Artie Baldacci, drummer with Chicago band Heartsfield, dies at 73
As a drummer, Artie Baldacci was the throbbing heart of Heartsfield, a band formed by a group of South Side rockers in 1970 that opened for some of the biggest names in music, including Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers, the Charlie Daniels Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Waylon Jennings, Kiss and the Marshall Tucker Band, among others.
And Jimmy Buffett, before he got huge, once opened for Heartsfield.
"Artie had so much drive and he just kicked the band's ass," said bandmate and childhood friend Fred Dobrinski. "He kicked us into gear."
Before disbanding in the early ’80s, Heartsfield released four albums — and hit No. 95 on the Billboard Top 100 chart with the 1974 single “Music Eyes” — but never quite broke through with that one big record. The country rockers were dubbed the “Sweethearts of Lincoln Avenue” in their 1970s heyday.
Mr. Baldacci died Sept. 30 after suffering an apparent cardiac event, his wife, Leslie Baldacci, said. He was 73.
"Artie had amazing stories, like the time Keith Moon, the drummer for The Who, came busting into a photo shoot, just being his jovial, maniac self," she said.
There was also the time Mr. Baldacci was riding shotgun with Dobrinski at the wheel — against his better judgment after a hard night out with musicians — when their car spun out in rainy conditions and came to rest in a rural Wisconsin farm pasture surrounded by cows.
"I got out of the car and thought, 'What are we going to do?' and started yelling 'Mayday! Mayday!' like a pilot who crashed," recalled Dobrinski with a laugh, noting the two avoided serious injury. The muddy duo knocked on the door of a kind farmer, who pulled their car out of his field with a tractor.
Burnout from touring led to the band breaking up. Mr. Baldacci took two months off before joining Chicago musician John Hunter's band in 1985. Hunter had a Top 40 hit with a song called "Tragedy" that earned his group an appearance with Dick Clark on ”American Bandstand.”
In 1989, a week after his second daughter was born, Mr. Baldacci got a regular job for the first time in his life as a manager of Midwest Percussion, a drum shop that was located in the south suburbs.
"Everybody who worked there was a drummer and you kind of know the reputation — odd birds, like from the movie 'Spinal Tap' — and there were substantial hijinks in that shop. It would have been a great sitcom," his wife said.
"The 'Canadian tuxedo' was his daily uniform — denim with a T-Shirt, usually bearing the name of a percussion company or famous drummer," she said.
One time, Mr. Baldacci went to see Sting and sat near the front and showed so much enthusiasm for Sting's drummer, Vinnie Colaiuta, that Sting asked him during the show, "Who are you, his father?" and Mr. Baldacci responded, "No. I just love him, man!"
It's how he talked. If his young daughters and their rambunctious friends were all dressed in princess costumes and jumping off furniture at his Morgan Park home, he'd tell them, "Hey, man, don't jump on the couch."
Mr. Baldacci was born Dec. 3, 1950, at Roseland Community Hospital and raised a short distance away by Ed and Florence Baldacci, who both taught piano and played music professionally. He attended Mendel Catholic High School, studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and was a lifelong Detroit Lions fan for chromatic reasons.
"He loved his Lions because he grew up watching them play the Bears every Thanksgiving and he was enraptured by the Honolulu blue uniforms," his wife said.
He was once given the opportunity to man an oxygen tank on the sidelines of a Packers/Lions game in Green Bay by a percussionist customer whose family ran the tanks, said Tom Scheckel, a former co-worker who drummed for the Buckinghams.
"Artie got to see his hero Barry Sanders up close and he was yelling and cheering even though we were supposed to be impartial, and I was going to Artie, 'Look! Look!' as I put my skinny leg next to the giant arm of a Lions player," Scheckel said.
The band Heartsfield came together after a group of friends, all in their early 20s, gathered to jam on acoustic guitars at the Midlothian home of J.C. Hartsfield. (slightly tweaking his last name for their title)
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Years later, Mr. Baldacci passed at the chance to be part of a reunion. But he loved playing drums throughout his life, especially when he'd set up a kit next to his friend Scott Bonshire at an annual picnic hosted by a mutual friend.
Mr. Baldacci met his wife, Leslie Baldacci, in South Haven, Michigan, where members of Heartsfield rented a home along the waterfront. A group of her friends rented a home next door.
"He asked if I wanted to go on a boat ride and if I was married to the guy I was dating at the time and I said no I wasn't and he said, 'Then I have to tell you something, I love you,' " recalled his wife, who is a former Sun-Times reporter and columnist.
"He was a nut. I'm sure other ladies had heard that line but it was a first for me. We just sailed off into the sunset that night," she said.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Baldacci is survived by his daughters Natalie Baldacci and Mia Berglind, as well as one granddaughter.
A visitation will be held Sunday from 2 to 5 p.m. Panozzo Brothers funeral home, 530 W. 14th St., Chicago Heights. A funeral service will follow at 5 p.m. Flowers at the service will be Detroit Lions blue and white. Prayer cards will include a lyric from a Heartsfield song: "A sweet melody and a backbeat, let the music play."