After recording with the Funk Brothers in 2003 and releasing the Motor City Serenade cd in the UK and Europe, Stewart Francke felt the tug of life away from his music--he needed to invest more time and energy into being there for his then-young children and caring for his aging parents. Although he didn’t release anything during this eight year period other than Alive & Unplugged At The Ark, he continued to write and record in his home studio almost daily. After surviving leukemia, a bone marrow transplant and several years of complications while still releasing records each of those years, he also needed to exhale. However we don’t often choose when and where those deep breaths will come; Stewart and his family were about to endure another numbingly rough period. 

Beginning in 2005, each of his parents and in-laws became very ill and passed away, year after year, ending with the death of his father, Stewart Francke Sr., in August 2010. It was a complete generational passing that changed everything about how he saw life and made his music. “The most difficult phase of the last few years was watching my mother in law fade away in the darkness of Alzheimer’s Disease,” Francke says. “She was the most vibrant, talented woman and she was reduced to an infantile existence in a very short time. That disease takes such a toll on all who love them as well. It devastated my wife, who was still coming to terms with the death of her Dad. But all this difficulty didn’t just give me a theme for this batch of songs—it imposed itself on the songs. We don’t need to look for uncertainty or death as a subject in life; it’s always with us. While we’re happiest we’re also moving closer to that immense change; while we’re on vacation we’re also dying. It just is.”

While this reflective reality informs many of the songs on Heartless World, there are several of Francke’s most rocking, humorous tracks ever on this record—“Born In A Fever,” “Sam Cooke’s On The Radio” and a JB-style funk workout that also works as a slice of social criticism, “You Want What You Don’t Got (and you don’t want what you got).” “’Fever’ is just a shaggy dog story,” Francke says, “a funny tall tale about a wild young rounder permanently in heat, and “Sam Cooke’s On The Radio” is a top-down summer driving song, going downtown to hear music with your girlfriend or boyfriend and just enjoying the highest sensations of life, feeling carefree and wonderful.” 

Even the songs about generational change and stark self assessment rock with gleaming Gretsch guitars and bright piano riffs—Heartless World is an uptempo, emotional record that either rolls or rocks, displaying Francke’s love and use of the great twin traditions of Detroit music—Motown soul and guitar garage rock. “It’s easily the record of mine that is the most revealing personally. Most of the songs are in the first person, and they aren’t narrative; they’re confessional. But I got the music right—these are the forms closest to my heart.” 

The standout track is of course “Summer Soldier (Holler If Ya Hear Me),” Stewart’s compelling call-to-arms with Bruce Springsteen. “This is a tremendously generous thing for Bruce to do,” Francke says, “and of course a great honor for me. It was always his voice I heard on the call and response part of this track, but figured it would remain just a wish. Bruce had said some kind words about my music in the past, and we’ve said hello on a couple occasions, so I sent the song along to him through his management. He found something in it compelling enough to join me, and I’m still a bit knocked out about it all. His involvement ups the ante on my entire career. He’s been the quintessential artist of our time—the guy who wrote the book on how it’s done. Quite simply, it’s a dream come true.”

“’Summer soldier,’ Francke continues, “refers to all of our military people now serving in the Middle East, those men & women on their third or fourth tour in Afghanistan or Iraq. The song came about because I was asked to sign and send a some cds and posters for Michigan military people in Iraq this past winter. A few wrote back. One young woman was a mother as well, and she was over there for 9 months on her third tour after being promised she was done rotating a year ago.  Little has changed with the change of administrations, which has heightened their frustration, and mine. The song is about one soldier dying, but it’s also about the wars and how our military people are asked to go on third, fourth and even fifth tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with no real clear purpose other than the original neo-con mandate of making Baghdad and Kabul look like Kansas or Vermont.  How we arrogantly force "democracy" down their throats with military force.  In one sense it's a soldier’s story; in another it’s about this idea of American Exceptionalism as international hubris.”

Other songs—the Petty-ish “Heart Of A Heartless World,” the soul ballad “Snowin’ In Detroit”—as well as “Summe Soldier”—also feature the iconic rock drummer Johnny Bee Badanjek and Kid Rock sideman Jimmie Bones on piano & organ. The sessions for many of these songs at Harmonie Park were magical, involving Bee, Bones, Rod Stewart guitarist Paul Warren, longtime Etta James sideman Bobby Murray, and Shane Fontayne, guitarist extraordinaire with Springsteen, Sting and Marc Cohn.Chuck Bartels of the Bettye LaVette band rounded out the band on bass. “The musicianship on this record is about as good as it gets in this style,” Francke says. “These guys all have immense chops, yea, but they also have experience, humor, heart and soul—and all those things come out in their playing.” 

"Boo Yah (Take My Mother Home)," another standout track, is a funky vamp with Amp Fiddler on clavinet and Detroit rock and soul legend Mitch Ryder on vocals. “Mitch is a friend and hero and maybe my favorite living singer,” Stewart continues. “This whole project has seemed charmed since we began recording.” 

“Heartless World is about trying to find a home, a place to make a stand in the world, after all of your foundational pillars have gone to dust, Francke says. “I embrace change, and find it challenging, but there’s a minute—far more than a minute--there where you first turn around again after a lot of loss and you don’t recognize the world you’re living in. It’s through these songs that I’m trying to reconstruct a world that I want to live in—a world where I remember the best things about the people and a world that are long gone, a world where we look out for each other, and the currency is finding hope, finding common ground and having faith in each other, not in luck or some druid dude in the sky or Wall Street. Trusting music and work and each other. When you have no one or nothing left to lean on, do you fall on your face or find another way to stand? Or do you become someone everyone else can lean on?”

