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Mickey Hart

 
Artist: Mickey Hart
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Mickey Hart

Similar Artists:

Zakir Hussain, Dzintars, Phish

Performed Songs By:

Nancy Hennings, Vince Welnick, Vikku Vinayakram, Flora Purim, Babatunde Olatunji, Rebeca Mauleón, Bakithi Khumalo, Karl Jenkins, David Garibaldi, Sikiru Adepoju, Airto Moreira, Henry Wolff, Robert Hunter, Giovanni Hidalgo

Worked With:

Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Dan Healy, Tom Flye, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia

Formal Connection With:

New Riders of the Purple Sage, Grateful Dead, The Other Ones, ModeReko, The Mint Juleps, Keith Godchaux, Donna Jean Godchaux
  • Born: September 11, 1943, New York, NY
  • Active: '70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: Rock
  • Instrument: Percussion, Drums
  • Representative Albums: "Yamantaka," "Mickey Hart's Mystery Box," "Rolling Thunder"
  • Representative Songs: "Udu Chant," "Umasha," "Temple Caves"

Biography

Mickey Hart is a drummer, an ethnomusicologist, and an author. He joined the Grateful Dead as its second percussionist in 1967. In 1970, Hart left the Dead and cut the solo album Rolling Thunder in 1972, featuring various members of the Dead. Hart returned to the band in 1974. Hart's musical activities outside the Dead have been extensive. In 1976, the Dead's Round Records label released Diga by the Diga Rhythm Band, an early experiment in worldbeat fusion put together by Hart. His interaction with drummers from around the world sparked an abiding interest in the role of the drum in other cultures -- and a steadily expanding curiosity about non-Western musics. 1979 and 1980 saw the release of two albums of music from the film Apocalypse Now, much of it contributed by Hart. In 1983, Hart released albums under the heading the World. These began with a reissue of Diga Rhythm Band (an album by Babatunde Olatunji produced by Hart). Then came a series of albums of music Hart had recorded around the world. In 1989 Hart released Music to Be Born By, an album based on the heartbeat of his son in the womb, and 1990 saw the simultaneous release of Hart's first book, Drumming at the Edge of Magic, and an album, At the Edge. In 1991, another book and disc, both called Planet Drum, appeared. Both albums made the upper reaches of the new age and world music charts. Supralingua followed in 1998, and two years later Hart returned with Spirit into Sound. 2007 saw the release of Global Drum Project with Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo on Shout! Factory. ~ William Ruhlmann & Bob Tarte, All Music Guide
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Wikipedia: Mickey Hart
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Mickey Hart

Mickey Hart at the Web 2.0 conference in 2005
Background information
Birth name Michael Steven Hartman
Born September 11, 1943 (1943-09-11) (age 66)
Origin Brooklyn, NY, United States
Genres Rock
Occupations Musician
Instruments Percussion
Years active 1960s–present
Associated acts Grateful Dead (1967-'71, 1974-'95)
The Other Ones (1998-2002)
The Dead (2003-present)
Rhythm Devils (2006)
Website www.mickeyhart.net

Mickey Hart (born Michael Steven Hartman on September 11, 1943) is a percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995. He and fellow Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann earned the nickname "the rhythm devils".

Contents

Career

Before joining the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart and his father, Leonard Hart, a champion rudimental drummer, owned and operated Hart Music, selling drums and musical instruments in San Carlos, California.

Hart joined the Grateful Dead in September 1967, and left in February 1971. During his sabbatical, in 1972, he recorded the album Rolling Thunder. He returned to the Dead in 1974, and remained with the group until their official dissolution in 1995. Collaboration with the remaining members of the Grateful Dead continues, under the band name The Dead.

Alongside his work with the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart has flourished as a solo artist, percussionist, and the author of several books. In these endeavors he has pursued a lifelong interest in ethnomusicology and in world music. His travels and his interest in all things percussion-related led him to collect percussion instruments, and to collaborate with percussion masters the world over.

