Hardin had one of his few commercial successes with his single of Bobby Darin's "Simple Song of Freedom", which reached the US Top 50.

For his second Columbia release, producer Ed Freeman had most of the backing tracks recorded in advance for Hardin to later come to the studio and perform his vocals.

[1] In contrast to Hardin's previous releases where he had written all his own material, Bird on a Wire includes cover songs for four of the ten tracks.

[3] The sessions featured contributions from numerous jazz musicians including Joe Zawinul, Miroslav Vitouš and Alphonse Mouzon of Weather Report, Glen Moore, Ralph Towner and Collin Walcott of Oregon, and future Peter Gabriel/King Crimson bass guitarist Tony Levin (at the time, still working mainly in the jazz and fusion field).

In his review for Allmusic, music critic Bruce Eder wrote "The singing is exquisite, poignant, and powerful and the production is as tasteful and eloquent as any in Hardin's output.