{"id":30434,"date":"2015-11-05T00:02:18","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T06:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=30434"},"modified":"2023-11-15T21:11:27","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T03:11:27","slug":"hal-cannon-and-3hattrio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/hal-cannon-and-3hattrio\/","title":{"rendered":"Desert Music: Hal Cannon and 3hattrio"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hal<\/a>

Hal Cannon, Eli Wrankle and Greg Istock.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ask Hal Cannon how his current group, 3hattrio (three hat trio), came to be, and you\u2019ll hear him ascribe it mostly to chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been friends with Eli [Wrankle]\u2019s parents for a long time. At one point when Eli was still in high school, he performed at a concert to help raise funds for his high school band to go to Disneyland. Afterward, [Greg Istock and I] stayed behind and played our instruments along with Eli on violin.\u201d<\/p>\n

The impromptu jam session included a lot of improvisation, something Eli hadn\u2019t experienced at that point. \u201cAfter the evening ended, he asked when we could do it again,\u201d Cannon continues. \u201cSometimes people move beyond age and circumstance when they perform together. The three of us really seemed to click\u2014Eli at [then] age 17, Greg in dreadlocks down his back, and me as a cowboy poet\/musician.\u201d<\/p>\n

It only took a few subsequent jam sessions before the group began to play locally throughout southern Utah, first in area caf\u00e9s, and eventually in folk festivals and other, larger venues. Then came the group\u2019s first album, appropriately titled Year One.<\/em><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t \u201cyear one\u201d for Cannon, however, who has worn many hats, most of them wide brimmed, and won numerous awards, both local and national, in his long and varied career in stories and music. During 1972-2002 he researched and recorded 19th<\/sup>-century Western music with his Deseret String Band (touring widely here and in Europe and performing at the 1998 Nagano Olympics). He was the founding Folk Arts Coordinator for the Utah Arts Council from 1976 through 1985. He also is founding director of the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada, and its offshoot, the popular Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He has published numerous books and recordings on the folk arts of the West including the best-selling anthology Cowboy Poetry, A Gathering;<\/em> has produced, with Taki Telondis, numerous NPR radio features (including one on the Wright Brothers) and the Emmy-winning television program \u201cRed Rock Rondo, A Zion Canyon Song;\u201d and with Mary Beth Kirchner, he produced the six-part series \u201cVoices of the West\u201d (the \u201cA Cowboy Christmas\u201d episode won a bronze medal at the New York International Radio Festival).<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople probably called me a folklorist back then,\u201d Cannon says of his early days. \u201cI\u2019m still a folklorist, but I think today I\u2019d probably call myself more of a musician\/composer.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to his current musical leanings, Cannon is reflective. \u201cMy music is different now\u2014and probably hard for some people to define. My band calls it desert music, because our music is influenced by the desert in which we live, close by Zion\u2019s National Park. But some producers and reviewers don\u2019t know what musical genre we are. I guess that\u2019s what happens when you take a risk and create something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cannon and the band are in Salt Lake City this week, for a release party and signing of their second CD at Ken Sanders Rare Books. They are also getting ready for the upcoming collaboration with Repertory Dance Theatre, for their Revel concert, Nov. 19-21. The band will be performing during a dance created by renowned RDT dance alum, Bill Evans, with whom Cannon has worked before. \u201cThere\u2019s something special about performing live music with dancers,\u201d he muses. \u201cSomething always happens in the performance\u2014something totally different from how dancers perform to a recording. It\u2019s magical.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cannon first worked with Evans in 1973, and confesses that when he recently \u00a0played \u201dCrippled Up Blues\u201d for Bill (off 3hattrio\u2019s second album), \u201cwe both laughed at the appropriate title, and the fact that enough time had gone by since our first collaboration to make us both feel old and a little crippled! I wrote that song when I was feeling sorry for myself after knee surgery, but then I thought I\u2019d share it with Bill. He loved it. So we thought it was an appropriate choice for RDT\u2019s 50th anniversary performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some might think it odd to pair banjos, string bass, foot percussion, and folk-like lyrics with a modern dance troupe\u2019s choreography, to Hal Cannon the juxtaposition is already familiar. \u201cOur current band is new, but it\u2019s already my second collaboration with RDT.\u201d<\/p>\n

