Talk:Carol Hall

Biography - Carol Hall

Carol Hall was an American composer and lyricist, born in Abilene, Texas. One of the few theatre people to write both music and lyrics in the theatre, Carol Hall received two Drama Desk Awards (1978) for her score and lyrics to THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS. This theatre classic ran for over four years on Broadway, received a Grammy nomination for its cast album, and became a film (1982) starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. Parton’s recording of Hall’s song “Hard Candy Christmas” from the original score, won an ASCAP Award for being one of its Most Performed Country Songs. A national tour of the show played across the country for a year and a half, starring Ann-Margret. On the cast album of that production, Hall recorded a bonus track, performing a new song, "A Friend to Me," written for Ann-Margret.

EARLY LIFE

Ms. Hall’s grandparents Josephine Robertson and M.A. Grisham were pioneers of West Texas. Matt Grisham was a respected cattleman and oilman. Their daughter, Josephine Grisham Hall, was a classical musician (piano and violin) and taught music. She married Elbert Emmit Hall in Abilene (1933). As a young man, Mr. Hall (known to West Texans as Double E) ran Hall’s Music Store in Abilene and subsequently became a successful insurance salesman. (In 1980-1981, he was elected Mayor of Abilene.) Early in the marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Hall divorced and Mrs. Hall moved to Dallas with her daughter. In Dallas, Carol attended Hockaday School and graduated from Highland Park High School. During that time she studied classical piano. She then attended Sweetbriar College, Lynchburg, VA for two years. While in college, Carol began writing songs and college musicals. She then transferred to and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY (1957). She subsequently joined the newly formed BMI Workshop, NYC, under the tutelage of famed Broadway musical director Lehman Engel, where she began writing musicals and songs in earnest. She initially was a member of BMI, then switched to ASCAP.

PERSONAL

Carol Hall was married to Media Producer Leonard Majzlin. She had two children — Susannah Blinkoff, a screenwriter/songwriter/actor, Daniel Blinkoff, an actor, both Los Angeles-based, a grandson, Wally Corngold and an adopted granddaughter, Valentina Corngold. She was the half-sister of Jane Hall, journalist, news commentator and Associate Professor of Communication, at American University, Washington, DC.

CAREER

Early in her career, Carol Hall wrote numerous jingles for ad agencies and performed her songs in clubs such as The Bitter End and Max’s Kansas City (NYC), The Cellar Door (Washington, DC) and The Troubadour (LA), opening for performers such as Kris Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury and Waylon Jennings. In the early 1970s, she toured with pop singer/songwriter Don MacLean (“American Pie,” “Vincent,”) and was signed (by CEO/Founder of Elektra Records Jac Holzman) to that label as a singer-songwriter. She had two albums released on the label, If I Be Your Lady (1971) and Beads and Feathers (1972). In the 1990s, she performed in many cabaret venues in NYC, among them Eighty-eights, Don't Tell Mama and The NYC Cabaret Convention.

Hall was a major composer/lyricist to Marlo Thomas’ Peabody and Emmy Award-winning TV Special and gold album FREE TO BE... YOU AND ME, (“It’s All Right To Cry,” “Parents Are People,” “Glad To Have A Friend Like You”) and acted as contributing editor/songwriter to its sequel, FREE TO BE... A FAMILY. The project celebrated its 40th Anniversary (2012) with numerous panel discussions on parenting and gender-related issues. Hall also contributed to Marlo Thomas’ book and CD, “THANKS & GIVING / ALL YEAR LONG” (“A Smile Connects Us”; music by Robert Burke.)

For ten years Hall was a mainstay contributor to SESAME STREET, writing, among other things, the song TRUE BLUE MIRACLE for the show CHRISTMAS EVE ON SESAME STREET (Emmy Award), BIG BIRD’S BIRTHDAY BASH and WOMEN CAN BE. Other children’s projects included songs for Disney’s DUMBO II. (unproduced), and the score for the musical MAX AND RUBY (TheatreWorks, NY), based on the popular tv series and children’s books. The show opened Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (NYC) in December ‘07. Four tours of MAX AND RUBY played across the country.

