South Side Sunday Nights

Volume 1 - 1995

Volume 2 - 2016

History

"When I first came to Godfrey Daniels' Open Mic in February of 1995, I was looking for an artistic refuge. What I found was a community of dedicated folk musicians and singer-songwriters, having fun, honing their skills, and celebrating music and song together. When I got home that night, I found myself wanting to hear the performers again; and so I conceived a crazy scheme: I would record the Open Mic for my very own so could listen to it whenever I pleased.

"I was not unfamiliar with Godfrey Daniels. Some 19 years earlier, within months of Godfreys' establishment (1976) in fact, and thanks to Bob Killian and Dave Fry, I had headlined there as a member of the folk-rock band, Frostwater. But over the years I had strayed into the depths of the New Jersey / New York rock and roll scene (Maxwells, CBGB, etc.), then had found my way into architecture and software development - all the time writing poetry and songs.

"By 1995, I wanted to test the waters again; I wanted to try out my many new songs and the performance style I'd worked years developing. I needed a launching-pad. Godfreys was the perfect blend of familiar and safe distance from my own Morristown, New Jersey. If I failed utterly, I reasoned, no one need know.

"So I had come that first Sunday night, with no preconceptions in particular. My best friend and long-suffering bass player, Scott Nelson, had come with me for moral support. But it was just an open mic, after all. No biggie. Yeah - well - I was absolutely slain by the crew I encountered: L.A.WIlliams, Chip Mergot, Annie Bauerline, Bonnie O'Donnel, the late Otto Bost, Jackie TIce, Jesse Grim, Tom Walz, Scott Chalupka, Chris McGeehan, the sometimes visitor John Gorka, the lurking Dave Fry, and the omnipresent Master of Ceremonies, Leon Bonom, to name a few. And yes, later that evening, I'd had the idea of the recording.

"By the following fall we had organized. I brought in my workhorse 80-8 tape recorder. We recorded three songs a piece. I mixed the recordings analog, edited and mastered them with my new digital software."

- William J. Hall

!!!