After graduating from the University of Georgia in 1974 with an ABJ (bachelor of arts in journalism) degree in television, Heard traveled to Switzerland to study at L'Abri under the influential evangelical Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer. Singers Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill stumbled onto Mark one day playing his guitar. Because Norman and Stonehill expressed interest, Heard spent most of his spare time the next two months putting together a demo tape in a local studio with the help of the Pat Terry group (Pat Terry, Sonny Lallerstedt and Randy Bugg). Norman was so impressed by Heard's abilities that he soon signed him to his record label, Solid Rock Records. In 1977, Heard and his wife Janet moved to Glendale, California. He begin working on his Appalachian Melody album for the label, but would also maintain a close relationship with the people at the L'Abri for years. In 1980, Heard recorded and released Fingerprint on a Swiss label.
In 1981, Heard began a recording contract with Chris Christian's Home Sweet Home Records. Although Heard's sales did not attract attention from the major Christian labels, Christian felt Mark's music was unique, fresh and deserved to be heard. Christian funded his projects with no production oversight, which is what Heard wanted. His signing to the label was a departure from the commercial artists that Christian traditionally signed and produced on the Home Sweet Home label. Heard released five albums for the label: 1981's Stop the Dominoes, 1982's Victims of the Age, 1983's Eye of the Storm, 1984's Ashes and Light and 1985's Mosaics. The overall experience was not one that Heard enjoyed, partly due to his personal experiences with record company executives, and partly due to compromises he felt under pressure to make himself so that his songs were more marketable to Christian audiences.
In 1984, Heard began recording in his home studio, which he dubbed "Fingerprint Recorders", after the title of one of his earlier records. From that point on, his albums were largely made at home, with just a handful of friends and relatives lending a hand. In 1986, Heard decided to try something a little different and recorded the experimental Pop/Rock album for What? Records entitled Tribal Opera, under the name iDEoLA. When asked about the unusual name, Heard replied "It's not supposed to be mysterious or anything; I just put a band together and right now I happen to be the only one in it." Heard also directed a music video for the single of that album, "Is It Any Wonder".
With assistance from Dan Russell and Chuck Long, Fingerprint Records and studio were born. Heard began to produce albums for a number of artists including two albums for Randy Stonehill, Jacob's Trouble, Pierce Pettis and 1992's Vigilantes of Love album, Killing Floor, which he co-produced with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. Stonehill's Until We Have Wings includes a song co-written by Heard, "Faithful", although the CD liner notes credit the song to Heard's pseudonym, Giovanni Audiori. In 1988, Heard collaborated with Randy Stonehill and other well known artists on Phil Keaggy and Sunday's Child. In addition to writing and performing credits, he helped with the engineering.
Heard returned to recording albums of his own in the early 1990s, with Dry Bones Dance. Fans and reviewers alike hailed the new release as one of the best of his career. He followed Dry Bones Dance with Second Hand in 1991, and Satellite Sky in 1992, which would turn out to be his final release.
Death
On July 4, 1992, Heard had a heart attack on stage while performing with Pierce Pettis and Kate Miner, at the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL, near Peoria. Heard finished his set and went to the hospital immediately afterwards. Two weeks after being released from the hospital, Heard went into cardiac arrest and died on August 16, 1992.[1][2] Before Heard's death, he had been included on the Legacy II sampler from Windham Hill's High Street label, and was nearly finalizing a mainstream contract with Bruce Cockburn's label, True North Records in Canada. There was also interest from Sony's Columbia Records label for distribution in the US.
In 2000, a group of fans gathered together to help Fingerprint Records release Mystery Mind, the first collection of previously unreleased material from the songwriter. There were plans to release a full length collection that same year, but those plans never came to fruition.
In 2002, the Cornerstone Music Festival held a songwriting contest in honor of Heard. The following year, Paste magazine released Hammers and Nails, a CD of previously unreleased recordings by Heard. An authorized biography of the same name was also released by Cornerstone Press, written by Matthew T. Dickerson.
In a June/July 2006 Paste magazine article (from the special collector's issue featuring the 100 Best Living Songwriters), Heard was remembered under the heading Wish You Were Here: "Mark Heard's lyrics are weighted with such a wry longing that they'll forever reflect a fresh turbulence."
Pierce Pettis and Ralston Bowles have covered a song by Mark Heard on each of their albums released since Heard's death.[3]
