Photo by Marcus Junius Laws

Photo by Marcus Junius Laws

Warren Jackson Hearne is a singer and guitarist who writes original music, based in experimental aspects of Southern music traditions, which usually shuffles in a minor key. Hailing from Texas, he has been crafting his style for over 20 years from the American traditional music of his upbringing and the more diverse sounds he has absorbed from loving music of all kinds.  Hearne is "one of the most original folk musicians working today," according to the Great Falls Tribune.  


If folk music is defined as either a type of traditional music that is passed down through families or as Mike Seeger puts it “all the music that fits between the cracks,” then Hearne is comfortable with that category.  In fact, it was his  musical family that is his biggest influence, from his grandfather Henry who sang in a gospel quartet with his brothers, to his uncle Dick who played the lute and was involved in early music, to his father Lindy and mother Lynda who played in country legend Roy Clark's band, as well as leading their own bands.  


You could say that his musical upbringing started before he was born, for when his parents performed his father's song "Bitter Coldness" on Hee-Haw, his mother was pregnant with him.  Hearne began playing music early on while growing up in Memphis, banging the drums at Ardent Studios where his dad recorded and started piano lessons at age 4.  Through his schooling in Missoula, Montana, he picked up woodwinds, was involved in marching band, and eventually started playing guitar.  He first started composing songs at age 15.  


In the early 2000's, he moved to Denton, TX and started his all-acoustic band "Warren Jackson Hearne and the Merrie Murdre of Gloomadeers."  The Gloomadeers played festivals, toured the country, and released "Grave Ambitions" in the first decade of the new millennium.  In 2012, he released "Eleutheros!" with a new band and electric instruments, adding jazz and soul to his sound.  The Dallas Observer noted that "everything Warren Jackson Hearne touches turns to gold" and has nominated him, his bands, and bandmates for awards.  Over the years he has shared bills with acts as diverse as the Growlers, Billy Joe Shaver, Steven Fromholtz, Miranda Lambert, Weyes Blood, Faun Fables, and Jimbo Mathus and the Tri-State Coalition. 


Currently, Hearne continues to tour the United States with eyes on the rest of the Americas, Europe and beyond.  He is working on a new solo album, an album for a brand new band, and longer pieces for theater and other multi-media projects.  You can bet that all of these projects will strike the listener as different from the norm, for as the Denton Record-Chronicle says, "everything about him is authentically and uniquely him."