About RC Hall
SINGER/SONGWRITER, photographer, mountain man, jack-of-all trades
For Rocky Mountain singer-songwriter RC Hall, music is in his bones. Maybe he was born with it. Or maybe the self-described “musical mongrel” was destined to pick up a guitar and croon…
“My first intro to music? My old man bellowing out Hank Snow tunes in the old Galaxie 500 on family road trips when I was a kid,” Hall said. “I grew up in backcountry Missouri listening to The Beatles, Skynyrd, Iron Maiden and Zeppelin, alongside ’80s and ’90s country. I may be a musical mongrel, but lately country and Americana styles have drawn me back in.”
RC has lived many lives… At 55, he’s been a wrangler, ski bum, mountain guide, National Geographic and Mountain Hardwear photographer, and a writer, which regularly led him to the ends of the Earth, including Antarctica, Patagonia and Mozambique on once-in-a-lifetime missions and assignments.
In 2003, Hall suffered what he calls “catastrophic burnout caused by homesickness, too much travel, too many freezing bivouacs and too little talent.” After putting his camera away for the first time in years, he reacquainted himself with an old friend — the guitar.
“I’ve kind of always had a beater guitar laying around since I was 18 and I knew a few chords and songs, but in 2010 I went down the theory and practice rabbit hole, and I popped out the other end with all of these songs to share… I had never intended to be a singer-songwriter, but in the winter of 2011-12, I spent six months woodshedding by myself in a cabin in the Ozarks trying to become a competent chicken picker. With all that time to myself, songs just started popping out. I wrote them down and kept playing them, along with my favorite covers.”
Finding himself in Buena Vista, Colorado in 2012 he began playing out, for tips and drinks mostly, but those early gigs ultimately gave him the confidence to keep going, to pursue his passion.
“I have been in some wild situations in my life, but I have never been so terrified as I was at that first gig at the VFW Hall in Buena Vista.” Hall said.
After another winter wood-shedding in the Ozarks, Hall moved to Rico, Colorado in 2015, a former Rocky Mountain mining town 9,000 feet above sea level just outside of Telluride. Hall picked up more local solo shows and started laying down some early demos at his home studio, he calls The Dawghouse Studio.
“In 2021, I decided to contact Lloyd Maines to see if he would produce an album for me.” Hall says. His “crappy home-made demos” were enough to get Lloyd’s attention and, a year and-a-half later he has produced his first offering, Wood, Wire and Whiskey.
“I owe a huge debt to Lloyd. There is nothing in this world like finding the right man for the job, and Lloyd Maines was the right man. He’s a humble bad-ass. Thanks to him, I feel fulfilled as an artist, for the first time in my life."
Wood, Wire and Whiskey goes beyond moods and genres. In the process of delivering a complete musical experience across ten songs, his musical partnership with Texas music icon Lloyd Maines has birthed a whole new sound: Texarado. At first glance it's an unassuming dot on the musical map, but a deeper listen plays out like a dusty honky tonk where High Country Americana meets Red Dirt Country while the Blues sweeps the floors at closing time. His songs stir up memories of things that may or may not have happened, but they're so vivid and finely crafted they fit into a myriad of realties.
"These are great songs. All of them." Maines says. "They're a breath of fresh Telluride air."
Reflecting on his years spent literally criss-crossing most of the planet, Hall's creative process is organic in a way that's almost spiritual. His stories and music conjure up a listening experience that borders on transformative.
"For me, songwriting is a sort of call and response between my heart and the Universe. Listening is so key to the process. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’m writing a song, so much as just writing a song down. If you listen carefully, you find that the Universe is out there already singing songs just for you. It’s up to us to share them. It probably sounds cliché or cheesy, but in Hinduism they have a saying, 'Nada brahma,' which means 'The World is Sound.' Sometimes I feel like that is a mistranslation and it should be 'The World is Music.' It’s wild where you can end up, when you’re always wondering what's just over the horizon."
Wood, Wire and Whiskey doesn't just wonder what's over the horizon, it runs a reconnaissance mission beyond it and comes back with tales to tell. -Justin Criado & Larry Kay (2023)
