Patrick Campbell, whose band raised tens of thousands for Thanksgiving dinners, dead at 54

When boys and girls from single-sex high schools were thrown together in 1983 for a Catholic retreat for teenagers, the silence was as intense as the desire for enchantment.

That’s when Patrick Campbell showed the other kids that magic can happen even in the middle of the most nerve-wracking moments.

The high school senior walked to the piano and started playing one of that decade’s most sweeping, catchy ballads, “Keep on Loving You.”

“He just seized the moment and started playing the REO [Speedwagon] song,” said Wayne Kasprzycki, a classmate from Gordon Tech High School. “He just started singing softly, and it didn’t take long — we all just joined in. And it was so cool.”

The boys from Gordon and the girls from Alvernia High School began arranging themselves around the oasis of the piano.

“We’re singing with girls we don’t even know,’’ Kasprzycki said. “Lots of friends were made. I myself ended up going to a prom as a result. I think most of us went to their proms.

“Music — and him — brought us together,” Kasprzycki said.

Patrick Campbell was 11 when he formed his first band. He kept on playing music until his death in September at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in downstate Bloomington. He was 54 and died of sepsis after complications from surgery for Crohn’s disease, according to his wife Anne.

The Chicago native was lead singer, guitarist and keyboard player for the popular Bloomington band Jury’s Out.

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At every show, he’d place an open guitar case in front of the stage to collect donations for his “mission for the mission” — Bloomington’s Home Sweet Home Ministries, which helps the hungry and homeless. He’d take along his sons Liam and Connor to deliver the donations during Thanksgiving week.

“Since November 2015, Patrick and his Jury’s Out band collected close to $30,000 to support the annual Thanksgiving celebrations at Home Sweet Home Ministries,” according to Mary Ann Pullin, the organization’s chief executive officer, who said that “paid for 12,000 Thanksgiving meals.”

He has “been a fantastic friend and supporter,” Pullin said. “What he and his band and his fans were able to provide was just a real blessing.”

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Mr. Campbell grew up on the Northwest Side, where he went to St. Hedwig and St. Alphonsus grade schools. He was just 5 when his father Leonard died. His mother Mary Connolley Campbell worked in a glove factory, at Ludwig Drum Co. and as a nanny.

“She always kept us busy” with music lessons and swimming, basketball, baseball and football, said his twin brother Peter.

He played Little League at Churchill Field Park and went to day camp at Holstein Park.

The twins liked the Bay City Rollers. But the first time they put a Kiss record on the turntable, his brother said, “That was the last time we listened to the Bay City Rollers.”

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“We were down at the Hamlin Park woodshop,” Peter Campbell said, “and we were nailing blocks to our gym shoes so we could have those big tall shoes” like Kiss.

As a kid, “He convinced the principal we should play a concert, and we set up in the gym,” his brother said. “People were asking for autographs — and we were 13.”

In his early 20s, Mr. Campbell formed the band Right Track. In his 30s, he cofounded Jury’s Out. People liked the band so much, according to his wife, that some changed their wedding dates to make sure Jury’s Out was available.

After moving to Bloomington, Mr. Campbell worked in Internet support at the headquarters of State Farm, the insurance giant, his wife said. They met in 2000 at a Christmas Party.

Mr. Campbell coached his sons’ baseball and hockey teams.

He always loved the music of the 1970s and 1980s, including REO Speedwagon, Styx and Bon Jovi. Jury’s Out would open all of its shows with Cheap Trick’s “Surrender.”

One time, he got to meet Styx co-founder Dennis DeYoung backstage, and his wife said he was so excited that “I thought we were going to have to call an ambulance.”

A recovering alcoholic, he’d been sober for 13 years and was active in support groups, according to his wife and brother. “He sponsored a lot of people,” Peter Campbell said.

Since Mr. Campbell’s death, “A lot of different bands have been putting their guitar cases out to raise money” for good causes, said John Schalk, a sound engineer for Jury’s Out.

A celebration of his life is being planned in 2020 by his bandmates, other musicians and fans.

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