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
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