American singer Daniel Earl Hartman was born on 8th December 1950 and passed away on 22nd March 1994. He also wrote songs and played several instruments.
At a very young age, he took piano lessons and in later years sang in his high school’s choir as well as studied theatre and journalism.
When he was 13 years old, Dan became a member of a group named ‘The Legends’ and with whom he played the keyboards in various localities like churches, concerts, dances and rock shows.
A few years later, Dan became the group’s leader and wrote most of their songs which were released but did not receive the expected success. So, Dan decided to send some demo tapes to a well-known radio personality who listened to the material and was favourably impressed, so much so that he introduced him to a famous American musician and eventually Dan joined the ‘Edgar Winter Group’
Dan continued to compose songs and the band had some successful hits like ‘Free Ride’, ‘Autumn’, ‘Easy Street’ and ‘River’s Risin’. In 1976, Hartman pursued a solo career and 2 years later released his first number 1 dance hit ‘Instant Replay’, followed by a second hit ‘Relight my Fire’ in 1979.
During the 80s, Dan had a few more hits namely ‘I Can Dream About You’, ‘We are the Young’ and ‘Second Nature’. In 1989, his last album was released. Afterwards, Dan worked in collaboration with several prominent artists and bands and composed songs for them, provided backing vocals and also set up a recording studio to produce songs. He even wrote soundtracks for various movies.
Hartman passed away in March 1994 from a brain tumour at the age of 43.
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