Biography
Bob Corbin and David Hanner first crossed paths while still in high school, launching a songwriting partnership after witnessing the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. The pair soon cut an album for Jubilee that failed to register any impact. Real traction arrived only once they reached college. There they assembled the rock band Gravel and began performing regularly across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Although the group issued several singles on Columbia, Gravel remained strictly a regional act. In 1979 the outfit rebranded as the Corbin/Hanner Band, shifting its emphasis to country-rock while incorporating keyboardist Al Snyder, bassist Kip Paxton, and drummer Dave Freeland. Over the ensuing two years the expanded lineup achieved four hits, among them “Time Has Treated You Well,” and delivered two albums on the Alfa label, Son of America (1980) and For the Sake of the Song (1981). After continued touring through 1984, Corbin and Hanner chose to step back and went separate ways.
At the prompting of Mercury Nashville president Harold Shedd, the pair reconvened in 1990, shortened their name to Corbin/Hanner, and began preparing fresh material. Black & White Photograph arrived that same year, split evenly with five songs from each writer—Corbin favoring rootsy rock while Hanner evoked the 1960s pop of his youth. Just Another Hill followed in 1992 and contained numerous joint compositions. A live document of a 1982 concert surfaced in 1997, and the following year Every Stranger Has a Story appeared as the debut release on their own Liddl' Red Hen imprint. That album supplied the title track for Kenny Rogers’ 1999 comeback record and yielded several minor hits for the duo itself. Attention then turned to fan-oriented collections: By Request (2000) offered re-recorded versions of twenty songs, while The Corbin/Hanner Band (2002) gathered all forty tracks from the Alfa period along with both Mercury albums complete.
At the prompting of Mercury Nashville president Harold Shedd, the pair reconvened in 1990, shortened their name to Corbin/Hanner, and began preparing fresh material. Black & White Photograph arrived that same year, split evenly with five songs from each writer—Corbin favoring rootsy rock while Hanner evoked the 1960s pop of his youth. Just Another Hill followed in 1992 and contained numerous joint compositions. A live document of a 1982 concert surfaced in 1997, and the following year Every Stranger Has a Story appeared as the debut release on their own Liddl' Red Hen imprint. That album supplied the title track for Kenny Rogers’ 1999 comeback record and yielded several minor hits for the duo itself. Attention then turned to fan-oriented collections: By Request (2000) offered re-recorded versions of twenty songs, while The Corbin/Hanner Band (2002) gathered all forty tracks from the Alfa period along with both Mercury albums complete.
Albums
