Country Music Group of Year plays at the Bangor State Fair

It’s proving to be a breakthrough year for the band Restless Heart.

The five-member band was named the 1990 Country Music Association Group of the Year. Their fourth album, “Slow Movin’ Train,” is heading up the charts, and has spawned two hits, the title track and “Dancy’s Dream.”

“We’re out playing the music we love to our fans. This makes you feel you’re doing something right, playing what people want to hear,” said lead singer Larry Stewart.

Formed in 1984, the band is finally headlining in 1990. Restless Heart will perform at 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 4, in the Bangor Auditorium at the Bangor State Fair.

Stewart likes playing for fair crowds.

“You get a lot of people who don’t know who you are,” said Stewart in a phone interview from his home in Nashville. “It gives us the opportunity to introduce ourselves to a lot of folks, to a diverse crowd of people.”

Stewart said the Restless Heart sound, on the border between country, pop and rock, has found a ready new audience.

“We’re bringing in a lot of young people and people who are listening to pop radio,” he said. “These are people who don’t want to hear the disco being played on Top 40 radio. Country music now sounds like the rock of the `70s, a rootsy sound with something to say.”

Restless Heart has gained popularity despite the fact they don’t fit the traditional, back-to-basics country mold which took over country music during the ’80s. That’s because they had an ally in country radio, which has led to a string of No. 1 hits.

“We’ve felt like we’ve been swimming upstream,” said Stewart. “But country radio couldn’t have been better to us.”

The group is made up of veteran Nashville musicians who got to know each other. Stewart and keyboardist Dave Innis were in one band, bassist Paul Greg and drummer John Dittrich were in another group, and guitarist Greg Jennings and producer Tim DuBois were friends. Their trademark harmony grew from some of the musicians’ backgrounds in gospel and folk.

“One day we went into the studio and gathered around the mike,” recalled Stewart. “We found out we had this sound. It just came naturally.”

The group’s members write some of their own songs, and get others from songwriter friends around Nashville.

“We’ve thrived on pushing that emotional button in people,” Stewart said. “We do a lot of love songs and true-story songs. we listen to it, record it and see if it turns us on. We just want our songs to be great.”

The Restless Heart concert, with opening act the Arundel County Cloggers, is covered by the $6 admission fee to the fair.