Album Notes

Chuck Hall has been a singer - writer - song collector -performer for about 20 years on the North Shore of Boston. He's lived on or near Cape Ann for most of the aforementioned 20 years and have been active in the New England folk music community in and from that place. His first coffeehouse performance was in 1982 as an open mic performer. The featured act that night went on to perform two songs he played in his three song set.

For a brief time he ran the coffeehouse series called "Saturday Night In Marblehead", taking over after Bob Franke ran the series for 10 glorious years. During his tenure there, he released his first album, "One Night In A Cheap Hotel". The Fast Folk Musical Magazine included the song "The Dollmaker's Secret" on their first Boston - artist album...Dean stevens used "Love Comes To The Simple Heart" as the title song for one of his albums...Susie Burke recorded 'Angels" on her CD, "Lucky Stars"...and he got outside New England to perform a bit, playing venues like Fiddle and Bow Society in Winston-Salem and the St. Augustine Folk Festival in Florida.

In 1988 Chuck moved to Norfolk, Virginia for a short time, where he worked at Ramblin' Conrad's Guitar Shop with Bob Zentz - "putting the folk in Norfolk", as they say. He lived in a small farmhouse on the Virginia-North Carolina line, and while there, began a love affair with traditional music which continues to this day.

Coming back to Boston in 1989, after a short stint as a tour guide in a museum and newspaper delivery person, a tip from the aforementioned Mr. Franke led to a job as afternoon drive time host on WUMB - FM. He held that spot for a number of years - and was "Announcer of the Year" in 1991! He also worked weekends at a commercial acoustic music radio station, WADN in Concord, Massachusetts.

Radio finally played itself in 1995 1995, and Chuck began a computer career, while maintaining his musical adventures. In 2000, he released "Confession of Faith", containing many original and some traditional songs with a folk -gospel feel. Harkening back to his time in Virginia, he brought in some very fine bluegrass and acoustic players, notably Taylor and Jake Armerding, then of "Nothern Lights" to support the recording.
In 2001, Chuck ventured to Cape Breton and Newfoundland, in a trip that dramatically altered his musical landscape. The trip was a transforming adventure, through Gros Morne's primal fjords and mountains, to L'Anse Aux Meadows, where we now know the Vikings stayed, however briefly, in about the year 1000. Their tales can be found in the collection of writings called "The Vinland Sagas." He learned about the Halifax Disaster on that trip as well, and the images and stories and history I learned on that trip became the focal point for his most recent CD, "The Northern Sagas", released in 2004.

Chuck continues to write and perform from his home near Newburyport, Massachusetts.