Memories of Dan Hartman

I've visited this site many times and have thought about sending a comment many times and today, March 22, the 17th anniversary of Dan's passing I finally decided to write a little something. There are many people and many of my close friends who were closer to Dan than I ever was but I did have a lot of great times with him over the years. When he was living in Harrisburg, PA and playing with his band The Legends, long before his successful recording and production career with Edgar Winter and beyond, I knew he was going to be a major force in the music industry. We all knew. He was an amazingly talented musician, singer and songwriter.

I started showing up at The Legends shows completely in awe of Dan and the whole band. We eventually became friends and my own band at the time called Shanghai was being booked and managed by the same booking agency that The Legends were handled by and so we played many shows together. Dan and me and a couple of other guys in my band used to drive up to New York together to go to the music stores on 48th street and buy new equipment. It was exciting to be in NY walking around all the big music stores but the real treat was the hours we spent driving back and forth to NY and having that time to talk to Dan about music or whatever the topic of the day was. He was the most optimistic, happy, funny, uplifting and over all talented person I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with.

Dan stopped by my family's house on Christmas a few years in a row. We always had a big open house with lot's of food and all of our friends coming in and out. We would sit and listen to whatever new albums I got for Christmas and just talk about music for hours at a time. Dan even wrote a song and produced a recording session for our band around that time. When he got the gig with The Edgar Winter Group we were all so happy and ecstatic for him - and for ourselves a little bit too. It was great having a home town friend going on to make it big in the business and it confirmed what we all knew about Dan all along. After he was settled and working with Edgar and they moved into their big house in Sands Point, Long Island I went up to visit him a few times and stayed as a guest there in the house with Dan and Edgar and Chuck Ruff. It was a magical time for me to be exposed to such amazing talent. Hanging out and spending close social time with those guys was a pivotal period of growth for me as a musician and as a person. They had built a recording studio into the house with a main control room and virtually every room of the house wired for recording. They did a few of their albums there and it was at that time observing Dan as he acted as recording engineer and producer that I developed my love for all things studio-related and it's what eventually led me to become a recording engineer and producer myself.

Over the years I stayed in touch with Dan from time to time through the occasional phone call but I didn't see him too often. I visited Dan once at his first house in Westport, Connecticut, the house where his studio called The Schoolhouse was located. And when I was on the road playing with a band in Connecticut another time I stopped by his last residence where his Multi-Level studio resided and he showed me all around that amazing home. At that time he had just finished "I Can Dream About You" and the music for the soundtrack he was working on and he took me in the studio and played me some of the tracks. & nbsp;As always, I was amazed at what he had done. A few years later in early 1994 I was doing a showcase at The China Club in New York for several record labels with my original band and I called Dan to invite him to come down for the show. The producer who was helping us promote ourselves to a few record executives was Chris Lord-Alge and I knew that Chris had worked with Dan on a few albums in the past so I thought it would be great if Dan could come down to NY and lend us a little support. He said that he would have loved to but he was just too busy to make the trip on that date. He never let on or said anything about feeling bad or being ill but it was just a few weeks later when he passed away. I was devastated to hear the news.

Dan was simply the most prolific, extraordinary, talented person I've ever met as well as being a warm, kind, considerate and fun guy. I am constantly wondering about all of the great music he would hav e made if he had lived longer. However, we are fortunate to have his great body of work left for our enjoyment. Dan was one of the most influential people in my early musical career. He taught me a lot of things and I have never forgotten any of them. We all miss you Dan. You took us all on a great Free Ride in life.

I am still very close friends with Larry Sadler, Dan's drummer from The Legends and we have had many, many . . . MANY long conversations about Dan over the years. Larry still lives in Harrisburg and I now live in New Jersey but we'll talk for hours on the phone about the old days and reminisce over the exciting times we had with Dan and with our respective bands Shanghai and The Legends back in those wonderful care free days of our youth.

Ahh, such great memories about such wonderful music and amazing people. Thanks for the opportunity to take this walk down memory lane again and give my little personal per spective of a truly great human being.

Bob Kimmel
Major Music Productions
308 Killington Court
Mays Landing, NJ 08330
Phone: 609-703-5458
Web Site: www.BobKimmel.com

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