Hats off to Hearne
Jun. 30—details
Bill Hearne regularly appears at Ahmyo River Gallery (652 Canyon Road), Cowgirl BBQ (319 S Guadalupe Street), and La Fonda (100 E. San Francisco Street). He's also scheduled to play at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 1, at the Second Street Brewery Rufina Taproom (2920 Rufina Street). Visit billhearne.com.
He takes the stage with Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry for a free concert at 6 p.m. on July 18 at the Santa Fe Plaza. Visit tickets.lensic360.org for information.
When country-Americana artist Bill Hearne's wife became too ill to perform in 2004, the musician wondered if his high-profile run at La Fonda on the Plaza was over.
Bill and Bonnie Hearne had long been a team notable for their onstage chemistry, alliterative act name, and pairs of thick, distinctive glasses, the latter a result of serious vision impairment. He played guitar; she played piano. Both sang. By the time Bonnie was forced to leave the stage, they'd been performing as a unit in New Mexico for 25 years and Santa Fe for 13.
When Hearne expressed doubt about his future as a solo act, a manager at La Fonda reassured him, telling Hearne, "'Bill, we expect you here next week, and we know what you do is going to be good.'"
Apparently, it was. Nineteen years later, he's still in the Santa Fe spotlight, performing twice per month at La Fonda and weekly at Cowgirl BBQ. He'll be under an especially bright one during a free concert July 18 at the Plaza, when he opens for Texas singer-songwriter James McMurtry as part of the Lensic 360's Santa Fe Plaza concert series.
There, he'll be seen by several hundred — and while Hearne won't be able to make out the faces in the audience, his world is far from dark. He was born with congenital cataracts, a condition he describes as a film that develops on the eye's lens.
"I was born in '49," he says. "They discovered that I wasn't responding to light very well. So I had a number of surgeries in Dallas, where I grew up, and I lost the left eye. In my right eye I have no lens, so what replaced the lens was very thick, fisheye-type glasses. My glasses are very strong, allowing me to see stuff nearby, which is what's critical for me to see."
Hearne doesn't drive and gets around Santa Fe using paratransit. He can, however, read and watch television. He had his final eye operation in the early 1950s and says the medical treatments for his condition have come a long way.
"Today, they would have removed the lens with a laser and replaced it with a synthetic lens," allowing for nearly 20/20 vision, he says.
At 74, Hearne says that back and shoulder issues are more of a problem now than his vision, but he's grateful to be in reasonably good health.
Before moving to Santa Fe, the Hearnes spent 12 years living and performing in Red River, located just over 100 miles to the northeast.
"We'd been playing in New Mexico a lot through the '70s," Hearne says. "We got connected to a musical group that was based in Red River."
The Hearnes made the move from Austin, Texas, to Red River, serving as the resident entertainers at a restaurant-bar in town from 1979 until 1991. It was idyllic, but not ideal.
"It was difficult for two people who are visually challenged," he says. "Red River had no real amenities."
As a result, they often had to get rides. After the restaurant-bar was sold to new owners who weren't interested in offering live music, the pair considered their options.
"In late 1991, we were approached by the people from the La Fonda Hotel, mainly a woman named Evelyn Martinez who had just taken over as food and beverage director there," Hearne says. "She had heard us play and contacted us about being resident artists there two nights a week."
The Hearnes played a couple of one-off shows at the hotel before beginning their weekly run on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
"People seemed to love us, so we were hired for six months, then a year, then kept signing contracts," Hearne says. "That went on until Bonnie retired in 2004, and I thought 'Oh, man. I'm done. [La Fonda is] not going to want me by myself.'"
Bonnie Hearne had Turner syndrome, a condition that results from missing part or all of an X chromosome. It only affects women. She was taking medication to treat it that increasingly affected her memory onstage, her husband says. Bonnie Hearne died of sepsis in 2017 at age 71, which didn't come as a surprise following a period of declining health, Bill Hearne says.
Hearne sings in a slightly lower register than during his youth, a common adjustment for longtime performers. He doesn't write music and aims to avoid covering songs that are too familiar. His and Bonnie's albums are available on his website, with such locals-pleasing titles as Live at the La Fonda Hotel and From Santa Fe to Las Cruces.
The Hearnes' lives and careers were immortalized in the 2018 documentary New Mexico Rain: The Story of Bill & Bonnie Hearne, created by Santa Fe University of Art and Design graduate Bunee Tomlinson. It won awards at the 2019 Sunny Side Up Film Festival in Miami, Oklahoma, and the Bare Bones International Film & Music Festival in Muskogee, Oklahoma (the documentary is not available for viewing due to music rights issues).
Hearne doesn't think the timing of the documentary was a coincidence.
"That was a result of the New Mexico Music Commission Lifetime Achievement Award that Bonnie and I both received individually in '17, like four months before she died," he says, describing the prestigious ceremony held at the Lensic. He adds that the award came as a surprise, in part because he was born in Michigan.
But he embraces a signature New Mexico look, with his thick glasses and cowboy hat, and is easily recognized around town. He doesn't mind the celebrity — for the most part.
"I've gotten frustrated a time or two, just feeling a little bit pressed, but I do my best to give people my best when they come up and say hello," he says. "But I'm very fortunate. I have a buddy who rides me about this and says, 'Bill, you got to take care of everybody. People want to talk to you.'"
