there are others I have to just break it to them – they can’t sing at all.”
Some people have had so much fun with Hardman they’ve been hospitalized. One woman came back numerous times, and because she became so excited at the sound of her voice, she became delusional and had to be committed. “She had delusions of grandeur and just lost it,” said Hardman. “Having sort of a manic episode.”
Norton Buffalo to Guy Fieri
Hardman’s recorded entire bands and single musicians, many who made it fairly big such as blues and rhythm musician Johnny Otis and Norton Buffalo, a country singer-songwriter and blues harmonica player. TV personality and chef Guy Fieri records voiceovers for his Food Network show for the off-camera shots. “He’s one of my favorites to work with. He has so much energy.”
Hardman’s voice has been all over the radio in advertisements for the Sonoma County Harvest Fair, Sonoma County Fair and Freeman Toyota, just to name a few. He’s worked with a major publishing house recording audio books, including Dr. Phil’s latest book.
But his core business is still local musicians and singers.
“That includes singer-songwriters who sing and play and I add all the other instruments, Karaoke singers who bring in their own backing tracks and full bands who make albums and then get 1,000 copies duplicated to sell at gigs.
“Being in the music store with Frank is great too, because he likes to help out with advice, and he lets my clients use gear from the store. They can chose from hundreds of guitars to use in their session.”
Should record his own book
Hardman’s life could be a best selling book as his experiences have such range. Not many can say they’ve traveled nine months playing in the orchestra with the Ice Capades or traveled Germany as a country cowboy in a band for Marlboro cigarettes. He even had published a desktop calendar framed with crossword puzzles he created.
So how does he feel about his life?
“The first thing that comes to mind is grateful. Grateful that I live in wonderful Sonoma County, that I found a career that’s my passion and love, that I’m surrounded by so many talented people, including those at Zone Music, and my clients and grateful that I can help them realize their musical dreams and passions. That’s me – grateful.”