I believe in cosmic connections, and I have a number of incidences to confirm that I’m in the right place.” As it turned out, I met my wife in graduate school, and my journey east was in order to bring my twins into the world. “I knew something was calling me,” he said. Yeats as a seminal influence for him-and went on to complete his doctorate degree at Boston University, where he also met his wife and the love of his life. “There was everything before, and then everything that came after.”Īfter splitting with The Spin, Hearon decided to relocate to New England where he “wanted to be a poet.” He earned a master’s degree in Irish studies from Boston College-Hearon mentioned the Irish poet W.B. “The experience with The Spin was a fault line in my life,” Hearon said. In fact, The Spin came close to signing with Warner Brothers, but a record deal never manifested, and the band members decided to part ways. While working on a bachelor’s degree in English at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, Hearon played bass in a band named The Spin, an alternative-rock quartet who recorded four albums while sustaining themselves solely through their musical endeavors in the mid-90s. At 13 years old, he began writing his own songs while simultaneously following his interests in stories and poetry. With Hearon, the need to create came early and was inspired by his mother, who is also a musician, and his exposure to folk music. Hearon’s second studio album, “Yodelady” will be released on Aug. But the artist is always secondary and, in some ways, accidental to the creation.” “I like to make stuff, and I enjoy exploring the forms that things can be made in. “Creation feels like something I must do and is largely the reason I’m on this earth,” said Hearon. Meanwhile, Hearon’s second studio,“Yodelady” (The first album “Border Radio” is available on all streaming platforms) will be released on Aug. He has also written and produced numerous plays while establishing the Bridge Theater Company in Boston. “He makes me think that the great arc of art moves toward simplicity.”Īs an artist, Hearon has dabbled in multiple mediums throughout his life, publishing three books of poetry and a novella titled “Do Geese See God” (2021). “As aged, his music simplified and he began to achieve that condition of anonymity,” Hearon said. If blindfolded, one could be tricked into thinking Townes Van Zandt, the brilliant and troubled bard who died in 1997 at age 53, was standing there in front of them.įor Hearon, Van Zandt’s songwriting and music inspires him creatively. Hearon plays in front of bales of hay-set pieces placed for an aesthetic effect-wearing blue jeans and a collared shirt with his acoustic guitar strapped over his shoulder and belting out “Loretta,” accompanied by Holbrook and Beller-McKenna’s silken harmonies. They’re performing a set inside of Rob Azevedo’s barn in Pembroke, and recording it for Azevedo’s radio program “Granite State of Mind,” which continues to promote New Hampshire artists and musicians and currently airs Fridays on 95.3 WMNH at 6 p.m., and again at 94.6 WNHN on Saturdays at 11 p.m. On a drizzly spring evening in June, Hearon and his band are playing songs from a program titled “For the Sake of the Song: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt and Texas Music,” which also promotes a collection of essays edited by Saint Anselm College professors and two of Hearon’s band-mates Ann Holbrook (vocals) and Dan Beller-McKenna (guitar and vocals). “It’s your signature in another person’s ink, and the ink is timeless, but you don’t know where that ink came from,” said Hearon. Still, Hearon, 55, a husband and father of 15-year-old twins, remains resolute in producing art-in a variety of forms-that aspires toward what he describes as an “inimitable anonymity.” In many ways, Hearon is a modern Renaissance man, Michelangelo moonlighting as an English teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy.īut there is so much more to unpack with this poet, musician, playwright, author and scholar born in Fort Worth, Texas, and raised in the Smoky Mountain-region of North Carolina. PEMBROKE, NH – If Todd Hearon were not so humble, so kind-hearted and congenial, it would be easy to resent his endless talents.
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