April 4, 2001

by Kim McNabb

April 2001

Singer-songwriter Dave Hall's third CD, True, begins and ends with instrumental pieces that draw on Bach's cantata "Sheep May Safely Graze." Hall's melancholy 14-song set takes its cue from the title track, a musical wall of misgiving and sadness written about a friend who died of AIDS. Hall's bittersweet reflections are wrapped in soft acoustic guitar strums, forlorn cello and violin cries, and haunting choral voices. His giddier musical moments mostly remain under wraps, though he does reveal his dry humor in "God Is Wide," in which he sketches an all-embracing, nonjudgmental picture of the creator, while admitting that others may view Him in their own image, as "a flat-butted, crew-cutted, linebacker / A macho babe hijacker."  

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February 8-15, 2001

Joe's Pub; Friday 2/9

Dave Hall's latest CD, True (GiuseppeJoe), distinguished itself amid the glut of new music in 2000 thanks to its unadorned grace and a largely melancholy mood. With nary a drum loop, remix or token rock-god guitar solo, Hall's third album relied successfully on lilting choral voices, a few well-placed organ swells and delicate violin and cello. String interludes and two adaptations of J.S. Bach's cantata Sheep May Safely Graze (Hall wrote countermelodies and lyrics over it) punctuate the 14-song release, revealing the musician's wish to place the emphasis on his often heartrending verses.  

The Brooklyn-based guitarist is a courageous storyteller, one who tends to write about his life's more tragic events, including learning of a friend who died alone of AIDS and hearing about the murder of a backwood female couple. Yet for every despondent musing, Hall can be equally mirthful. "Biff and Tony's Wedding" could be his giddy folk-pop response to the Defense of Marriage Act, and the unexpected meeting between two former lovers in "Garden Party" becomes universally tangible with the sardonic line, "We told each other we were doing well/Tacitly avoiding any mention of past hell."  

Though Hall often plays stag, he'll be backed by a full band tonight. This will give the classically trained guitarist the opportunity to treat his audience to the chortle-inducing, country-tinged "God Is Wide," a cautionary tale about the more narrow-minded among us, the "macho babe hijacker/Panting at the line of scrimmage/He makes God in his own image." Hall's prior releases, Playin' the Man and Places, took a more boisterous acoustic-rock route than his latest effort, but tonight's CD-release party gig will likely find this quieter, more serious material energized by the wry, rowdy troubadour lurking within.  

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February 13, 2001

Tunes For The Tribe

by Karen Iris Tucker

In an era of Britney and Backstreet Boys, it is comforting to know about songwriter Dave Hall. Despite the music industry's current teenybop pop trend (or maybe because of it), Hall has chosen to release a CD so dense with meaning and musically gentle that it stands out simply in its quiet candor.  

Against the backdrop of a retro '50s diner in Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Park Slope neighborhood, replete with egg creams and olive vinyl booths, Hall explains why his third CD, True, is more about shades of quiet than walls of sound.  

The title cut is about an old friend of mine--my very first boyfriend--who I'd just discovered had passed away," recalls Hall. "It was really hard to hear that this young guy had died from HIV.... It got me to thinking about life and how it needs to be lived and addressed."  

Hall built a hushed, eloquent base for his melancholy lyrics, one that is acentuated by two instrumental pieces than interpret Bach's cantata "Sheep May Safely Graze," making it clear Hall was on a quest to craft elegance through atmosphere. These classical adaptations bookend a set of bittersweet tracks that broach topics including Hall's 100-yearold grandmother, simple life regrets, and the persistent taboo of gay sex.  

The Brooklyn-based musician says it was his romantic partner and manager of nine years, Joe Romano (whom he met at a gay runners' club), who insisted on keeping the tracks as unadorned as possible, thus preserving the CD's bare-bones, delicately drifting quality. By contrast, Hall's two prior releases, Playin' the Man and Places, rock a lot harder, with cowboy croons and carefree folk-pop. Hall, who attended the Manhattan School of Music and received a degree in classical composition, says he was influenced in part by his childhood record collection, one filled with Cat Stevens, drama rockers like Queen, and the traditional Arabic melodies cherished by his Arab-American mom.  

Hall, who grew up in Vermont, where his father is from, and upstate New York, added a few spare cello and violin flourishes to the tracks on True, and also layered them lightly with austere choruses and organ swells--though the 12-song set hardly suffers from an absence of instumentation. Rather, listeners can more clearly zero in on Hall's true-to-life tales--ones that will surely resonate with dreamers in various life crises and the people who love them.  

"This record contains some of my truest work," Hall reveals, though the CD art contains a photo of Hall crossing his fingers, as if to say that maybe some of it is actually fiction. Ever the heartfelt artist, Hall quickly points out, "people also cross their fingers as a sign of hope."  

Of the self-revelatory nature of his CD, Hall says, "I've never been one of these artists who writes therapy songs." Instead, he says, he is driven to being "a community-minded artist, like a tribal artist. I always feel that if someody's gig is to be a bricklayer, I hope that they are making the kind of houses that everyone wants to live in. My thing is to write songs that the whole tribe can read and say, "Yeah, this person is speaking for all of us."  

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January, 2001

Reviews (True)

Tender, deeply moving songs. Dave has a real special album on his hands. Intimate yet strong. Besides the skillfully executed music, this CD has a gentle healing quality. Good for the mind, body and soul. Check it out!  

