photo by Del Yates
Hal Cannon has been playing music most of his life and has gathered together many original songs and tunes over the years. A new collection of this music has been released on CD. Legendary producer Jim Rooney joined Hal, members of Red Rock Rondo and other fine Utah musicians to complete the production.
Best known, musically for his band, the Deseret String Band (a.k.a. The Bunkhouse Orchestra), the group made a specialty of researching and performing 19th-century music from the West. Together from 1972-2002, the band released several recordings, several which are still in print. They toured extensively in Europe and the United States, having been the official band for the America/3 yacht team that won the America's Cup. They also performed at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Hal currently plays with Phillip Bimstein’s Red Rock Rondo and also recorded with the Secondhand Band, a trio with Tom Carter and Jim Agutter.
The founding Director of the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada, and its famous child, the Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Hal has published scores of books and recordings on the folk arts of the West including his bestselling anthology, Cowboy Poetry, A Gathering.
More recently Cannon along with producer Taki Telonidis have produced almost a hundred features for public radio. Currently their series, What’s In A Song, airs on NPR’s Weekend Edition on 800 stations across the country. They also produce short audio documentaries for NPR including the award winning “First Flight, First Hand” about the Wright Brothers. Past productions include the Folk Economy Series for Marketplace. With his wife, author Teresa Jordan, he created the series The Open Road: Exploring America's Favorite Places which was featured on Savvy Traveler. Voices of the West was a six-part series of one-hour specials on holiday folk traditions produced by Cannon and Mary Beth Kirchner. Their episode "A Cowboy Christmas" won a bronze medal at the New York International Radio Festival.
Cannon and Telonidis also produce television documentaries. Why the Cowboy Sings aired on PBS nationally in winter of 2003. It has garnered a Rocky Mountain Emmy and a Special Jury Award at the Houston Film Festival. A 16-minute high-definition version is part of the permanent exhibit at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. Their new hour music special, Red Rock Rondo, A Zion Canyon Song Cycle recently garnered two Emmy Awards.
Hal and Teresa live in a Craftsman home near the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Hal's daughter, Anneliese lives Madison, Wisconson and is working on a Phd and continues to learn languages right and left. The picture above portrays the Cannon family.