In addition to THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, other stage work included a short-lived Broadway sequel THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE GOES PUBLIC, GOOD SPORTS (Goodspeed Theatre), PAPER MOON (Paper Mill Theatre), ARE WE THERE YET? (Williamstown Theatre Festival), the Off-Broadway musical TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (1985/86 season), individual songs for Off-Broadway productions A… MY NAME IS ALICE and A… MY NAME IS STILL ALICE, and a number for the musical, HATS!, based on the Red Hats Society. She also penned lyrics for a musical based on Truman Capote’s A CHRISTMAS MEMORY (book: Duane Poole, music: Larry Grossman), which premiered at Theatreworks, Palo Alto, CA (2010). The production starred Broadway veteran Penny Fuller as the loving, older cousin “Sook.” The musical’s southern premier took place at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (November 2011). A New York production opened Off-Broadway at The Irish Rep Theatre, NYC in November 2014, starring Alice Ripley as "Sook" and Ashley Robinson as "Adult Buddy."

“The Songs of Carol Hall,” a series of cabaret performances by Ms. Hall, garnered both a SPECIAL BISTRO AWARD and a MAC AWARD for Cabaret Musical Production of The Year. “HARD CANDY,” a theatrical compilation of her songs directed by cabaret veteran Mark Nadler, earned another BISTRO AWARD. In addition, Ms. Hall was a recipient of the prestigious Johnny Mercer Award, given for contributions to American popular song.

In 2003, she won MAC SONG OF THE YEAR AWARD for “I Dream In Technicolor.”

Carol Hall’s songs have been performed by, among others, Barbra Streisand, Olivia Newton-John, Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, Barbara Cook, Chita Rivera, Michael Feinstein, Amanda McBroom, KT Sullivan, Kevin Dozier, Ann Hampton Callaway, Liz Callaway, Laurel Massé, Jane Monheit, David Campbell, Mabel Mercer, Maureen McGovern, Margaret Whiting, Sally Mayes, Miriam Makeba, RuPaul, Bobby Gosh, The Broadway Inspirational Voices, Frederica von Stade, and Big Bird. A CD of her songs (HALLWAYS: THE SONGS OF CAROL HALL) is available online at LML Music, an independent recording label and on Amazon.com

A personal high point in Ms. Hall's career was when she discovered that the renowned opera star Frederica von Stade had not only recorded her song “Jenny Rebecca” and performed it in concert for over twenty years, but also named her daughter after it. The song was originally recorded by Barbra Streisand and, before that, by the internationally renowned cabaret singer Mabel Mercer. The title comes from the actual name of the first baby by two longstanding friends of Hall's — Ilene Jones and Bill Goldman. Goldman went on to become the celebrated screenwriter William Goldman.

Ms. Hall also collaborated with other writers, and contributed either music or lyrics to songs written with Bill Evans (“Very Early”, “The Two Lonely People” — 1977 duet album Tony Bennett and Bill Evans, “Together Again”), Lesley Gore, Michelle Brourman, Shelly Markham, Phyllis Newman, Tex Arnold, Robert Burke, Jeffrey Klitz, Steven Lutvak and Larry Grossman (musical based on Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”.)

Her non-musical writing includes THE DAYS ARE AS GRASS, an evening of 8 one-act plays, which received a premiere at the Woodstock Fringe Festival and a subsequent reading at the Bay Street Theater (Sag Harbor). It was performed at the Actors Studio Playwrights Unit, in New York and is published and available for licensing through the Samuel French Play Catalogue. Her one-act play VACATION has been published on NarrativeMagazine.com, a popular literary web site.

Ms. Hall was a Master teacher at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, The Sundance Theatre Institute, and the Cabaret Conference at Yale University, along with other cabaret notables Julie Wilson, Margaret Whiting, Babbie Green, as well as having been a guest participant in the ASCAP Musical Theater Workshop. She served on the Board of Directors of Young Playwrights Festival, Inc. and The American Place Theater. She was a Lifetime member of the Dramatists Guild Council, Vice-president of the Dramatists Guild Fund, was a TONY Voter and a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, which honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award (2018.)

Ms. Hall served as Producer for the Dramatists Guild Fund video “JOSEPH STEIN, in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda,” as the first in a series of video interviews with American dramatists entitled “The Legacy Project: Dramatists Talk About Their Work" (www.dramatistsguildfund.org). Ms. Hall also served as the on-camera interviewer for the Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt Video in Vol. II of the series. Vol. III includes John Weidman/J.T. Rogers, Larry Kramer/George C. Wolfe, Tony Kushner, Chris Durang, James Lapine/Lisa Kron, Alan Menken, Nancy Ford, Gretchen Cryer, Mikki Grant, John Patrick Shanley, and Stephen Schwartz/Jeanine Tesori. These exciting videos are all available, free, on YouTube.

www.carolhall.net

Carol HallHallsongs (talk) 08:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Hard Candy Christmas was written by her

Hard Candy Christmas was not mentioned, song written by her and performed by Dolly Parton. 50.96.69.137 (talk) 02:42, 16 November 2022 (UTC)