S.O.S. Artist: Craig
Bickhardt
Buy Tickets Now to see Craig Bickhardt
S.O.S. Artist: Craig
Bickhardt -
Song Title: All
My Life performed by David Wilcox
Walking Through Fire
A dusty six-string in an attic corner marked the
beginning of Craig Bickhardt's long road to success as a musician and song
writer. The year was 1968, a time when the guitar was coming into it's own in
the hands of Eric Clapton, John Fahey, Jimi Hendrix, and Muddy Waters. Craig
studied the styles of these and other pioneers and then turned to the streets of
his hometown to find other young musicians who were drawn to the same sounds.
These included guitarist and songwriter Michael Sembello ("Maniac").
The Philadelphia music scene was lively and
diverse in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Clubs like the Electric Factory and
the Main Point brought the best talents in the music world to the neighborhoods
where Craig and his friends spent their after school hours.
His
mind made up to pursue music, Craig passed on college and instead formed a band
with two talented young singer-songwriters, F. C. Collins and Rick Bell, who
were performing as a duo on the east coast club circuit. With the addition of a
rhythm section the new band, calling themselves "Wire and Wood", began
performing original material and immediately gained a strong local following
opening for artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Stephen Stills.
In 1974 Craig abandoned the Philly scene for Los
Angeles, where he hooked up with his high school friend Sembello. The two struck
up their old song writing relationship composing songs that would eventually be
recorded by Art Garfunkle and others. As regulars at the Topanga Canyon Corral,
Craig and a re-aligned version of Wire and Wood worked on their sound and
experimented with song writing until they finally caught the ears of J. C.
Phillips and Albert Grossman, who were forming a new partnership called October
Records.
The band was poised to step into the spotlight
with Grossman and Phillips behind them when suddenly, just before dawn on a
February morning in 1975, Craig was awakened by voices shouting in the hallway
of the small Mission Hills home they rented.
"I was half asleep, but I remember them saying
'Don't panic- the house is on fire. Just get up and get out!' I put on my jeans
and casually looked around for my boots. I guess I was a little too calm about
the whole thing."
As Craig opened the door into the hall, he saw
the thick, black smoke and menacing flames already engulfing the walls and
ceiling.
"I choked and fell down. Luckily there was still
oxygen at floor level so when I caught my breath I was able to scramble under
the smoke and flames until I made it out the front door of the house. The roof
fell in a few minutes later. I probably said once that I'd walk through fire to
be able to play music, but I never figured I'd really have to!"
Broke, burned out of everything they owned, the
band faced the daunting obstacle of getting across the country to Albert
Grossman's studio in Bearsville, New York without money or instruments in order
to fulfill their recording obligation.
A few gigs with borrowed gear, a small advance
from Grossman and Phillips, and their troubles seemed to be behind them.
Although the recording session at Bearsville went well, the Lp was never
completed. The new label folded after one unsuccessful release on a talented
young keyboard player named Jonathan Cain (Journey). A few months later Grossman
was dead. Lacking the money to return to LA and without the guidance of their
label head and producer, the group finally hit a dead end and disbanded in 1979.
More determined than ever, Craig turned his full
attention to song writing. Over the next few years he landed cuts with Anne
Murray and others, sparking the interest of EMI publishing in New York where he
was signed to an exclusive song writing contract in 1982. Craig was immediately
asked to write a song for a movie that veteran director Bruce Beresford was
about to make. The screenplay, written by Academy Award winner Horton Foote, was
about a down and out country music songwriter. Robert Duvall was cast as Mac
Sledge, the film's leading role. The producers flew Craig to Nashville to record
his song "You Are What Love Means To Me" with hit record producer Brent Maher
(The Judds, Kenny Rogers). It became the movie's closing theme. "Tender Mercies"
went on to win two Academy Awards.
"I received the best red carpet treatment any
unknown writer ever got in Nashville," Craig says. "It was like I stepped into
someone else's life for a few days."
On returning to Philadelphia Craig quit his job,
sold or gave away most of his possessions, packed everything else into a trailer
and headed south down interstate 81 to an uncertain future in Nashville,
Tennessee.
