Heart Beat Records, formed in 1980, is an independent record and video company concentrating on releases for and from the Catholic market and founded by a family of Irish-American Catholics. HeartBeat Records was the first recording company in the US to bring contemporary Christian music to people within the Catholic faith.
History
On Saturday October 1, 1994 HeartBeat moved to Donnellson, Iowa. HeartBeat celebrated its 10th anniversary in their new offices in October 2004. In the year 2000, Phillip Stein, Susan Stein, and Ronald Stein formed a 501 non-profit organization for the purpose of celebrating Catholic music recordings and videos. Phillip Stein, son of Heart Beat founders Ronald and Susan Stein was the creator and president/CEO of the association for the first 5 years before stepping down as the CEO but still remained on the board as the President. The organization was called the United Catholic Music & Video Association and gave almost annual "Unity Awards" to various artists and producers of religious materials. In the first year that the awards were given, of the 46 categories of awards, nine were won by members of the Brown/Stein/Scallon families. The company also runs HeartBeat Distribution now known as Catholic Distribution a distributor within the Catholic & Christian market. HeartBeat's video division has released "The Story of Knock", based on the Marian apparition in Knock, Ireland; "Contemplating Icons", which explains the symbolism and theological insight of icons within the Christian tradition, and "Lourdes, Pilgrimage & Healing", which echoes the biblical meaning of a pilgrimage and focuses on the messages that Mary gave to Bernadette at the Marian shrine of Lourdes. Their music publishing division, HeartBeat Music, is a vehicle for the label's Singer/Songwriters and is building and developing a catalog for use in parishes, education and for recordings by artist. In 2006, performer Dana Scallon and her husband Damien Scallon formed their own music production company DS Music Productions. and in 2005 sought, without success, the return of the master recordings from Heartbeat Records. The recordings done under the HeartBeat's Label during Dana's time with them are published under both labels.
