Taro Hart

Taro Hart is a singer, songwriter, and musician based out of Los Angeles. Born January 13, 1983, he also happens to be the son of Mickey Hart. Taro not only has the distinction of being the first person to contribute to an album before he was born, but he also was the youngest guest musician at a Dead show.

While still in utero, Mickey recorded Taro’s heartbeat on a Nagra portable recorder attached to a fetal pulse monitor on the stomach of Mary Holloway, Taro’s mom. Mickey then took the recording into the studio together with flutist Steve Douglas and bassist Bobby Vega. The resulting music was then played at Taro’s birth. According to Mickey, the purpose was “to facilitate and coordinate rhythmic breathing cycles, assisting the mother’s concentration and focus before, during and after delivery.”

Initially, Mickey had no intention of releasing the music. But folks continued to ask for recordings and, eventually, he decided to put it out as an album, Music to Be Born By, recognizing that while many cultures have music to be born by, ours has “lost that ritual.” Over the years, Mickey has accumulated “maybe a thousand letters and pictures of babies born to this music.” 

Taro played with the Dead when he was just shy of seven years old at the 1989 New Year’s Eve show. That night, just after midnight, he was on the drums as the band cracked open the year with a rocking Aiko after the parade and balloon drop. Crisp video of the show is available, but it doesn’t seem to capture any glimpses of Taro with the possible exception of just after the tune when Mickey gets up and hugs someone leaving the stage. It was surely a cool moment for Mickey to share the stage with his son. And it seems that at one point in the tune Jerry turns back to the rhythm devils, digs what he is seeing for a while, and then turns back around to the mic with a smile on his face.

Taro continued to drum throughout his upbringing, but also picked up the guitar so that he could more easily play on the road and write his own songs. He has a writing credit, alongside Jerry, Mickey, and his brother Creek, on The Eliminators from Mickey’s At the Edge album as well as providing electronic drums on that release. And Taro has wrote and recorded a bunch of his own tunes as well as played gigs across the greater Los Angeles area.