Chicago Rocker Cover Story

Having Fun with the Karen Hart Band by Guy Arnston

Nobody has more fun on stage than Karen Hart. All you have to do is look at her, with her welcoming smile, infectious stage manner and boundless energy, and you know she loves her job.

"My main goal is to get people smiling and dancing and moving around, "the veteran guitarist and keyboardist asserts. "I’m already having fun. I want them to have fun. And then if they start having even more fun, I will too."

The lissome blonde, first bitten by the music bug at the age of four, has been having fun onstage with her west-suburban-based KAREN HART BAND since 2007, when she brought together some former band mates for a private party. Guitarist Norm Leonard, the sole remaining member of that party band, had first played with Karen back in the ‘90s. "I was in a band with Norm for a while, GUI (pronounced gooey), which stood for Graphical User Interface," she explains, "because Norm and I were both programmers at the time." Drummer Gerry Sasso came from BAND ON THE RUN and bassist John Chisari (SELECTIVE RECALL) joined after the band’s 2008 Taste of Chicago performance.

With her rhythm section firmly in place, Karen has reached a comfort level onstage that lets her be herself, even if the crowd is as big as Taste of Chicago. "It’s all about level of preparedness," she says. "I do a lot of research trying to figure out what are the good songs and what songs fit us. I also listen to our fans. I always take their input to put the songs that they want to hear into the set."

Those songs include Gerry’s vocal take on DAVE MASON’s "Feelin’ Alright?" and Norm’s version of TOM PETTY’s "American Girl." Karen drops the guitar for her cover of JIM PETERIK’s "Vehicle," Norm ably suggesting Peterik’s original guitar solo while making it his own, over MIDI’d keyboard horn tracks. John’s pulsating bass line propels the two slashing guitarists through THE PRETENDERS’ "Mystery Achievement."

A certain amount of serendipity has followed Karen through her career with a number of local bands. Starting in 1988, she played with CHEAP DATES for six years after drawing a crowd of admirers with a borrowed guitar during a break in their show. Her first gig with them was at the Rosemont Horizon, now the Allstate Arena. "That was my first gig ever and I just totally got hooked. It was so much fun," she enthuses.

After that, "I was out of a band for a while," Karen admits, "and I really got the itch, so I just started asking around, then looking through ads, and answered an ad for a lead guitar player, which I am not," she insists. The audition turned into a jam session, and the jam session turned into yet another band, Z SHARP, which lasted a couple of years before Karen teamed up with Norm in GUI.

Her time as keyboard player in the PAT BENETAR tribute band BATTLEFIELD gave Karen her next big break. She had finished her warm-up set at Chicago City Limits when the headliners asked to speak to her. "The lead singer says, "We just saw you play with BATTLEFIELD, and we’d like to know if you’d be interested in joining BAND ON THE RUN as Linda McCartney?" And I said, "Wow, did I sing that bad?’" Karen laughs. She stayed with them for about five years, until the band dissolved around the time of that private party.

Now a regular attraction on the local club and festival circuits, Karen and the boys like to play popular songs that people can relate to, and dance to. "I actually go out into the audience a lot, to interact on a one-on-one basis, to get everybody having fun, too," she stresses, singling out MELISSA ETHERIDGE as a personal favorite. The Etheridge version of TOM PETTY’s "Refugee" is a particular crowd pleaser.

"The other ones that I like are the ones that I can get out in the crowd and dance to. So what we’ve done with a few of the songs, we try to do them close to the originals but we add a longer outro ("Rhiannon," "Gold Dust Woman," "Feelin’ Alright?"), meaning, Karen goes out in the audience while Norm does a whole bunch of leads," she laughs again, "so I can dance with everybody."

Karen brings out the heart-shaped guitar for ELVIS’s "Burning Love," her growls adding emphases as Leonard fondles his leggy-lady guitar. "Norm has a lot of guitars that he brings to the show," Karen remarks, "and each one is always a surprise. He’s got the girl guitar, and he’s got the tommy gun guitar, and he’s got a clear see-through guitar. I can’t remember all of them."

Guitarist Leonard effortlessly rips off some fluid solos on his red Stratocaster but the focus is rightly on Hart. Soft-spoken in person, Karen can get tough onstage. She rocks it like she owns it, long hair blowing in the breeze, and never once stops smiling, and to her that’s the point.

"I think that’s really the main goal right now, for me," Karen sums up, "to make sure everybody’s having a good time."

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www.KarenHartBand.com