Rock & Roll

Little did I know when Janis Joplin asked me to write her a song, that my first lyric would launch me into a long career in rock and roll. My partnership with John Hall produced hundreds of songs. We founded the band, Orleans and toured with Jackson Browne, Little Feat, Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Manchester, Bob Seger. A great life on the road, in studios and in the home we bought with the royalties. I am blessed. Here are some photos documenting that life.

Release party for the first Orleans album, on a boat circling Manhattan. September 11, 1973

We started Orleans in January 1972 in our Saugerties home, where they rehearsed in the basement

One Halloween, John and I dressed up as a priest and a nun. We caused a stir necking on the Green.

John and I wrote our songs at this dining room table, where the band convened for weekly meetings

We joined BMI (Broadcast Music International) at the very beginning of our career to collect airplay royalties around the world. By 1990, "Still the One" had achieved two million domestic airplays. Our pal Robbie Dupree, with his partners Bob Jeniker and Yoshi Nagato in Golden Triangle, created an event at the Bearsville Theater to record Orleans’ first live record. Admittance was by invitation only. We invited anyone and everyone who had been involved with the band over the years. The weekend became a refreshing reunion of people we had known, a return to the music that made us. Le Mobile, a 24-track recording truck, was parked outside to capture what Rolling Stone once dubbed the best live band in the country. In this photo, on the Bearsville stage, BMI’s Bobby Weinstein presented us with our newest certificates.

Throughout the '70s, BMI held Million Aire banquets to recognize songs that had attained a million airplays. They were lavish and lovely. I liked seeing the other songwriters and publishers, camaraderie of industry. This is the front of the program from 1976 when "Dance With Me" was honored.

John Hall and Jules Shear with dogs, Cargo and Barney

For the Woodstock Writers Festival 2010, I created a songwriting panel at the Kleinert Gallery in Woodstock with John Sebastian, Robbie Dupree, and Jonell Mosser. Here, Sebastian went out into the audience as he played and sang.

With Del Bryant and Jonell Mosser at a BMI dinner in Nashville

Backstage Pass - John Hall Little Feat 1978.jpg

Recording of Orleans album

In the summer of 1973, we went to a foreign land to make the first Orleans album—Muscle Shoals, Alabama. An historic place for musicians where many iconic records had been made; and we were produced by two members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section who had played on all of them. Drummer Roger Hawkins and keyboardist Barry Beckett were idols to us and their studio, Muscle Shoals Sound, was holy ground. All around it was deep South. Never had I felt like such a freak. Even our accents caused the waitresses to giggle. A dry town, the sheriff was the bootlegger. We drank in Barry’s secret basement bar. We made the record in one week, living in a quadrangular Holiday Inn that surrounded a beautiful pool. We turned golden in the sun, ate in our bathing suits at little plastic tables, spent nights in the studio, and sometimes fought to give birth to this still-wonderful album.

Lance Hoppen, Larry Hoppen, Wells Kelly, John Hall

Recording of John Hall album

After John parted ways with Orleans in 1978, Elektra Asylum countenanced a solo record. We were eager to make it, with a group of new songs. Like kids in a candy store, we booked the best and brightest, our most-admired musicians and singers to bring those songs to life. Look at this gallery! The sessions were a joy. We recorded in New York and LA, an exciting labor of love.

Arnold McCuller, Lynn Pitney, David Lasley

John Hall with James Taylor and Garland Jeffries

John Hall with Jimmy, Jerry, Jay Otis, Tubo and Joe of the Persuasions