Gene Hardy
Encyclopedia
Gene Hardy is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist
and vocalist. He performs on saxophone
, violin
, musical saw
and theremin
.
—first on violin at age 9, then on saxophone a year later. After studies at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and UVic, he moved to Toronto
in 1986. In 1988 he joined Canadian alternative rock band Bourbon Tabernacle Choir
.
After the Bourbon’s break-up in the mid-1990s, he became the horn player for many of Canada's best known exports and domestic successes, recording and performing in the United States
and Canada. He served as Michael Bublé
's musical director and featured soloist and is the latest addition to Ronnie Hawkins
' band, The Hawks. He has recorded and performed with over a thousand acts including Barenaked Ladies
, Big Sugar
, Colin James
, Esthero
, Rheostatics
, Downchild Blues Band, Tyler Yarema & His Rhythm, Veda Hille
, Kevin Quain & The Mad Bastards, Big Rude Jake
, Colin Linden
, Bruce Cockburn
, Ford Pier
, D.O.A.
, Dutch Mason
, Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle
, Prakash John
& The Lincolns
, Bocephus King, Mike Fonfara, The Big Band Trio, Mary Margaret O'Hara
, Laura Hubert
, Divine Brown
, Michael Kaeshammer
, Dr Hilly Sands Esq., Jeff Healey
and Third World
.
From 2000–2005, Hardy was nominated as Horn Player of the Year at the Canada’s Maple Blues Awards
in recognition of his extensive contributions to the blues
genre, both live and in the studio.
He is also known as a session player on musical saw
, and has been featured on numerous recordings, including BNL's Born On A Pirate Ship
and Veda Hille's Spine. His saw playing can also be heard on jingles for an assortment of products and services including ads for Halls Cough Drops, Kia Cars, and Scott's Turfbuilder. An instrumental saw CD, entitled Musical Saw Encounters, is half completed as of Summer 2007.
In the summer of 2006 Sparkjiver organist and singer Rod Phillips was diagnosed with cancer. With the Sparkjiver tour postponed indefinitely, Hardy created and fronted a new 10 piece group, PlanB3, which honoured select dates of the summer tour in British Columbia.
His newest group, The Pip Squeek Orchestra, described as a dixieland-band-on-steroids, debuts fall 2007 with a new CD and a line-up of players from Vancouver
, Victoria and Toronto.
To date, Hardy has released four CDs as a solo artist. He continues to travel, perform and record extensively, dividing his time between Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and New Orleans.
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
and vocalist. He performs on saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, musical saw
Musical saw
A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...
and theremin
Theremin
The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
.
Career
Hardy's early music training began in Victoria, British ColumbiaVictoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
—first on violin at age 9, then on saxophone a year later. After studies at the Victoria Conservatory of Music and UVic, he moved to Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
in 1986. In 1988 he joined Canadian alternative rock band Bourbon Tabernacle Choir
Bourbon Tabernacle Choir
The Bourbon Tabernacle Choir were a Canadian alternative rock band that formed in 1985 in Toronto, Ontario. Their R&B-flavoured rock made them a mainstay on Canadian campus radio in the early 1990s, but the band never quite broke through to the mainstream....
.
After the Bourbon’s break-up in the mid-1990s, he became the horn player for many of Canada's best known exports and domestic successes, recording and performing in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada. He served as Michael Bublé
Michael Bublé
Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer. He has won several awards, including three Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the UK. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was...
's musical director and featured soloist and is the latest addition to Ronnie Hawkins
Ronnie Hawkins
Ronald "Ronnie" Hawkins is a Juno Award-winning rockabilly musician whose career has spanned more than half a century. Though his career began in Arkansas, USA, where he'd been born and raised, it was in Ontario, Canada where he found success and settled for most of his life...
' band, The Hawks. He has recorded and performed with over a thousand acts including Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies
Barenaked Ladies is a Canadian alternative rock band. The band is currently composed of Jim Creeggan, Kevin Hearn, Ed Robertson, and Tyler Stewart. Barenaked Ladies formed in 1988 in Scarborough, Ontario, then a suburban municipality outside the City of Toronto...
