Fall 2022 Dedicated to Greta Thunberg & Pete Seeger Songs of Leadership

Free To Read Dan Berggren 

Dan Berggren’s “Free to Read” is a midtempo acoustic folk song with a marching beat.  It celebrates the freedom to read and the value of open access to information. In his comforting bass voice, Dan sings the titles of banned books. The chorus: “The books you choose are someone else’s walking shoes. We need to be free to read."    

Launched in 1982, banned books week is honoring its 40th Anniversary this Sept. 18-24 with the theme “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.” Visit bannedbooksweek.org

danberggren.bandcamp.com/track/free-to-read

Dean Friedman’s upbeat “Ridin’ With Biden” uses traffic and car honks as part of the instrumental part adorning his cool jazz delivery of President Biden’s history, and why Dean-himself-- loves to be Ridin' with Biden" rhymes like "sleepy joe,” and “more decency in his toe than you know--Honk!!!”  Dean’s playing his first New York City show in FIVE years on October 8 at Chelsea Stage + Table.     

What’s a Place Like This Doing in a Girl Like Me?  *Val Kinzler’s “What’s a Place Like This  Doing in a Girl Like Me,” a finalist in the Open Space songwriting contest, is a “Rocky Horror”-esque women-in-the-workplace survival anthem.   

Save the Monarch John Hall & Dar Williams   Male & female duet on this hymn-like singer-songwriter song guitar/bass/drums, environment, Monarch, emperor, queen, king--animals with royal names that are endangered species."Save them from us"

What the Fuck is Going On  Elliott Murphy   Note: Live Recording Rock Troubadour Energetic and Angry hook, Pounding electric guitar, hand claps in time to the music, tempo like "one bourbon, one scotch, one beer": “What the fuck is going on.” song is about the economy. good for the greed factor. dream of a better world  There's one big ponzi scheme all over the world. They (politicians) must think we're stupid; well maybe we are" "Mother Earth" Vocals: Tom Waits Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen  But Jesus Christ, if he was here today, I think he’d be mad as hell.” 

Game of Chicken   Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius  Electric violin-driven hard rock. Dream Theater meets Rush meets Styx. "we're heating up as we run out of time."  People are deliberately daring one another to play with risk.  We're busy bickering while the planet is losing it.  

April Fools Michael Veitch  singer songwriter, male tenor, upbeat folk-rock with electric guitar, with pretty eagles-y harmonies  being fooled by leadership in a most rainy month “behind the curtain lies another strong man.  Pick a corrupt event when you have crazy leaders.  *Michael Veitch’s “April Fools” shows the foolishness a political troublemakers. 

Michael and his fellow songwriters from PBS’s “We Remember: Songs of Survivors” will share stories about writing songs with Holocaust survivors at New York City’s Cutting Room on September 18 and Saratoga’s Caffe Lena on the 22. 

“Save the Monarch”: New Video from John Hall featuring Dar Williams

Nashville, TN – Acclaimed singer-songwriter, environmental activist and former U.S. Congressman John Hall announced today the release of a new video for his song “Save the Monarch,” which features renowned folk music artist Dar Williams. The four-and-a half minute long video is available on Hall’s website and YouTube (https://youtu.be/Q3y2L4jyyJo)

“Save the Monarch” appears on Hall’s latest album, Reclaiming My Time, which was released in May 2021. Hall’s sixth solo record, in addition to the 18 albums he released with the pop-rock band Orleans, Reclaiming My Time broke the Top 20 on the Americana Country Charts and was widely praised upon release. (The album’s title is a phrase used on the floor of Congress when a member wants to resume speaking after an interruption.) 

“When I wrote ‘Save the Monarch’ I envisioned it as a hymn for endangered species, a sincere prayer that we answer the call to be good stewards of the earth,” said Hall. “The urgency of needing to protect life on our planet has been an enduring theme in my work, and I was absolutely thrilled when Dar (Williams), a neighbor of mine when I lived in New York’s Hudson Valley, agreed to sing the song with me. Dar is such an extraordinary artist and writer, as well as an engaged environmentalist. She certainly helps lift the song and gives it greater resonance.”

Hall and Williams swapping vocals on “Save the Monarch” is certainly apt, as they served for several years together on the board of directors of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, an environmental and education nonprofit co-founded in 1969 by folk music icon and activist Pete Seeger. 

The video for “Save the Monarch” was directed, filmed and edited by Rob Arthur, who has directed videos for the Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason and Peter Frampton as well. A veteran keyboardist, Arthur has spent the past two decades serving as the bandleader for Peter Frampton. 

Hall plays all of the instruments on “Save the Monarch” except for drums, which are handled by Peter O’Brien, Hall’s former bandmate in Orleans. Reclaiming My Time is notable for the many musical artists who joined Hall in the studio, including John Cowan (New Grass Revival, Doobie Brothers), Andrea Zonn (James Taylor, Vince Gill), Jay Collins (Dukes of September, Allmans), Sean Paddock (Kenny Chesney) and pedal steel guitar player Dan Dugmore. Steve Wariner co-wrote and sang a duet with Hall on “Another Sunset.”

Hall is known mostly for his work with Orleans; the band’s hits “Still the One” and “Dance with Me,” which he co-wrote with former wife Johanna Hall, continue to be streamed over 100,000 times apiece daily. Last year, Orleans released a Christmas album called New Star Shining, and in 2022 the band will be celebrating its 50th anniversary.

In 1979, Hall launched Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash, which culminated in the famed “No Nukes” concerts, which featured the above-mentioned musical artists, as well as Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, the Doobie Brothers and Carly Simon. 

Hall was elected in 2006 and 2008 to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he fought for environmental issues and veterans’ disability rights. In 2016, his memoir Still the One: A Rock’n’Roll Journey to Congress and Back was published.