December 15, 2000

Staying True to himself

Brooklyn-based singer Dave Hall digs down deep with his latest CD

By Karen Iris Tucker

In a world where post-pubescent boys and girls shimmy up the pop charts with all the heartfelt sincerity of karaoke crooners, it is reassuring to know about singer-songwriter Dave Hall. The Cobble Hill, Brooklyn-based artist has just released True (Giuseppe Joe Records), a CD so gentle that a cough could conceivably drown out the essence of one of its songs. 

"There was some deep thing that I was trying to find out about people's place in time -- in dying, living, or being ill," Hall says of the 14-song set on True, his third CD. The title track is a musical wall of misgiving, fear, and sadness, written when Hall found out that his very first boyfriend had recently died of AIDS. While the record touches on a wide range of human experiences, the title track "True" is one of its most affecting. 

"I was railing quietly in that song," says the musician, whose current romantic partner and manager of nine years, Joe Romano, was instrumental in preserving the skeletal, softly winding quality of the CD. Hall's two prior releases, Playin' the Man and Places, were rowdier efforts given to bursts of zesty bluegrass or folk rock. The artist, who received a degree in classical composition from the Manhattan School of Music, says he was influenced, in part, by his family's "strangely cool record collection," one replete with Joan Baez, prog-rockers, and age-old Arabic melodies.  

Hall, whose childhood was split between Vermont (where his Yankee father is from) and Brooklyn (where his Arab-American mother was born), laces True with forlorn cello and violin cries, spatial organ sounds, and haunted backing choral voices. Of particular note are the record's understated percussive elements, courtesy of Annette A. Aguilar and Oliver Straus. 

Among the many indications that Hall was on a quest to craft elegance through atmosphere, True begins and ends with instrumental pieces that draw on Bach's cantata "Sheep May Safely Graze." 

"I wanted to present this record as a little novelette," Hall says, adding, "Maybe it could be the sort of thing that a person could listen to on a Sunday afternoon." 

Given his record's fair amount of unyielding introspection, Hall hastens to point out "that I can be giddy, I take a really good vacation," he says, and laughs. While his giddier musical moments mostly remain under wraps, Hall does occasionally reveal his mirth in verse. In "God Is Wide," Hall addresses his all-embracing, non-judgmental picture of our creator, while admitting that others may view him in their own image, as "a flat-butted, crew-cutted, linebacker / A macho babe hijacker." 

Elsewhere, in "Garden Party," Hall recalls the uncomfortable, universal experience of meeting an old flame: "We told each other we're doing well / Tacitly avoiding any mention of past hell." Never one to be inspired to pen "therapy songs," Hall nonetheless hopes that through his writing "that if I am going somewhere inside myself, that it's to a place that a lot of other people can recognize." 

Hall says that much of his new record is about people he's met and how they've had an impact on his life.  

"So I've got some concrete words, but basically," he adds, suppressing a laugh, "I'm just confused. But my thing is that life is good when you do your best. The path is most effectively or satisfyingly traveled when one really gives one's all to it." 

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November 25, 2000

ARTISTS & MUSIC

November 23, 2000

Hall Releases Heartfelt Third CD

By Sue Harrison

Dave Hall calls Brooklyn his home but his songs offer a much more universal base of experience, the valleys of the human heart. His third CD, "True," (GiuseppeJoe records) is being released Dec. 1 and to catch a live preview, check him out when he takes the stage at the First Encounter Coffeehouse, 220 Samoset Road, Eastham at 7pm Saturday along with Greg Greenway.  

With a voice that falls somewhere between Jim Croce and Cat Stevens, Hall is easy to listen to. He picked up kudos for his first two CDs, "Playin' The Man" in '97 and "Places" in '99. Billboard called him "intelligent and empathetic," and The New York Times hailed his "lyrical clout" for writing about "poignant tales of love, loss and small-town life." Hall is an out gay recording artist but that has little bearing on the appeal of his music. When he sings on "True" of counting all the freckles on your cheek and kissing each one while you sleep, there is no gender preference or need for one. Love transcends just about every attempt at being categorized and the truly successful singer/songwriter finds that everybody can identify with the feelings.  

Musically, Hall has been called eclectic and he tends to move around from the simple bell-like guitar lines of an acoustic song to the more raucous and rocking effort. He's stayed closer to the acoustic in this third CD and for the most part it works very well. Which is not to say is a solo effort. It' not. Hall, who handles vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, organ and celeste, is backed up by Dave Moreno on electric guitar, Arturo Baguer on bass, Annette Aguilar and Oliver Straus on percussion, Lorenza Ponce on violin and Peri Mauer on cello. He also has over a dozen backup singers who pitch in just where they are needed. Despite all that support, this CD is Hall all the way.  

He opens with a song he wrote to the music of J.S. Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" and ends with an instrumental version of the same song played without his counter melody. He also throws in the traditional folksong "Black Is The color," but that does nothing to take away from the impact of his songwriting.  

For this listener, Hall succeeds more strongly when he sticks closer to love and further away from message. This may certainly not be true for others. When he writes in the title song "Learned today I might have killed a man," he's writing of the death of a friend, and his own unknowing possible role in others' mortality but that's not immediately clear. But when he sings of life turning to "Dizziness and Dreams," there's little doubt where he's coming from as there is no doubt when he sings of running into an old lover after seven years and the awkward and poignant dance they do. And his homage to his 100-year-old grandmother is so sweet. He sings, "And you, you told me tales, some of them were tall, but some of them were true ... You have put upon my tongue, a poem long unsung, until now sung for you."  

Hall fans will not be disappointed in the new CD, and it may earn him a whole new group of followers.