By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Clinton Clegg, the lead singer, songwriter, and founder of the feel-good band The Commonheart, has fond memories of the 2021 Black Swamp Arts Festival.
They were a Saturday headliner. “We really enjoyed that night,” he said. “We were welcomed kindly and the crowd was awesome.”
And “one thing that sticks out for me is the amazing barbecue they fed us.”
Like most aspects of the festival, that barbecue was prepared by volunteers. “You could feel the community energy,” Clegg said in a recent telephone interview. That’s in tune with the Commonheart philosophy. “A big part of the message we try to spread is about community engagement, family and love,” he said. “When we walk into an environment like that, it’s really refreshing to be working with people on the same page as you.”
The band will return to the festival again as a Saturday night (9/10) headliner on the Main Stage at 10 p.m. The festival, with music, art, kids and teen activities, and food, runs in downtown Bowling Green from Friday at 5 p.m. through Sunday at 5 p.m.
While the Commonheart mission statement is spelled out in the name that connection came about through serendipity.
Back in 2014, a handful of musicians who were having a good time playing pickup shows on the Pittsburgh scene “looked around and decided we wanted to do something a little more serious, a little more focused and take it to another level.”
The new band had a gig and needed a name. The Commonheart was it.
It was only later that they realized their songs were positive messages with inspirational themes about how to be a good person and make do with what you have. They realized The Commonheart moniker “suits us very well.”
Clegg and Shawn McGregor, then the nascent ensemble’s drummer, wrote those early songs for the band. “After a couple years of doing that we had some nice modest success in Pittsburgh and decided we wanted to do some more traveling and spread our music that way. It’s a tumbleweed that just got bigger and bigger.”
The band’s rock ‘n’ roll sound, laced with heavy doses of gospel and blues, like those feel-good messages hark back to Clegg’s childhood.
He grew up in the “sweet little coal town” of Monongahela, south of Pittsburgh.
The first music that tore at his heartstrings, he said, were the blues of B.B. King and Al Green. Then there was the music he heard in church. His mother was the organist at the Episcopalian church, and she always made sure he attended.
Then his parents split up. “That led me to a wild time,” Clegg said. “I was getting into trouble a lot.” The soundtrack of those years was punk and rap.
“All those kinds of experiences melted into what I’m pushing out now.”
They had just released their second album “Pressure” in 2018, and were opening for the likes of JJ Grey and Mofro and Los Lobos. “We were getting around the country. We were on a nice roll until the pandemic.”
Last year’s BSAF festival appearance came as part of a run of shows as the band tried to get in as many outdoors shows as they could while they could.
Now with their third album, “For Work or Love,” produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, is ready to hit the streets later this month. It’s influenced by the pandemic. “This new record has to do with fearing the unknown, but knowing you’ll come out of it.”
The band is happy is to be on the other side and playing shows.
The Commonheart will be a seven-piece group when it hits BG. Joining Clegg will be: Abby Gross, saxophone, Anton DeFade, bass, Cole Insko, drums, Mike Minda, guitar, Lucas Bowman, keyboards, and Nate Insko, trumpet.
The band’s trimmed down from the ensemble that recorded “For Work or Love.” Everyone is equipped with vocal mics to produce the harmonies the band strives for.
That rock ‘n’ roll energy is the key to Commonheart’s live performances, Clegg said. “Delivering that big sound, that’s how we have to bring it.”
Music on tap at the festival Saturday (9/10):
Main Stage
Freight Street, noon
[RELATED: Freight Street delivers gritty & soaring Rust Belt anthems]
Never Come Down 1:30 p.m.
Angela C. Howell and the Happening, Saturday, 3:00 p.m.
Armchair Boogie, 4:30 p.m.
Kelsey Waldon, 6 p.m.
Charles Wesley Godwin, 8:00 p.m.
The Commonheart,10 p.m.
Community Stage
Marissa Bramble, 11 a.m.
Mark Possler, noon.
Corduroy Road, 1:15 p.m.
Native Heart, 2:30 p.m.
Mike Williams on Sax, 3:45 p.m:
Freight Street, 5 p.m.
Family Stage
Beats on the Street, 10 a.m.
Horizon Youth Theatre, 12:15 p.m.
Freight Street, 2 p.m.
Corduroy Road, 3:30 p.m.
Angela C. Howell and the Happening, 5 p.m.
Saturday After Hours (starts at 11:30 p.m.)
Never Come Down at Howard’s Club H
Tito Villareal at Juniper Brewing Company
Mike Williams on Sax and Friends at Stones Throw
