Welcome

Hello and thank you for coming to my website. I’m Johanna Hall: lyricist, journalist, producer, teacher, mother, grandmother, yogini, gardener.

I wrote hits for Orleans, the band I founded with cowriter John Hall in our Saugerties, NY home. Its nurture led to “Dance With Me” and “Still the One” topping the charts and becoming classics. Our songs were recorded by scores of other artists from Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, and Linda Ronstadt to Ricky Scaggs and James Taylor.

My journalism career began as music critic for The Village Voice in the late ‘60s, then writing features, interviews and reviews for newspapers and magazines. I was an Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Ulster and taught a college course in lyric writing.

Along the way I produced concerts and CDs, including for Ars Choralis, a Woodstock chorus in which I sang alto. The artistic director, Barbara Pickhardt, and I wrote an opera together. Miracle in Bethlehem premiered here in 2018, a labor of 20 years. I’m proud of it and view it as a legacy.

To have created enduring music is an honor, my life’s work. This website is a place for documenting my career and my ongoing projects. You will find here lyrics, photos, press, and some news and new writing. I expect it to grow as well as to show the past.

Siren Songs Playlist

Here is a sampler of the hits I wrote with John in our 30-year career. I made this playlist originally as a cassette for pitching new songs to producers, publishers, record companies, supervisors and other users of music. I hoped it would be a foot in the door. Our successes came from direct artist-to-artist contacts, but I have kept pitching. Cassettes became CDs, and now my sampler is streaming in the river torrent of the internet.

Please play! What makes me happy is the songs being heard.

Featured Song

Alan Jackson covers “Still the One”

This cover means more to me than any other, for several deep reasons.

Alan Jackson does a beautiful rendition, his baritone perfect for the song. And it is heartfelt, connected to the story of his 50-year love with his wife, Denise. I love that he copped Orleans’ touches like Wells’ bass vocal in the last verse, the backups in the second verse, and John’s lead guitar solo melody. It rocks with a great band of players. But most of all, when he sings it, he means it.

Thanks to Jackson, it may be a hit all over again. It has been the biggest hit of my career, with a lyric that I’m proud of from start to finish.

Fifty years ago, a friend said, “Everyone writes songs about breaking up. Why don’t you write one about staying together?” I had the idea for it while doing laundry and scribbled beginnings on an envelope. John and I had only been together eight years at the time, newly married. But isn’t it wonderful how it resonates for couples at any stage of love? It tickles me that so many have made it their song. This latest one is the best of all.