VIDEO: Jamie and the Guarded Heart Releases 'Black Dresses' Music Video

Telecaster driven, working class rock and roll outfit, Jamie and the Guarded Heart, fronted by Jamie Salvatore and Morgan Russo, have released the video for their latest single, "Black Dresses," with an exclusive premiere on Wildfire Music & News.

"Black Dresses' has more than a passing relationship to the album's title, Funeral Song," enthuses Wildfire. "Since it not only takes on the texture of local life, delivering a snapshot of the local Legion Hall, but also jumps off into the sense of loss and mourning that the album particularly highlights in a search for catharsis."

"Black Dresses" is a song about processing loss," the band says. "In the past few years, we've experienced a lot of it... and it just doesn't get any easier. We wanted to talk about specifically what it feels like in our little corner of the Philly suburbs on the day of a funeral. Because while they're all different, they all have common threads. We shot the video with our buddy Bob Sweeney at a baseball field in Bridgeport, PA on a cold and windy January day. The interior shots were from a super shady motel that we had to sneak the cameras into. A very bizarre, very cold but very memorable shoot. In the end, Bob was able to capture the bleakness we were talking about in the song."

Jamie and the Guarded Heart will release their newest LP, Funeral Song, on April 29th. The Scott McGinley (New Religion, BLISS) produced album features ten originals written during the darkest days of the pandemic. It includes the single "I Don't Love You" and the Bob Sweeney directed video which finds the band out and about in their Philadelphia neighborhood of Conshohocken and performing at their home base venue, The Lannutti Post.

"The songs for the album came about while being on lock down, but really they've been inside of me since I was a little kid," says Jamie. "Writing for us is like a mundane fever dream. A look through the veil of who we grew up around and the way we saw life unfold (or how we wish it unfolded) in a blue collar area. We write about what we know. Growing up in the Philadelphia area -- and Conshohocken specifically -- is my reference point for the world. One of the things that has been an amazing life lesson, is that while I'm writing about my hometown and my experiences, other people frequently tell me the songs are just like THEIR experiences. The sentiments are universal. And for that, I'm very fortunate."

"We've put everything we got into this album, says the duo. "All our time, our money and our hearts. One thing we've been fortunate with is that the people have been there for us... even when it seems like the music industry doesn't care. We feel that is because we're just a couple of kids from a town like theirs, out there for a fist fight, trying to make their mark on a business that probably doesn't care about them. But we care. And we care about the people who connect to this thing. We're playing for legacy and we won't let them down. This record is who we are. Listen to it. We hope it speaks for itself."

Chosen as the "Band of the Month" by world renowned WMMR in Philadelphia, Jamie and the Guarded Heart have performed on Jammin' Jessie's Live at 5 (iHeart Philly's 104.5) and received support from local NPR station, WXPN.

After a decade of playing cover music 200 nights a year in bars, Jamie Salvatore was ready to quit. He was burned out, uninspired and lost. That's when his partner Morgan Russo hatched a scheme. "Why don't you start a project where you just play your songs and you really give it a go? Something real, something you believe in." she asked. "I'll do it, but only if you do it with me." he replied, and Jamie and the Guarded Heart was born.

Funeral Song focuses on the dream chasing, the lost nights, the hopelessness, the dead-end jobs, the ghost of people gone from your life and the undying pursuit of the thing you love most. If you want it, it's there, and if you need someone to show you how to get it, it's Jamie and the Guarded Heart.

Jamie and the Guarded Heart will be playing select dates in support of Funeral Song.

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