Description
High Noon is a compilation album by the late American singer and songwriter Mark Heard (December 16, 1951 – August 16, 1992), posthumously released on Myrrh Records in 1993, a division of Word. Re-released the following summer in the mainstream music market by Naked Language, the alternative-rock division of Georgia-based Ichiban Records. The compilation was put together by Heard’s indie label Fingerprint Records and features selected tracks from Heard’s last three studio albums, four previously unreleased tracks (“She’s Not Afraid,” “No,” and “Shaky Situation,” and a rough demo of “What Kind Of A Friend”), as well as Heard’s take on “My Redeemer Lives” originally released on the multi-artist project At The Foot of The Cross, Volume One in 1992. The album was produced by Dan Russell and Buddy Miller.
Mark Heard had integrity that was rare in the music business. He made art. Nothing was calculated, no one was manipulated. Mark was deep and he was dark, he was hilarious and an unimposing visionary. I learned so much about making records and being real, and when I sit at that Trident recording console, I marvel how his soul poured through it and the beauty he coaxed out of it. Mark set the standard. [Buddy Miller, 2012]
In March 1994 a multi-artist tribute album entitled Strong Hand of Love: A Tribute to Mark Heard was released by Fingerprint Records in co-operation with Myrrh Records, distributed by Epic Records. An expanded version of the tribute was re-issued by Fingerprint Records in 1996 as a double disc album entitled Orphans of God.
This brilliant collection from the late Mark Heard contains three new songs, a new version of a previously released cut, plus 13 songs gleaned from his three limited distribution Fingerprint recordings: Dry Bones Dance, Second Hand and Satellite Sky. As an added bonus track, it also includes Mark’s rendition of the hymn «My Redeemer Lives» which he recorded for the 1992 alternative worship album, At the Foot of the Cross.
The highlights of the album for Mark Heard fans are the three new studio cuts recorded by Mark in 1991-1992 specifically for this album. The somber «She’s Not Afraid» stands with the best of Mark’s character songs as it describes the fears of women who can face the worst problems that life has to offer except for inevitable loneliness of growing old. The song «No» with its own introspective regrets, is in many ways a companion of «Not Afraid» only written in the first person. «Shaky Situation», an upbeat blues-inflected piece reminds us that even the best of human love is tenuous in a fallen world.
For the many people who did not have access to the previous albums from which the other songs were selected, the whole collection is a gem. (Though indeed that could be said about any collection of Mark Heard’s songs). High Noon contains some of Mark’s strongest songs including the longing-filled «I Just Wanna Get Warm»; «Love is So Blind» with its resonance of I Corinthians 13; and the strong statement of faith found in «Hammers and Nails». The album ends with «Treasure of the Broken Land», the most moving and powerful song I’ve ever heard about death. Mark wrote the song after watching his father die a grueling death in a hospital bed. But when Mark died himself less than a year later, many felt that the song was about him; that in Mark’s death this broken land had truly lost a treasure. “I saw the city at its tortured worst / And you were outside the walls there / You were relieved of a lifelong thirst / I was dry at the fountain / … Treasure of the broken land / Parched earth give up your captive ones / Waiting wind of Gabriel / Blow soon upon the hollow bones.” [Matthew T. Dickerson, CCM, February 1994]
CD tracklist:
01. Strong Hand Of Love – 3:03
02. I Just Wanna Get Warm – 3:52
03. Look Over Your Shoulder – 3:29
04. My Redeemer Lives – 2:54
05. Another Day In Limbo – 4:30
06. She’s Not Afraid – 3:51
07. The Dry Bones Dance – 3:36
08. House Of Broken Dreams – 4:11
09. Everything Is Alright – 4:24
10. Hammers & Nails – 4:40
11. Love Is So Blind – 3:14
12. Nod Over Coffee – 4:37
13. Love Is Not The Only Thing – 4:48
14. No – 3:14
15. Shaky Situation – 4:14
16. Orphans Of God – 6:21
17. What Kind Of A Friend – 1:56
18. Treasure Of The Broken Land – 6:21
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Myrrh Records, with the cassette version missing three of the CD tracks: “Everything Is Alright”, “Hammers And Nails”, and “Orphans Of God”.
A full-page advertisement for the posthumously released Mark Heard compilation High Noon was featured in the February 1994 issue of CCM Magazine.
Strong Hand of Love: A Mark Heard Documentary
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