John Leroy "Johnny" Heartsman (February 9, 1936 – December 27, 1996) was an American

electric blues Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 19 ...

and

soul blues Soul blues is a style of blues music developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s that combines elements of soul music and urban contemporary music. Origin African American singers and musicians who grew up listening to the electric blues by a ...

musician and songwriter. He showed musical diversity, playing a number of musical instruments, including the

electronic organ An electric organ, also known as electronic organ, is an electronic keyboard instrument which was derived from the harmonium, pipe organ and theatre organ. Originally designed to imitate their sound, or orchestral sounds, it has since develop ...

and flute. He contributed his distinctive

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

playing to a number of recordings made in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

in the 1950s and 1960s. He continued playing until his death. His best-known recording, "Johnny's House Party", was an R&B hit in 1957. Other notable tracks recorded by Heartsman are "Paint My Mailbox Blue" and "Heartburn". He variously worked with

Jimmy McCracklin James David Walker Jr. (August 13, 1921 – December 20, 2012), better known by his stage name Jimmy McCracklin, was an American pianist, vocalist, and songwriter. His style contained West Coast blues, Jump blues, and R&B. Over a career tha ...

Sugar Pie DeSanto Sugar Pie DeSanto (born Peylia Marsema Balinton, October 16, 1935) is an American R&B singer and dancer, whose career in music flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. Early life DeSanto was born to an African-American mother, who was a concert pianis ...

Big Mama Thornton Willie Mae Thornton (December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984), better known as Big Mama Thornton, was an American singer and songwriter of the blues and R&B genres. She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's " Hound Dog", in 1952, which becam ...

Ray Agee Raymond Clinton "Ray" Agee (April 10, 1921 – April 15, 1989) was an American blues and R&B singer and songwriter who recorded over a hundred tracks between the early 1950s and mid-1970s, and is described at Allmusic as "a fine, versatile blue ...

, Jimmy Wilson, Johnny Fuller, Al King, Tiny Powell and

Joe Simon Joseph Henry Simon (October 11, 1913 – December 14, 2011) was an American comic book writer, artist, editor, and publisher. Simon created or co-created many important characters in the 1930s–1940s Golden Age of Comic Books and served as the ...

. He is not to be confused with the American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

singer

Johnny Hartman John Maurice Hartman (July 3, 1923 – September 15, 1983) was an American jazz singer who specialized in ballads. He sang and recorded with Earl Hines' and Dizzy Gillespie's big bands and with Erroll Garner. Hartman is best remembered for h ...

Biography

Heartsman was born Johnnie Eastman Jr. in Houston, Texas, and moved at an early age to

San Fernando, California San Fernando (Spanish for "St. Ferdinand") is a general-law city in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It is bordered on all sides by the City of Los Angeles. As of the 2010 ...

. He was initially influenced by Lafayette Thomas. In his teenage years, Heartsman started working as a

session musician Session musicians, studio musicians, or backing musicians are musicians hired to perform in recording sessions or live performances. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a ...

, in the

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design, ...

with a local

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure. Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

, Bob Geddins. One of his earliest involvements was playing the

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and s ...

for the 1953 recording of "Tin Pan Alley", by Jimmy Wilson. His own efforts yielded the

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instr ...

track "Johnny's House Party (Parts 1 & 2)", released by the Music City

label A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed d ...

, which reached number 13 on the U.S. ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' R&B chart in June 1957. The

record A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

billed the act as John Heartsman, the Rhythm Rocker and the Gaylarks. His continued working as a session musician into the early 1960s. He played on Tiny Powell's "My Time After Awhile" and Al King's

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song relea ...

of "

Reconsider Baby "Reconsider Baby" is a blues song written and recorded by Lowell Fulson in 1954. Performed in the West Coast blues style, it was Fulson's first record chart hit for Checker Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records. With memorable lyrics and a driv ...

". Heartman's guitar-playing technique involved imaginative use of the guitar's volume control, producing "an eerie moan". His later work included playing in show bands, performing in

cocktail lounge Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

s, and playing as the touring organist for

. He spent 1970–1973 in Midland, Texas, as the leader of the house band at the Chateau Club. It was here that he hired the young blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Jay Boy Adams. Adams credits Heartsman as one of his musical mentors. By the late 1980s, Heartsman had reverted to playing the blues. His debut

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

, ''Sacramento'', was released in 1987. It was described by one reviewer as "a great success". He had previously appeared at the

San Francisco Blues Festival The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States. History Tom Mazzolini, the event's producer, founded the ...

in 1985. The record producer

Dick Shurman Richard L. Shurman (born May 23, 1950) is an American record producer, sound engineer, music journalist, music historian, and backing vocalist. He has produced numerous recordings by notable musicians including Johnny Winter, Lurrie Bell, Eddie ...

oversaw the recording of Heartsman's album ''The Touch'', released by

Alligator Records Alligator Records is an American, Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971. Iglauer was also one of the founders of the '' Living Blues'' magazine in Chicago in 1970. History Iglauer started the label using ...

in 1991. Over the years, Heartsman wrote songs for Jesse James ("Are You Gonna Leave Me"),

Roy Buchanan Leroy "Roy" Buchanan (September 23, 1939 – August 14, 1988) was an American guitarist and blues musician. A pioneer of the Telecaster sound, Buchanan worked as a sideman and as a solo artist, with two gold albums early in his career and two la ...

("Goose Grease"),

John Hammond, Jr. John Paul Hammond (born November 13, 1942 in New York City) is an American singer and musician. The son of record producer John H. Hammond, he is sometimes referred to as John Hammond Jr. Background Hammond is a son of record producer and tal ...

(Got to Find My Baby"),

Amos Garrett Amos Garrett (born November 26, 1941) is an American-Canadian blues and blues-rock musician, guitarist, singer, composer, and musical arranger. He has written instructional books about music and guitar. Garrett holds dual citizenship and was ra ...

("Move On Down the Line"), and several more for Joe Simon. He continued his music career until he died of a stroke in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

, in December 1996, at the age of 60.

Discography

References

External links

Johnny Heartsman
Alligator.com. {{DEFAULTSORT:Heartsman, Johnny 1936 births 1996 deaths American rhythm and blues singers American blues singers American blues guitarists American male bass guitarists Electric blues musicians West Coast blues musicians Soul-blues musicians American keyboardists American flautists American music arrangers People from San Fernando, California Songwriters from California Music of the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American singers Singers from California 20th-century American bass guitarists Guitarists from California 20th-century American male singers American male songwriters 20th-century flautists

Biography

Discography

See also

References

External links