A few years ago, Nick Hornby – who wrote the novels High Fidelity and About a Boy and a small library of other things – submitted to McSweeney’s Internet Tendency a short piece on the wake of creativity left by heartache. In the article, he cited Ryan Adams’ Heartbreaker, and the song “Oh My Sweet Carolina” in particular, as examples of emotional pain giving rise to artistic wonderment. “Some people are at their best when they’re miserable,” Hornby wrote.

As if to prove Hornby’s dictum, songwriter James Ellsworth took the multifarious misery left by his own little heartbreaker and folded it into a group of songs of exquisitely dark beauty, raw emotion and sardonic humor. Heart on Sleeve, a masterful 17-song elegy released in 2006, accomplished two things: it helped Ellsworth digest the sour soup of lost love, and it brought together a group of consummate musicians who had such a blast bringing Ellsworth’s woe to life that they formed a band that was so good it needed two names. Originally dubbed the Dynasorrows, a clever poke at the general agedness of the members and the sadness of the material, they eventually began calling themselves Clusterfolk when traditional labels for their style of music fell short. The name change also reflected another truism regarding misery: the man of constant sorrow eventually cheers up.

Ellsworth’s descent into gloom began in late 2005 when the 13-year relationship he’d had with the woman he’d been living with, his soul mate, began its descent. “In a short period I lost my house, my job and my partner,” he said. “I didn’t do anything but ride my bike, sleep and try to drink myself to death for about nine months.” He’d been working in the studio on songs he already had with hand-drummer Dan Halferty, with whom he’d played in a duo called Eh? for a few years. Halferty, who went to high school with Ellsworth at Prairie Heights years ago (they were in band together), helped develop the tempo and feel of the songs. “He’d bring a song to me and I’d start playing something,” Halferty said. “Sometimes it would be just what he was thinking. Other times he’d want me to play the opposite of what I was playing. It seems to have worked out.”

In the spring of 2006 he enlisted the help of guitarist Duane Eby, bass and mandolin player Dave Kartholl, violist Felix Moxter and his daughter, Sarah, a vocalist, and headed back into the studio. Heart on Sleeve by James Ellsworth and the Dynasorrows came out the next fall.

Ellsworth’s smart lyrics expose the soul of a man who is confused, angry, sad, sarcastic, indignant, pleading and suffocating – all those pleasant emotions accompanying heartbreak. The music dances and twists and floats along in perfect symbiosis. The song “Breathe,” for instance, finds Ellsworth and Sarah doing delicate harmonies on the chorus; then he sings, “The air is thin / I’ve lost my hold on her / She slips away from me with ease / Out on a mission to find something new / I find it difficult to breathe.” Eby’s guitar, meanwhile, with the help of an EBow, floats hauntingly in the space between the verses and, at times, seems itself to run out of breath.

No matter what you call them, the band is tight, the result of years of playing together in various bands and jamming in kitchens, living rooms, cabins and around campfires. A recent campfire jam nearly proved to be Eby’s last. After a gig at a private party, most of the band decided to hang out and play some more. At some point, in the middle of a song, Eby’s heart stopped and he slumped over, dead. Quick thinkers at the party got his heart going again, several times; so did the EMS team which came to the scene, and the ER people at the hospital in Lagrange, and the folks on the helicopter that took him to Parkview in Fort Wayne, and again at the hospital. In the end, his heart was restarted nearly a dozen times, until it didn’t stop again. He doesn’t remember a thing. 

“People from the party call it the ‘death party,’” Eby told me. “Since I don’t have any memory of it, I don’t have any attachment to it, so I don’t think about it.” After Eby flew off into the night in the helicopter, Kartholl took Eby’s guitar home and sat up late playing it. There was nothing else to do.

Perhaps it was the whole dying thing, or just the relief of getting his guitar back, or maybe the new songs Ellsworth had written, but at a recent gig in Sturgis, Michigan, Eby – hell, everyone – played with exceptional vigor, vigor befitting the new direction Ellsworth wants Clusterfolk to take. “It’s not as dark,” Ellsworth said. “It’s more like backwoods psychedelia. The new songs are less sentimental, but not necessarily more up-tempo. They’re more about sex and less about love.”

“The new stuff is really, really good,” Kartholl said. “It’s intellectual hillbilly punk. There’s a song called ‘Meth-Lab Dog,’ about a dog he met while riding his bike, and one called ‘Circle the Wagons,’ which is kind of a cowboy song. It’s got big words in it, like ‘maelstrom.’ There’s another song with an even bigger word, like 12 letters long. He’s really warped, but he writes really good stuff. It’s got a punk feel to it but it’s still sweet acoustic music.”

Eby concurred.

“Jim’s got a unique approach to the songs,” Eby said. “I like doing the original stuff because it lets me just play whatever I have in my head. It’s such a release because I don’t have to take the normal role and be the front man and do the rhythm. He’s a little shy about letting me know what he wants me to play. I have the tendency to dive in and go for the jugular.”

Ellsworth may indeed be cheering up, but let’s hope he’s still connected to the inspiration that grew from his misery. That would be good for all of us.

Clusterfolk play next at the Ellsworth-hosted 6th Annual Pretty Lake Acoustic Festival. The festival runs from noon-11:30 p.m. September 13 at the Pretty Lake Conservation Club on S 890 E north of South Milford. This year’s lineup, in addition to Clusterfolk, includes: Joyce Fry, Grateful Groove, Wednesday Project, FDA Trio, Jill Mozena and Fred Rothert, Mike Conley, Marshall Howey, and the Distractions. Tickets are $10. Bring a lawn chair, food, beverages, kids, blankets, but no pets.

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