, Big Sugar
Big Sugar
Big Sugar is a Canadian blues-rock band, they were active from 1991 to 2004 and again since April 2010. The band has sold more than half a million albums in Canada.-History:...
, Colin James
Colin James
Colin James is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, who plays in the blues, rock, and neo-swing genres. He grew up as a Quaker.-Early years:...
, Esthero
Esthero
Esthero ,born Jenny-Bea Englishman, is a Canadian singer-songwriter who currently lives in Los Angeles, California. The name Esthero refers both to the singer and formerly to the two-person team of herself and producer Doc McKinney...
, Rheostatics
Rheostatics
Rheostatics was a Genie Award-winning Canadian indie rock band, active from 1980 to 2007.Although they had only one Top 40 hit, "Claire" in 1995, they were simultaneously one of Canada's most influential and unconventional rock bands, a band whose eclectic take on pop and rock music has been...
, Downchild Blues Band, Tyler Yarema & His Rhythm, Veda Hille
Veda Hille
Veda Hille is a Canadian singer-songwriter.- Biography :Veda Hille was born in 1968 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She started playing piano when she was 6 at her own insistence. Her family moved around a lot, from the city to the country and back again...
, Kevin Quain & The Mad Bastards, Big Rude Jake
Big Rude Jake
Big Rude Jake is a singer, songwriter and jazz musician based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He recorded several albums with different jazz ensembles and musicians, mixing rock, jump blues, blues, ragtime, swing, rhythm and blues and punk rock together...
, Colin Linden
Colin Linden
Colin Linden is a Canadian musician, songwriter and record producer. He has worked with a wide variety of artists including Bruce Cockburn, Lucinda Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Colin James, Leon Redbone, Rita Chiarelli, Chris Thomas King and The Band.Linden is primarily a electric blues guitarist,...
, Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Cockburn
Bruce Douglas Cockburn OC is a Canadian folk/rock guitarist and singer-songwriter. His most recent album was released in March 2011. He has written songs in styles ranging from folk to jazz-influenced rock to rock and roll.-Biography:...
, Ford Pier
Ford Pier
,Ford Pier is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He resides in Vancouver. In addition to his solo albums, he has been a member of Jr...
, D.O.A.
D.O.A. (band)
D.O.A. is a hardcore punk band from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. They are often referred to as the "founders" of hardcore punk, along with Black Flag, Bad Brains, Teen Idles, and Minor Threat. Their second album Hardcore '81 was thought by many to have been the first actual reference to...
, Dutch Mason
Dutch Mason
Dutch Mason, CM was a Canadian musician from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was inducted into the Canadian Jazz and Blues Hall of Fame, and was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2005.-Career:...
, Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle
Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle
Kevin Hearn and Thin Buckle are a Canadian band consisting of Barenaked Ladies multi-instrumentalist Kevin Hearn as the front man , bassist Chris Gartner and drummer Great Bob Scott. The three had previously collaborated as members of the Canadian alternative rock band The Look People...
, Prakash John
Prakash John
Prakash John is a Canadian rock bassist.Born in Bombay, India, John was a student at the Cathedral and John Connon School, enrolling at the age of four in 1951. He migrated to Toronto in 1960....
& The Lincolns
The Lincolns
- History :In 1979, after leaving the Alice Cooper tours, Prakash John returned to Toronto and founded an R&B band in tribute to the Toronto bands of his youth. He recruited some of the best musicians available, some from previous tours, particularly the Lou Reed Sally Can't Dance album and tour...
, Bocephus King, Mike Fonfara, The Big Band Trio, Mary Margaret O'Hara
Mary Margaret O'Hara
Mary Margaret O'Hara is a Canadian singer-songwriter and actress, who has been hailed as one of the greatest cult heroines in rock music despite having released very few of her own recordings. She is best known for the critically acclaimed album Miss America, released in 1988.-Early stages:O'Hara...
, Laura Hubert
Laura Hubert
Laura Hubert is a Canadian rock and jazz singer. She was the lead vocalist for the alternative rock group Leslie Spit Treeo in the 1980s and 1990s, and has subsequently released three solo jazz CDs.-External links:*...
, Divine Brown
Divine Brown (singer)
Divine Brown , previously known as Divine Earth Essence, is a Canadian rhythm and blues and soul singer and theatre performer....
