Hallways is the official podcast of the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame (FARHOF) in Boston, Massachusetts. We are excited to bring you artists from all over the world through conversation and live performance.
This is an introduction to a new podcast called Hallways - the official podcast of the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame in Boston, Massachusetts. (www.folkamericanarootshalloffame.org)
Hosted by Chuck Clough and Ronnie Hirschberg from the Boston based podcast Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation. (www.abovethebasement.com)
Music by Honeysuckle (www.honeysuckleband.com)
Patty Griffin 0:04 - Hi, this is Patty Griffin and you are listening to Hallways - the official podcast of the Folk American Roots Hall of Fame.
Chuck Clough 0:17 - Hello, this is Chuck Clough, and that was Grammy winning artist Patty Griffin. She's just one example of the many musicians we will feature on this podcast - Hallways a production of the Boch Center in partnership with Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation. We are excited to bring you artists from all over the world through conversation and live performance. My co-host Ronnie Hirschberg and I will be your guides as we bring you the voices and artists that inspire and continue to inspire generations of artists, musicians and music lovers. An idea sparked by the Boch Center CEO Joe Spaulding, the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame, also known as The Hall, was created to celebrate musicians of today and yesterday, but let's rewind the tape a bit ---- and have Joe tell you how he ran his idea of a Hall of Fame by a Canadian musician named Neil Young.
Joe Spaulding 1:23 - Neil was last here in 2018. He helped be instrumental in deciding for us to do the Hall of Fame here at the Wang theater rather than going looking for another building somewhere else in the city. And the reason he said was, you know, the Boston truly is the folk capital of North America. I said, Well, geez, that's, that's enough for me. I think we should put the Hall of Fame right here. And so no one has ever put a Hall of Fame and a living, breathing performing arts center before and that's our intention to do and we're getting pretty excited about how this is coming out of the ground. So to speak.
Chuck Clough 2:01 - Boston is a musical birthplace for the many styles and artists we will celebrate making it a fitting home for The Hall. We'll talk to the legends that know how important Boston was and is to folk Americana roots music like the incredible founder of Club Passim, Betsy Siggins and also someone like, say, Joan Baez.
Joan Baez 2:21 - Meeting Betsy and Debbie Green, and a few of us were a little cluster at the beginning of the folk music boom. We boomed along together and learn from each other and but Betsy, continued the process. So what she's done is keep alive the whole scene and the music and the feelings and a community.
Betsy Siggins 2:50 - I cut my teeth on Joan's early music, and what she does with her life has been a guiding light to me and I don't mean that in a corny way. I mean, it in a very profound way, it has given me a road to walk on.
Chuck Clough 3:05 - That road leads right to the hallways of The Hall, where you'll find the artifacts and memorabilia of these legends that will help us remember how these musicians and their songs inspired us all. As we found out from wonderful singer songwriters, Dar Williams and Chuck McDermott.
Dar Williams 3:20 - There was this one day I stayed home from school, I was you know, doing my homework and through the window seat of my parents house, I thought, I'm going to turn on this old Judy Collins record that we listened to when I was five. And I was so struck by how important these artists clearly felt about what they did.
Chuck McDermott 3:39 - I feel something come off these artifacts, these relics, I think that that's a powerful thing. And if I feel that I know a lot of other people feel that. We've lived through other tumultuous periods of time and this is tumultuous period of time. And I think the kind of music we love got us through some as a country and as a world through some tough times before and I think it can again, I think it makes us better people. And I think we should have a Hall of Fame.
Chuck Clough 4:07 - The stories told through music certainly inspires musicians, both young and old. But they also speak to the importance of remembering.
Patty Griffin 4:15 - We do need places where we can go into sort of sit back and hear the immensity or look at the immensity of these legacies that have been given to us, in this really young nation, struggling to define what it is and what we're doing and what we're trying to do with this collection of land and people.
Chuck Clough 4:35 - Throughout the year, we will speak with these influential musicians and the musicians they inspired. We'll help you through the hallways podcast, walk down these halls and celebrate this incredible music and the people who make it wherever you may be.
Joe Spaulding 4:47 - It all stems from a very simple statement. arts and music keep us a civilized society with music powers the ability to communicate and to communicate in any way. So that's what we're celebrating here. And that's part of the celebration of how do you make American culture and how do you support that? So we can actually tell those stories, because we believe in those stories and in many cases, we were those stories.
Patty Griffin 5:19 - I think right now it is it is important for us to have those places to go.
Chuck Clough 5:28 - This is your Hall of Fame. The doors of The Hall are always open.
We would like to thank all our guests for speaking with us, including Joan Baez, Betsy Siggins, Chuck McDermott, Dr. Williams, and Patty Griffin, and all the kind folks at Club Passim and the Boch center.
And in particular, we'd like to thank Joe Spaulding for planting the seed and being inspired enough to create a Hall of Fame that will continue to inspire others.
Hallways is the official podcast of the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame, hosted by Chuck Clough and Ronnie Hirschberg produced by the Boch Center in partnership with Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation.
To find out more about touring The Hall, visit www.folkamericanarootshalloffame.org. The Hall can be found at Boch center Wang Theater, 270 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
To listen and discover more about Above The Basement - Boston Music and Conversation, visit www.abovethebasement.com.
All music written and performed by Honeysuckle. They can be found at www.honeysuckleband.com.