As momentous as this new music is, it’s not all for the Detroit based singer-songwriter. He’s also recently signed a worldwide contract with e-book publisher Untreed Reads, who will release What Don't Kill Me Just Makes Me Strong, Stewart’s memoir of his battle with leukemia, a bone marrow transplant, lengthy complications and recovery.  "I'm thrilled to be on the cutting edge of the e-book phenomenon," Francke says, “and eager to write this book and try and make sense of all that’s happened over the last several years.  Untreed Reads will get this story out and into the hands of my audience.  People are buying more e-books now than conventional books, and I'm very optimistic we'll quickly find our readership. I think this story has some things in it that could be of help to anyone going through a tough time of any nature."  The e-book will be released later this year.

This kind of penetrating and emotional music and writing is nothing new for Francke, one of Michigan’s most beloved performers and songwriters. From his beginnings in the Michigan industrial city of Saginaw to bright lights on national stages, his creative work has transformed the lives of thousands who’ve listened to his songs or read his writing. In 2009 Stewart’s hometown of Saginaw recognized his music by awarding him a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Saginaw County Cultural Arts Commission for “the enjoyment and insight his songs have brought to so many in his home town, home state and beyond.”

A leukemia survivor, Stewart has been recognized by the Points Of Light Foundation for his personal work in cancer patient support. The Stewart Francke Leukemia Foundation was presented the prestigious Partnership In Humanity Award by the Detroit Newspapers and he was named Volunteer of the Year by the National Marrow Donor Program in 2002. He's been recognized by his peers in his community through numerous Detroit Music Awards, including Best Artist, Songwriter & Album. Hour Detroit readers voted him most popular musician 2002-2004. He was awarded a Creative Artist Grant by Artserve Michigan in 2004.

He’s performed on bills with the likes of Sheryl Crow, Stevie Winwood, Steve Earle, Eddie Money, Huey Lewis & The News, Shawn Colvin, Hootie & The Blowfish, Chicago, Hall & Oates, Chuck Berry and many others, and fronts his own rock/soul band at venues across the country.

His first album, Where The River Meets The Bay (1995), contained the hit single, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," made famous through its use as an episode theme for the TV show Melrose Place. In the ensuing nine albums there have been other regional hits, including a duet with Detroit legend Mitch Ryder and several songs cut with the Funk Brothers, in what was their last session together. He’s sold over 50,000 copies of his ten albums through independent distribution and marketing, with his latest being 2009’s Alive & Unplugged At The Ark.

A writer for more than 20 years, Stewart is a contributing editor to Detroit’s Metro Times. In 2006, Wayne State's Ridgeway Press released a collection of Stewart's lyrics and writing on music, life and Michigan living titled Between The Ground & God. The book won two 2007 National Indie Excellence Awards, and led to an invitation to read at the New York Book Festival.

His work in writing and music has led to him being interviewed on numerous high profile shows, including Sirius Radio, CBS TV, Fox Morning Show, the Mitch Albom Show, ABC News, NBC News, and the Fox Health Channel. Feature articles about him have appeared in Playboy, No Depression, ASCAP’s Playback and countless newspapers and periodicals. Cited by critics and his fellow artists alike as a vital American artist, Stewart has the unique ability to talk about his own work in an engaging, self-effacing manner.

“Thank God for Stewart Francke. Thank God for his feeling healing music, for the sweetness of his soul, the sincerity of his songs, the strength of his vision. His music is enriching, nourishing music – music as faith, music as celebration, music whose source is clear and joyful love.” -- David Ritz, author of "Divided Soul: The Marvin Gaye Story" & "Brother Ray."

"Stewart Francke is one of a kind. A talent that encompasses both songwriting and prose writing appears rarely. How much rarer then is a songwriter whose sensibility includes Johnny Cash and Gore Vidal, Yoko On and the Funk Brothers, marriage and mortality, race relations and cancer treatment? Standing courageously at the intersection of rock and soul music, influenced equally by Marvin Gaye and Brian Wilson, Francke possesses all the tools: A sweet voice, a vision that’s grand without being grandiose and an undying love of sound for its own sake, along with an equally passionate engagement with everyday life and the people who live it. This music isn’t classic anything only because, like every real artist, Francke takes the world as he knows it and moves on his own course. Motor City Serenade is the most important blue-eyed soul record in a musical generation." --Dave Marsh

"Listening to Stewart Francke's music is like waking up and finding yourself in an alternate universe. It's a place where rock and soul still speak to each other, where you catch glimpses of what the seventies might have become if we'd lived up to their long-forgotten promise. It immerses you in a soundscape where you hear Motown and Philly International communing with Pet Sounds and Fleetwood Mac. It's a good world to imagine, and, Francke promises us, it isn't really out of reach. Part of the sense of promise lies in the music itself. Whether you're coming at the music from rock or soul, you can close your eyes, relax and let it wash over you. When you come back to the world, you'll feel energized and renewed. Like the best music of he rock and soul era, this music believes. It believes that we can reach a higher ground, that the conversations between black and white, between blues realism and gospel redemption, remain as vital as they were before narcissistic irony swamped our shared hopes and dreams. Like Marvin Gaye and Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder and Ani DiFranco, he knows that, if we find the strength to tell our own stories honestly and he courage to open ourselves to others, our burdens can be a source of hope, not despair. And, he insists, the only meaningful response is to love each other and to change the world. " -- Craig Werner, Gleason-award winning author of Change Is Gonna Come and Higher Ground