The Second Saturday Community CoffeeHouse offers up another great night of family entertainment this month with Albuquerque Singer/Songwriter Chuck Hawley headlining and the lovely Annette Johnson opening.

 

Chuck Hawley reflects the strength and fragility of the New Mexico desert in his songwriting, singing and instrumental explorations.  His music is equally inspired by Americana, Alt-Rock, & Funk, with strong World Beat influences.  He plays guitar, mandolin, and lap steel, and uses each of these instruments as tools to explore music.  He currently plays with the Chuck Hawley Group and Pink Freud (a tribute to the music of Pink Floyd).  Hawley enjoys performing for any size audience from intimate acoustic gatherings to festival rock concerts.

 

Chuck has been playing in New Mexico and the mountain states region since the late 1980's. He first caused a splash on the Albuquerque music scene in 1988 with quirky alt-rock band Splinter Fish which he co-lead with Debra "DebO" Orlofsky.  Since then he has delved into various styles with different groups.  Since 2009 he has lead his own Chuck Hawley Group with Douglas Bellen on bass, Carli Marshall on saxophones, and Ernesto "Zoom" Crespin on drums.  The group's current players are crucial in allowing the diversity of Hawley's songwriting styles to shine through, regardless of "genre". 

 

Chuck's influences through the years have been: John Hiatt, Neil Young, Son Volt, Los Lobos, Pink Floyd, Samba Ngo, Salif Keita, Peter Gabriel, David Lindley, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Gov't Mule, Robin Trower, XTC, King Crimson, Funkadelic, The Beatles...and many more.

 

A new opener for Second Saturday Community CoffeeHouse, Annette Johnson is 17 years old from Albuquerque, New Mexico.  She's a junior at eCADEMY APS online charter school.  Annette has taken voice lessons for 9 years (classical and contemporary styles.) and sang as a principal cover for the Santa Fe Opera's Magic Flute-- Spirit #1. She has studied violin at the Margaret Hawn Studio in the East Mountains, for 14 years, playing  violin in the Albuquerque Youth Symphony for the last three years, and has performed in Carnegie Hall and at the National Theatre of Costa Rica with that orchestra. Annette performs in many community theatre projects and just she finished performing with Landmark Musicals "My Fair Lady" (ensemble) at  Rodey Theatre, UNM.   Last summer, Annette attended several Berklee College of Music song writing and performance workshops (Boston and Los Angeles).  She also received a Berklee scholarship to study film scoring with Pinar Toprak (partner of Hans Zimmer) which Annette attended last semester.