Within a few months of arriving in Music City he
made friends with several newcomers to Nashville including singer-songwriter
Wendy Waldman, with whom he wrote his first top ten hit "That's How You Know
When Loves Right" recorded by Nicolette Larsen and Steve Wariner. He was also
introduced to maverick record producer Allen Reynolds (Garth Brooks, Kathy
Mattea), who took him into the studio to cut a few masters. The friendship that
developed during the process was a key relationship for Craig.
"With Allen I felt I had met the person who could
really see what I was getting at musically. He stripped the sound down to a live
studio performance of me and my guitar, and built it back up from that
foundation. He taught me that there's a certain integration between my playing
and singing that is essential to capturing the song as I've written it. I've
been approaching my recording that way ever since."
By 1987 Craig was on Music Row Magazine's list of
the hottest song writers in Nashville. His songs began appearing on records by
many of country music's biggest names. The Judds "Heartland" album featured
three songs Craig had a hand in, including the number one Billboard hits "Turn
It Loose" and "I Know Where I'm Going". "You're the Power", recorded by Kathy
Mattea, hit Billboard's top five. Cuts by music legends Ray Charles and B. B.
King followed.
But staying behind the scenes was never
Bickhardt's intention. Soon he began performing in a new live format created by
friends Don Schlitz, Thom Schuyler and Fred Knobloch, who performed regularly at
a local Nashville club called The Bluebird Café. The format, dubbed "In the
Round", consisted of the performers sitting "guitar-pull" style in the center of
the audience to trade songs and jokes for a few hours. The four-man shows
created a buzz in town and before long the tiny club was packed to capacity
every time Thom, Don, Fred and Craig booked an evening there.
Schuyler
and Knobloch liked the blend of the three part harmonies when Craig joined the
In-the-Round, so when Paul Overstreet decided to leave their band SKO to pursue
other interests Craig was drafted as Paul's replacement. Within a year the newly
configured trio's song "No Easy Horses" was on the charts. SKB's CD of the same
name garnered critical acclaim and went on to yield the successful singles "This
Old House" and "Givers and Takers", with both songs featuring Bickhardt's name
in the song writing credits. The short-lived act made a second CD but their
label, MTM Records, folded in 1989 and the three friends decided to go their
separate ways.
[Listen to a short SKB interview from 1987 with Kyle Tullis of WSM Radio]
Returning to what he loved most, Craig spent the
next few years exploring his writing. The results included the number one hits
"In Between Dances" (Pam Tillis), co-written with Barry Alfonso, and "It Must Be
Love" (Ty Herndon), co-written with Jack Sundrud. He also landed platinum album
cuts with "Where I Used to Have a Heart" (Martina McBride), "All the Things
We've Never Done" (Martina McBride), co-written with Jeff Pennig, and "Even a
Cowboy Can Dream" (Trisha Yearwood), also co-written with long-time collaborator
Barry Alfonso. Another movie theme followed when Craig's song "Where I Used To
Have A Heart" was featured in the thriller "Switchback"
In 1993 Craig once again collaborated with Thom
Schuyler on a twelve song CD titled "Precious Child". The project, a re-telling
of the Christmas story through the eyes of the characters, included performances
by Vince Gill, Janis Ian, Michael Johnson, Guy Clark and others.
Late in 1998 Craig turned his attention to his
long delayed solo recording. Over the next three years he produced recordings of
a dozen of his best songs that featured his trademark acoustic guitar playing
and soulful voice. Finally in July of 2001 the CD "Easy Fires" was completed.
Now at home in the niche he has carved for
himself, Craig continues to write songs that artists around the world make room
for on their recordings. Among his recent cuts are "If He Came Back Again", a
recently unearthed outtake recorded by the legendary Highwaymen (Johnny Cash,
Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson) co-written with Barry
Alfonso, and "I'd Move Heaven and Earth", another collaboration with Jack
Sundrud that Ty Herndon has included on his Greatest Hits CD.
Jack and Craig have also recently released their
duo CD "Idlewheel" to rave reviews.
All material on this webpage Copyright 2001-2006
by Craig Bickhardt
Permission granted to download for publicity purposes and study only.
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