Music journalist Phil Hardy dies aged 69Music Week
April 11, 2014
Respected film and music industry journalist Phil Hardy has died aged 69. His passing was unexpected.
Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire in 1945, Hardy studied at the University of Sussex and the University of California, Berkeley, and at Sussex, he founded The Brighton Film Review.
He wrote for Time Out, Variety and other publications while acting as a consultant on music business issues for bodies such as the World Bank and the Greater London Enterprise Board. In 1986, he travelled to Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan to research, write and film Food, Trucks & Rock 'n' Roll, a documentary about how the money raised by Band Aid was spent in Africa.
In 1992, Hardy founded Music & Copyright, a biweekly newsletter published by the Financial Times, offering news and analysis on the international music industry.
This publication swiftly acquired a reputation for its thorough, insightful content, and became essential reading in government and cultural circles as well as the front line of the industry.
As a result, Hardy was increasingly in demand as speaker and moderator at a number of international music business conferences. Later, Music & Copyright was acquired by Informa Media, which continues to publish the title today.
Hardy's many books include Samuel Fuller (1970), The Encyclopedia of Horror Movies (1986), The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music (1990), and The British Film Institute Companion to Crime (1997).
The three-volume Encyclopedia of Rock (1975), edited by Hardy and Dave Laing, remains one of the few such reference works to include the entrepreneurs and record companies behind rock & roll, as well as artists and musicians. Hardy was also the chief editor and contributing writer of The Aurum Film Encyclopedia. His Western Encyclopedia won the BFI Book Award in 1984.
His most recent book, Download! How Digital Destroyed the Record Industry, was published at the end of 2012.
Hardy died in Norfolk on Tuesday 8th April, 2014. He is survived by a son, Joel, and a daughter, Emily.
HARDY, Phil
Born: 1945, Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, U.K.
Died: 4/8/2014, Norfolk, Norwich, England, U.K.
Phil Hardy’s western books - author:
The Western: The Complete Source Filmbook – 1983
Encyclopedia of Western Movies – 1984
The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Western - 1995