Rocking a GOP district's boat to the House
John Hall, a guitarist and songwriter with the band Orleans of 1970s fame, takes his political activism to a new level.
By Ellen Barry
November 15, 2006
MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. — For more than three decades, John Hall has occupied a very specific role in the soft-rock band Orleans: guitarist, songwriter, and insufferable policy wonk.
Hall was the one who, faced with a roomful of fans, would "launch into dissertations about the statistics of how much plutonium was being produced," recalled the band's longtime bass player, Lance Hoppen, 53. The fans, he added, did not always share Hall's enthusiasm for the minutiae of energy policy.
"It was like, 'All right, we get it,' " Hoppen said.
Hall, 58, may have finally found his audience. He has spent the last two days in Washington with the rest of Congress' 2007 freshman class, learning House protocol and catching up on sleep. Last week, he pulled off one of the most dramatic political upsets in the country, defeating Sue W. Kelly, a six-term Republican incumbent, by 4,300 votes in New York's 19th Congressional District.
Hall said he was happy, but "a little daunted by the mess we've been left with," and worried that outgoing Republicans would try to ensure their political legacy with last-minute legislation. He has identified one congressman who plays guitar and one who plays the drums, so they are, as he puts it, one bassist short of an act. The freshman class, Hall said, has a lot of new energy.
"It does feel like an insurgency," he said. "In a good way."
Orleans — the band Hall has played in since 1972 — enjoyed a brief star turn in 1976 with a sweetly harmonized hit called "Still the One," which later became a theme song for Burger King and Applebee's. Its ascent up the pop charts was inhibited only by "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots.
But Hall was drawn to more serious matters. The son of a Westinghouse engineer and a creative writing professor, he wrote lyrics about the carpet-bombing of Hanoi and co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy, an anti-nuclear group. When he did interviews, he recalled, "the poor marketing people at the record company would say, 'Can't you talk about the record?' " He wrote "Plutonium is Forever," and "Power," a love song to alternative energy:
Give me the spirit of living things as they return to clay
Just give me the restless power of the wind
Give me the comforting glow of a wood fire
But won't you take all your atomic poison power away.
Many of Hall's central issues — and many of his allies — spring from that earlier era. He supports socialized medicine and a swift withdrawal of troops from Iraq. He has proposed a "Marshall Plan" to develop alternative energy sources and "kick our addiction to oil, coal and nuclear." He got to know his campaign manager, Amy Little, in 1976, when they were protesting the Seabrook nuclear facility.
"The fact that John is both anti-fossil fuel and anti-nuclear … is kind of old-school, and something I kind of love," said singer-songwriter Dar Williams, who performed alongside Jackson Browne at a fundraiser for Hall this summer.
This might not seem like a recipe for winning the 19th District, a swath of lush suburban towns north of New York City where Republicans outnumber Democrats by 18,000. Kelly had won her last two elections with commanding margins: 60% in 2004 and 67% in 2002, and started the year with a war chest of $900,000 — to Hall's $57,000.
But this year, opposition to the war was so overwhelming that any Democratic challenger could pose a threat to a Republican incumbent, said Jay Townsend, Kelly's spokesman.
"In a normal year, [Hall] would be adjudged by the people in this district as OK, but too far left," he said. "This was not a normal year."
Two years ago, Hall's name popped up out of nowhere, like the answer to a Trivial Pursuit question. President Bush was using "Still the One" at campaign events, and Hall was livid. He had his lawyers draft a formal letter of complaint. The incident, he said, was "one more straw on the camel's back."
By then, Hall had run successful county legislature and school board campaigns. But this March, still competing against five others in the Democratic primary, Hall found fundraising "so bleak" that he reviewed concession speeches. His staff worried that Hall would be pilloried for his show-business background, or for a stint in rehab 20 years ago. An unsigned campaign flier showed him on an Orleans album cover, shirtless and hairy — "John Hall, wrong for America," the caption read.
But Hall showed up in pinstripes and wingtips, and talked policy. He thought his musical career carried "built-in advantages that couldn't be assessed at that point." Celebrities — among them Bonnie Raitt, Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash — performed at fundraising events. On the "Colbert Report," Hall harmonized with the delighted host.
Hall had caught voters' attention with his celebrity, but never seemed to lean on it, said Richard Born, a professor of political science at Vassar College.
"He doesn't come off like Sonny Bono," he said. "There have been a number of examples of people who have celebrity status who exploit the reason for their celebrity to the point where it is cloying. Hall is not cloying."
In Congress, Hall hopes to fight to protect intellectual property rights for musicians, software engineers and filmmakers. He also hopes to press for campaign finance reform so that other political outsiders can more easily run for office.
"The average citizen ought to have a chance," Hall said. "You're missing out on the talent and the energy of a huge segment of the population that would never run for office, for two reasons: One is that they could never raise the money, and the other is that they don't want their private life dug into."
The band will continue touring, without Hall. He has been replaced for now by Dennis "Fly" Amero, who plays guitar left-handed and upside down, a la Jimi Hendrix. One thing he does not do on stage is talk politics.
