Holler if You’ve Heard Stewart Francke

What do Bruce Springsteen, leukemia, the Funk Brothers, Afghanistan and Iraq, Chuck Berry, bone marrow transplants, and blue-eyed soul have to do with Stewart Francke and his music?

Everything.

Stewart Francke, who died all too early last week at 66, was one of those rare birds of music, flying higher and further than many of us mere mortals. His life and his music were intertwined, both full of empathy, harmony, and compassion. His loss deprives us of a musician whose songs reminded us of what it takes to live a full life—and what we owe each other.

I was lucky enough to connect with Stewart on a couple of occasions, and both times I went away not just impressed, but exhilarated. That’s because in the best tradition of Springsteen, Stewart believed that music, at its finest, should move those of us who hear it to take some sort of action—to learn more, to right a wrong, or even just to dance and have fun.

“It’s about connecting with the community,” said the son of Saginaw, Michigan, and the pride of Detroit. “Mostly it’s about me reaching out to other people, asking, ‘How’s it been for you?’ When they tell me, I’ll put that into a song and, in turn, try to reach as many people with that message as I can.”

This was the case when Stewart was asked by his Michigan neighbors who were in the National Guard and Reserves, fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for signed posters, CDs, and other memorabilia. One soldier asked him to send a box of leaves from Michigan so he could smell home. Another, a young mother, lamented about her having to serve nine months on her third tour of duty after being promised that she would be sent back home a year before.

“Summer Soldier (Holler If Ya Hear Me)” was Stewart’s response to the call of her and Iraq/Afghan soldiers.

“The song is about one soldier dying, but it’s also about the wars and how our military people are asked to go on multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with no clear purpose,” he explained.

And it sure didn’t hurt to have Bruce Springsteen helping him to “holler” and be heard.

“It was a really generous thing for Bruce to do,” Stewart admitted, “and a great honor for me. It was always his voice I heard on the call and response part of this track, but I figured it would remain just a wish. Bruce had said some kind words about my music in the past, so I sent the song to his management. He found something in it compelling enough to join me, and I’m still overwhelmed by it all.”

Probably the reason Stewart could get there in “Summer Soldier (Holler If Ya Hear Me)” and to connect with soldiers/veterans, was who he was but also how his music was steeped in blues and soul. Explains, too, how he collaborated with Chuck Berry, the Funk Brothers, and others.

“My songs are based in rock and roll and soul music,” he explained to me and a small group of Madison Wisconsin friends over dinner nearly two decades ago. “Both are very human, and the music is caught up in this rolling ball of glue kind of art that picks up everything in its path, and rolls backward and forward, collecting emotions and echoes from the church and the home and the fields and the plants—from everything and everyone.”

That translated directly to Stewart’s own life and health challenges. A cancer (leukemia) survivor and the beneficiary of a bone marrow transplant, he remained steadfast and positive.

“Not every songwriter gets the chance to comment on life and death from where I was,” he pointed out. His recovery prompted him to launch The Stewart Francke Leukemia Foundation to help fund bone marrow searches for minority and low-income patients, since they are less likely to find a match with a family member. He also did “smaller” things on his own, like perform at churches, the Light the Night Walks, and media events.

The last time I saw him was in 2017 at the Perrin Brewery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He brought a hard-rocking band along to accompany me and my co-author Craig Werner and cover many of the songs in We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War. To say the least, he and his band nailed their cover versions of “The Letter,” “Gimme Shelter,” and a Creedence Clearwater Revival medley that included “Fortunate Son.”

In the most powerful moment, Stewart played his Iraq War song, “Summer Soldier (Holler if you hear me),” strumming his guitar as he sang “England’s dreaming across the water/Summer soldiers, lambs to slaughter/Wives and daughters tying yellow ribbons in the sun/Holler, holler, holler if ya hear me.”

The audience hollered.

And we’re hollering for you now, our departed brother. Holler if you hear us.

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Vietnam veteran Doug Bradley is the author of Who’ll Stop the Rain: Respect, Remembrance, and Reconciliation in Post-Vietnam America, co-author with Craig Werner of We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, which was named best music book of 2015 by Rolling Stone magazine, and DEROS Vietnam: Dispatches from the Air-Conditioned Jungle, now available as an audiobook. His music-based memoir, The Tracks of My Years, will be released by Legacy Book Press in August.