Album Notes

Every October, I’m invited to schools and libraries to share tales of madmen and the macabre, stories of suspense and the supernatural. Titles include “The Raven,” “The Monkey’s Paw,” “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and authors range from Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to more modern Alfred Hitchcock favorites like Roald Dahl and Jack Ritchie. Some are about hired killers and mundane family fear, others are about bogeymen or vampires. I call these storytimes “Creepy Classics.”

On this CD, “Volume 1,” I collect four of the “Creepy Classics” stories I’ve told the most – dozens of performances of each. You get Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” which probably needs no introduction; W.W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw,” my favorite example of the warning against getting what you wish for; Lovecraft’s tale of what happened to a callous caretaker when he and a dozen coffins were locked “In the Vault” (possibly my favorite on this disc); and “The Open Window,” a brief and somewhat light-hearted ghost story from Saki (who also wrote “Tobermory,” if that rings a bell).

These recordings feature a host of sound effects and background music that are not usually heard in my live performances – and, as with my “Christmas Carol” CD, thanks for much of the recording and engineering brilliance goes to Bob Savage. Bob also contributed the original music featured in “Monkey’s Paw.”

Thanks for listening, and as I always say at the end of my storytimes –

Keep reading!


***Storyteller Grant Fitch has entertained all ages with children's fables, folk tales, scary stories, and classic literature. He has shared the works of Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe, Shel Silverstein and O. Henry, and Sherlock Holmes and Winnie the Pooh, and is well known for his annual one-man performance of “Christmas Carol.” Fitch is a former teacher and children's librarian, and an award-winning actor in northwest Indiana community theatre, starring recently in “My Fair Lady,” “Same Time, Next Year,” “Charlie Brown,” “Mary Poppins” and “Inherit the Wind.”***