And of course, modern dance is no stranger to innovation and unusual musical pairings. \u201cOur music is influenced by a lot of things,\u201d says Cannon. \u201cFor example, one of the pieces we\u2019ll perform, \u2018Wind,\u2019 literally came about when I couldn\u2019t think of a melody, so I went out into the foothills where the wind was blowing. I started singing along with the melody of the wind, and that worked itself into the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cannon also admits that 3hattrio\u2019s new album contains some darker songs. \u201cIn one, \u2018Off the Map,\u2019 we reference a tale of love and murder, and how the effects of that murder take the characters to a foreign territory\u2014figuratively off the map\u2014where they can\u2019t escape from the consequences of their actions.\u201d And then there\u2019s the piece that came from Cannon\u2019s experience in Downey, Idaho, where he spoke to an old man who said he no longer recognized his hometown because it had changed so much.<\/p>\n

Cannon enthuses about RDT\u2019s choreography to his (and fellow band member Greg\u2019s) pieces. \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful,\u201d he says. \u201cMy wife [author Teresa Jordan] and I were in Salt Lake recently and observed a rehearsal. We can\u2019t wait to come back and create an amazing experience onstage with the band. Even though some of our pieces [from the new album] are somewhat dark, people may be surprised at how lively we are onstage.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also clear that Hal Cannon\u2019s music resonates with more than just American audiences. \u201cOur new album is really climbing the charts in Europe right now,\u201d he says. \u201cI just heard one of our pieces online, broadcast in Dublin. We\u2019re also on playlists in France, Holland, and other areas in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked to account for the current appeal of his music in Europe, he modestly demurs, but seems to accept that truly American genres (e.g., jazz, African-American spirituals, folk, bluegrass, and others) often have been wildly popular in Europe. Could it be that European audiences are drawn to the magic of a land quite different from their own, and a music that corresponds to that landscape? Cannon may be too practical to speculate, but the scenario seems plausible enough.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s fitting that 3hattrio\u2019s latest CD was recorded in bassist Greg Istock\u2019s art studio in Virgin, Utah. Desert music, after all, is nothing without a desert. And 3hattrio is all about desert music\u2014and art.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3hattrio<\/a> will perform a free in-store concert and Dark Desert Night CD release at Ken Sanders\u2019 Rare Books<\/a> in Salt Lake City (Thursday, Nov. 5th<\/sup>), followed by two performances at the Moab Folk Festival (Nov. 6-7).They will also be performaing at 12 Minutes Max in the Main Library Auditorium on Sunday, November 15, at 2 pm. Modern dance patrons can sample five of 3hattrio\u2019s pieces in tandem with RDT <\/a>at \u201cRevel\u201d (November 19 \u2013 21, 2015) at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City. For tickets, contact ArtTix online.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone’s favorite musician and folklorist, Hal Cannon is performing with his group 3hattrio at a free in-store concert and Dark Desert Night CD release at Ken Sanders\u2019 Rare Books in Salt Lake City (Thursday, Nov. 5th), followed by two performances at the Moab Folk Festival (Nov. 6-7). Modern dance patrons can sample five of 3hattrio\u2019s pieces in tandem with RDT at \u201cRevel\u201d (November 19 \u2013 21, 2015) at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1525,"featured_media":30436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,58],"tags":[2575,2576,2574],"class_list":["post-30434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dance","category-music","tag-eli-wrankle","tag-greg-istock","tag-hal-cannon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Screen-Shot-2015-11-03-at-11.57.39-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 18:37:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1525"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30434"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71512,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30434\/revisions\/71512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}