Chapel Hart bringing country sounds to Cedar Rapids

Chapel Hart doesn’t just deliver well-constructed songs and soaring harmonies. The Mississippi country act scores points for creating humorous videos.

The clip for the catchy single, “You Can Have Him Jolene,” features lead vocalist Danica Hart getting even with an unfaithful boyfriend in an amusing manner.

Thanks to the charismatic frontwoman’s bandmates — sister Devynn Hart and their cousin Trea Swindle — Hart learns that her beau has a cheating heart. The video’s climax features Hart busting a beer bottle over her creepy boyfriend’s head.

“I can’t tell you how much fun it was to make that video,” Danica Hart said while calling from Minneapolis. “Making that video was as enjoyable as writing the song.”

The bandmates have been asked why the boyfriend in the video is white.

“That’s an easy one,” Danica Hart said. “No Black actors auditioned for the part. But who cares that my boyfriend in the video is white?”

Hart hopes the world of music will no longer care about the color of country artists’s skin.

“I get it, we’re Black,” Devynn Hart said. “I would rather the focus be on the music. I don’t want to hear that someone is a great Black country artist. No one says, ‘Hey there’s Carrie Underwood, now there’s a great white country artist.’ But there are more and more Black country artists.

“I hope that someday it won’t be such a big deal. I think things are changing for the better regarding country music and race. It’s also getting better for us.”

Chapel Hart has been experiencing some recent serious validation. “You Can Have Him Jolene” is a response to the Dolly Parton classic “Jolene.” The iconic face of Dollywood loves the Chapel Hart tune.

“When we heard that Dolly is into our song, we were screaming on the inside,” Danica Hart said. “We had no idea how this song was going to be received, and for Dolly to love it, well, there’s no greater honor.”

Chapel Hart earned plaudits during its run on “America’s Got Talent” in 2022. The trio performed “You Can Have Him Jolene,” and the response shocked them. The song delivered a Group Golden Buzzer from the four judges and host.

That allowed Chapel Hart to advance to the next round of competition. They earned a spot in the finals after performing their original song, “The Girls are Back in Town.” Chapel Hart followed by performing a cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About,” with Darius Rucker.

“That entire experience was surreal,” Danica Hart said. “It was incredible.”

However, the television competition run almost didn’t happen.

“We weren’t going to do it initially, since we thought it would be career suicide,” Danica Hart said. “We were supposed to go out on the road with the Indigo Girls, but that didn’t happen. But then we decided to do ‘AGT.’ and it worked out so well since we left it all onstage.”

The group was especially worried about meeting “AGT” judge Simon Cowell.

“But we forgot that Simon loves girl groups,” Devynn Hart said. “We were floored by how much he loved us. It was such a great experience for us.”

The “AGT” run gave Chapel Hart a great deal of confidence.

“That’s so important since you wonder how good you are,” Swindle said. “You wonder where you stand in Nashville. After ‘AGT’ we got this huge boost and now we’re incredibly confident. People really like what we do.”

Chapel Hart, which will perform Saturday at the Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids, is on its “Glory Days” tour. A forthcoming album will drop this year, and the group still hopes to tour with the Indigo Girls.

"We would love that,“ Danica Hart said. ”We've been fans of the Indigo Girls for a long time. We love their songs and their harmonies. We’re very excited about what’s going to happen in 2023.“

It helps that the members of Chapel Hart are family and have been close for as long as its members can remember.

“You can be honest when you’re close,” Danica Hart said. “You lay it all out there — and that’s a good thing. Fortunately, the three of us all get along so well. It’s special that we’re doing this, and it’s leading to something that we never could have imagined.”