, Michael Kaeshammer
Michael Kaeshammer
Michael Kaeshammer is a Canadian boogie-woogie pianist, vocalist, composer, and arranger.After studying classical piano for seven years in his German homeland, a 13-year-old Kaeshammer discovered boogie-woogie and stride piano as played by Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Pete Johnson, Pinetop...
, Dr Hilly Sands Esq., Jeff Healey
Jeff Healey
Norman Jeffrey "Jeff" Healey was a blind Canadian jazz and blues-rock vocalist and guitarist who attained musical and personal popularity, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
and Third World
Third World (band)
Third World is a Jamaican reggae band formed in 1973. Their sound is influenced by soul, funk and disco.-History:Third World started when keyboard player Michael "Ibo" Cooper and guitarist Stephen "Cat" Coore, who had originally played in The Alley Cats then Inner Circle, subsequently left to form...
.
From 2000–2005, Hardy was nominated as Horn Player of the Year at the Canada’s Maple Blues Awards
Maple Blues Awards
The Maple Blues Awards are Canada’s blues awards, "honouring the finest in Canadian blues". They are the only comprehensive national best in blues awards program. The program's goal is to promote blues music across Canada, and to recognize outstanding achievement...
in recognition of his extensive contributions to the blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
genre, both live and in the studio.
He is also known as a session player on musical saw
Musical saw
A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin...
, and has been featured on numerous recordings, including BNL's Born On A Pirate Ship
Born on a Pirate Ship
Born on a Pirate Ship is the third full-length album by Barenaked Ladies. Its well-known tracks are "Shoe Box", "The Old Apartment", "When I Fall" and "Break Your Heart." "The Old Apartment" would become BNL's first US hit in 1997 and began the process of winning many new American fans.This was...
and Veda Hille's Spine. His saw playing can also be heard on jingles for an assortment of products and services including ads for Halls Cough Drops, Kia Cars, and Scott's Turfbuilder. An instrumental saw CD, entitled Musical Saw Encounters, is half completed as of Summer 2007.
In the summer of 2006 Sparkjiver organist and singer Rod Phillips was diagnosed with cancer. With the Sparkjiver tour postponed indefinitely, Hardy created and fronted a new 10 piece group, PlanB3, which honoured select dates of the summer tour in British Columbia.
His newest group, The Pip Squeek Orchestra, described as a dixieland-band-on-steroids, debuts fall 2007 with a new CD and a line-up of players from Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Victoria and Toronto.
To date, Hardy has released four CDs as a solo artist. He continues to travel, perform and record extensively, dividing his time between Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and New Orleans.
Solo albums
- Gene Hardy & Sparkjiver – Gene Hardy & Sparkjiver (CD, 2000)
- Gene Hardy & Sparkjiver – FunkyBluesyJazzyChurchy (CD, 2002)
- Gene Hardy – Blow!Blow!Blow! (CD, 2004)
- Gene Hardy & The Pip Squeek Orchestra – Gene Hardy & The Pip Squeek Orchestra (CD, 2007)
Contributions
- Bourbon Tabernacle Choir – Sister Anthony (1990)
- Big Sugar – Big SugarBig Sugar (album)Big Sugar is the eponymous debut album by Canadian blues-rock band Big Sugar, released 1991 on Hypnotic Records.-Track listing:# "Sleep in Late" # "Come Back Baby" Big Sugar is the eponymous debut album by Canadian blues-rock band Big Sugar, released 1991 on Hypnotic Records.-Track listing:# "Sleep...
(1992) - Bourbon Tabernacle Choir – Superior Cackling Hen (1992)
- Barenaked Ladies – GordonGordon (album)Gordon is the debut album by Canadian band Barenaked Ladies. It was released through Sire Records on July 28, 1992. After The Yellow Tape was certified platinum in Canada, the group won a contest hosted by a local radio station. With the winnings, Barenaked Ladies were able to hire producer Michael...
(1992) #1 CAN, US gold - Rheostatics – Whale MusicWhale Music (album)Whale Music is a 1992 album by Canadian rock band Rheostatics. It should not be confused with the soundtrack to the film Whale Music, which was also composed by the band and released in 1994....