Hart became interested in percussion as a grade-school student. Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji performed at schools around the country in the late 1950s and had the students try out the drums. Hart had been one of those students and he never forgot the experience. Olatunji later taught Hart and collaborated with Hart and the Grateful Dead on a regular basis.[1]

Hart was influential in recording global musical traditions on the verge of possible extinction, working with archivists and ethnomusicologists at both the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. He is on the Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center and has been a spokesperson for the Save Our Sounds audio preservation initiative. He also serves on the Library of Congress National Recorded Sound Preservation Board and is known for reissues and other recordings with historical and cultural value.

In 1991, Hart produced the album Planet Drum, which remained at #1 on the Billboard World Music Chart for 26 weeks,[2] and received the first ever Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.[3].

Mickey Hart has written books on the history and traditions of drumming throughout history. His solo recordings (featuring a variety of guest musicians) are percussive of course, but also verge on New Age music categorically. His enthusiasm for world music traditions and preservation and collaborative efforts is comparable to that of guitarist Ry Cooder.

In 2000, Mickey Hart became a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to seek to establish new knowledge and develop more effective therapies which awaken, stimulate and heal through the extraordinary power of music[4] -- continuing his investigation into the connection between healing and rhythm, and the neural basis of rhythm. In 2003, he was honored with the organization’s Music Has Power Award, recognizing his advocacy and continuous commitment to raising public awareness of the positive effect of music.[5]

Hart was also a judge for the 3rd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.[6]

After the death of Jerry Garcia and the consequent dissolution of the Grateful Dead in 1995, Hart continued to play music with various groups including members of the Grateful Dead. In the 1996 Furthur Festival, Mickey Hart's Mystery Box played, as did Bob Weir's band Ratdog.

In 2005, Hart and the members of the band Particle joined to create the Hydra Project.

During 2006, Hart teamed up with fellow Grateful Dead bandmate Bill Kreutzmann, Phish bassist Mike Gordon and former The Other Ones lead guitarist Steve Kimock, to form the Rhythm Devils, a nickname that refers to Hart and Kreutzmann's legendary drum solos and improvisation. The band features songs from their respective repertoires as well as new songs written by Jerry Garcia's songwriting companion Robert Hunter. The Rhythm Devils announced their first tour in 2006, which ended at the popular Vegoose festival in Las Vegas, Nevada over the Halloween weekend.

In June and July 2008, Hart led the Mickey Hart Band on a U.S. concert tour. The band consists of Hart, Steve Kimock on guitar and pedal steel guitar, George Porter, Jr. on bass, Kyle Hollingsworth on keyboards, Sikiru Adepoju on talking drum, Walfredo Reyes, Jr. on drums, and Jen Durkin on vocals.[7][8][9]

Personal Life

Hart, like band mate Bob Weir, has attended and performed at the secretive club's annual bacchanal at the Bohemian Grove, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.[10]

Bibliography

  • Planet Drum: A Celebration of Percussion and Rhythm (1991)
  • Drumming at the Edge of Magic: A Journey into the Spirit of Percussion (1998)
  • Songcatchers: In Search of the World's Music (2003)
  • Spirit into Sound: The Magic of Music (2006)

Solo discography

Notes

  1. ^ African Music Encyclopedia
  2. ^ Smith, E. "Doc". "Planet Drum Comes to the Masonic", BeyondChron, September 22, 2006
  3. ^ "The Grammy Winners", New York Times, February 27, 1992
  4. ^ Mission of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function
  5. ^ Past Music Has Power Awards Honorees
  6. ^ Independent Music Awards - Past Judges
  7. ^ Graff, Gary. "Hart: The Dead Happy To Rock Again For Obama", Billboard, July 1, 2008
  8. ^ Pizek, Jeff. "Mickey Hart: Unity, Healing through the Beat", Daily Herald, July 4, 2008
  9. ^ Kilgore, Kym. "Mickey Hart Band Drums Up US Tour", Live Daily, May 23, 2008
  10. ^ http://articles.latimes.com/2006/aug/21/local/me-bohemian21

References

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mickey Hart".  Read more

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