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STREET BEAT |
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HEARTSFIELD |
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by Tom Lounges
While music history books rarely give them the
respect they deserve, the eclectic string-driven sextet hailed as Heartsfield
was one of Chicago’s biggest names in popular music during the early
to mid-1970s. Headed up by two
transplanted Southern boys -- J.C.
Hartsfield and Perry Jordan
-- the group blended sweet yet subtle country vocal harmonies, with
folky mountain flavorings and a lot of tasty rock ‘n’ roll guitar. Heartsfield was the first Midwest band to embrace the
burgeoning country rock (not Southern rock mind you!) sound that started
to emerge as the psychedelic Sixties came crashing to a close.
The Midwest’s answer
to California’s Eagles, Heartsfield formed just a year after the
Eagles landed their first hit in 1971, and would go on to enjoy a
glorious decade filled with some remarkable music and memories.
By the time
Heartsfield called it a day in 1981, they had released four major label
albums for the likes of Polygram, Mercury and Columbia. They shared tour bills
with a wide array of disparate acts that included -- The Doobie Bros.,
KISS, Ted Nugent, Eric Clapton, Loggins & Messina, Fleetwood Mac,
Charlie Daniels, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Guess Who. Many of their songs (most written by Perry), while not
becoming major AM hits of the day, had a
steady presence on the FM side of the dial.
Among those were “The
Only Time I’m Sober Is When You’re Gone,” “Another Man Down,”
“House of Living,” “Racin’ The Sun,” and “As
I Look Into The Fire.”
“We had a lot of
success,” remembers Jordan today.
“We played about 300 dates a year.”
The Dixie-fried hippie contingent lived to play and played to
live, but eventually “burn out” set in and the group decided to call
it a day. “As much as we
loved it, so many dates each year for so many years just caught up to
us,” he sighed.
But the straight 9 to
5 life was not for Jordan. “I
started different businesses and lived a ‘normal life’ for the
better part of 15 years and I was going crazy,” he said.
So in 1998, he resurrected the Heartsfield name.
“I tried to get all the old guys back together, but they were
all too wrapped up in marriages and kids and careers to want to go
back.”
With the help of Bed
Rock Records in St. Louis and his former bandmate and best friend, J.C.
Hartsfield, Jordan engineered the 1998 re-release of two of their four
major label titles -- “The Wonder Of It
All” (1974) and “Foolish Pleasures” (1975).
Both originally on Mercury.
Their 1973 self-titled debut Polygram album and the ironically
titled 1976 release, “Collector’s Item,” on Columbia remain lost to fans for
the time being.
While waiting for
those classic sides to again see the light of day, fans can enjoy a
smartly assembled collection of long lost live tapes by the original
band called “Live
In ‘75” and the regrouped band’s first new studio CD, “Rescue
The Dog,” which Perry boasts is the very best Heartsfield
album ever.
“When I put this band back together and
got the blessings from J.C. and all the other original guys to do this,
I promised not to tarnish the name we’d all worked so hard to
build,” said Jordan. “A
lot of times when a band has only one or two original members it’s
pretty lame, but even fans tell me they think we’ve captured the
essence of the original band and that what we’re doing now is as good
or better.”
Along with Jordan, who is primary lead vocalist and a
multi-instrumentalist, today’s revitalized Heartsfield line-up
features drummer/percussionist Scott Bonshire, bassist Steve
Eddington (ex-New Colony Six) and multi-instrumentalists David
Nelson and John Brightwell. Eric Lambert, often
called the Calumet Region’s answer to Jerry Garcia, is their newest
member having joined last summer.
“Eric came to us through our drummer Scott,” recalled Jordan.
“He’s been a wonderful addition and brings a new flavor to
the music.”
“I was looking for a musical home,” said Lambert on joining
Heartsfield last August. “I
had been doing my own thing (Lambert has four solo albums) and I was in
a bluegrass band based in Pennsylvania and to stay with them would’ve
meant relocating and I just wasn’t ready to that.”
Lambert replaced guitarist/mandolinist Tim
Johnson in the line-up. “Eric’s
no hired gun,”mused Jordan. “He’s
part of a new side thing I’m doing called The
Heartsfield Acoustic Trio (which includes David Nelson). We’re
recording an album of the three of us,” he said. Lambert is also Jordan’s partner in a new commercial
recording studio in Crestwood that will specialize in acoustic artists.
The Heartsfield Acoustic Trio fills gaps in the full bands
schedule to keep money coming in to finance projects, such as the recent
“Heartsfield All Over,”
which is a new compilation Jordan and Lambert have assembled of live
concert tracks and live radio studio performances.
“It’s a fun little
album,” said Jordan, “and it’s got a brand new studio cut on there
too. It’s our new single, ‘Don’t Wake The Sleeping Giant,’ which has a kind of Stevie
Ray Vaughan feel to it. It’s
a cool tune.”
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