(1992) - Big Sugar – Five Hundred PoundsFive Hundred PoundsFive Hundred Pounds is an album by Canadian blues-rock band Big Sugar, released in 1993 on Hypnotic Records.Based on Big Sugar's burgeoning reputation as a live band, the album sold 10,000 copies solely by word of mouth before it garnered any significant radio airplay.In 1995 the album was released...
(1993) - Rheostatics – Music from The Motion Picture Whale MusicMusic from the Motion Picture Whale MusicMusic from The Motion Picture Whale Music is a 1994 album by Rheostatics. It is the soundtrack to the film version of Paul Quarrington's novel Whale Music, and should not be confused with the band's 1992 album Whale Music....
(1994) - Barenaked Ladies – Maybe You Should DriveMaybe You Should Drive- Singles :* "Jane"** Released: 1994** Formats: CD, cassette* "Alternative Girlfriend"** Released: 1995** Formats: CD- Charts :Album...
(1994) #175 US, #57 UK - Rheostatics – Introducing HappinessIntroducing HappinessIntroducing Happiness is a 1994 album by Rheostatics.The album includes "Claire", the band's only Top 40 hit. That song is also featured on the Whale Music soundtrack album....
(1994) - Bourbon Tabernacle Choir – Shy Folk (1995)
- Barenaked Ladies – Born On A Pirate ShipBorn on a Pirate ShipBorn on a Pirate Ship is the third full-length album by Barenaked Ladies. Its well-known tracks are "Shoe Box", "The Old Apartment", "When I Fall" and "Break Your Heart." "The Old Apartment" would become BNL's first US hit in 1997 and began the process of winning many new American fans.This was...
(1996) #111 gold U.S, #18 Canada - Veda Hille – Spine (1996)
- Bourbon Tabernacle Choir – Simply the Best 1985-1995 (2000)
- Kevin Quain – Tequila Vampire Matinee (CD, 2000)
- Neil Leyton - Midnight Sun (2003, Fading Ways)
- Esthero – We R in Need of a Musical Revolution (CD EP, 2004, Reprise Records)
- Esthero – Wikked Lil' GrrrlsWikked Lil' GrrrlsWikked Lil' Grrrls is Canadian American singer Esthero's second album, her first full-length in seven years....
Samplers (Version 1 & 2) (CD, 2005, Warner Bros. Records) - Esthero – Wikked Lil' GrrrlsWikked Lil' GrrrlsWikked Lil' Grrrls is Canadian American singer Esthero's second album, her first full-length in seven years....
(CD, 2005, Warner Bros. Records) - Esthero – Fastlane Remixes (CD, 2005, Warner Bros. Records)
- Dean Drouillard – Dream At Harmony Motel (CD, 2005)
- Adam Warner – No Place to Lay (CD, 2006)
- Kevin Quain – Winter in Babylon (CD, 2007)
TV and film
- General HospitalGeneral HospitalGeneral Hospital is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production and the third longest running drama in television in American history after Guiding Light and As the World Turns....
(TV series) - Ups And Downs (film)
- Colin JamesColin JamesColin James is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, who plays in the blues, rock, and neo-swing genres. He grew up as a Quaker.-Early years:...
Presents the Blues Masters (TV special, 1997) - Hemingway Vs. Callahan (CBC mini-series, 2003)
- Take The LeadTake the LeadTake the Lead is a movie starring Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown, Alfre Woodard, Dante Basco, Marcus T. Paulk, Jenna Dewan, Lauren Collins and also features former America's Next Top Model contestant, Yaya DaCosta. The film was released in mainstream cinema on April 7, 2006...
(film, 2006) - Sounds Like Motown (documentary, 2007)
- Motown HighMotown HighMotown High is a documentary by Canadian director Barbara Hager about a group of talented Canadian high school students who develop a musical bond with their idol, Motown diva Martha Reeves, after they meet her on a school band trip to Detroit...
(documentary, 2008) - Numerous appearances on MuchMusicMuchMusicMuchMusic is a Canadian English language Category A specialty channel owned by Bell Media. MuchMusic is dedicated to music-related programs, pop and youth culture.-History:...
, 1990–present
External links
- Live performance by Gene Hardy & Sparkjiver on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- Gene Hardy on Sonicbids EPK