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Photo Courtesy of Share the Road

Music of the Mountains: Share the Road

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NEDERLAND -- Gary Hall and Linda Adam-Hall first met in a commune in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1975. Gary, visiting a friend, ended up eating and talking with Linda. Linda was instantly impressed by Gary’s kindness, and they connected quickly. They built that connection over time, committing after a year. As Gary puts it, they’ve been together unofficially for 48 years and officially for 44, as they married in 1980. The two have played music together for most of their relationship.

Linda has sung in various choral groups over her life, and she learned to play the guitar from a friend of hers in the '60s. This friend, who also happened to be a nun, introduced her to folk groups such as Peter, Paul, and Mary and The Chad Mitchell Trio. She has played guitar and sung on and off for most of her life, but Gary says she’s been playing longer than him. Even though Gary has loved music all of his life, he says his primary “ignition point,” especially into the rock and roll world, was in February 1964, when his dad got him and his sister out of bed to watch The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. He has dabbled in many styles of music, growing up around his parent’s eclectic collection, which ranged from bluegrass to Broadway show tunes. In junior high and high school, he started playing instruments more, and by the time he left home, he started playing gigs seriously and as frequently as he could.

Gary and Linda’s accomplishments throughout their lives, personally and together, are sprawling. Gary has released six CDs of original music, performed for and music-directed many theater orchestras (as well as acting in many productions), and held a long-standing career as an IT director for Experian before serving as the chief information officer of Estes Park Health for eighteen years. Linda is an artist in her own right, also acting in many theater productions over her lifetime and creating books of her photography.

Gary and Linda climbed all of the Colorado Fourteeners together between 2004 and 2012, and they still love to hike and climb together as often as they can. They have two daughters, both of whom also sing. In particular, Melanie Joy Hall has released Falling to the Moon, a solo album recorded and produced by Gary, and Healy Heartache, an album from her Alaskan band Sweet Ginger Heat. Now, Gary and Linda primarily play together in two different groups – as part of the lineup of Buster and the Boomers, primarily a Grateful Dead tribute band (their original name was Really Most Sincerely Dead, a reference to The Wizard of Oz), and as an acoustic duo project called Share the Road.

The two have always balanced music with their personal lives and careers, and now, they have a political career to balance as well. On April 2, 2024, Gary was elected mayor of Estes Park. Before his mayoral campaign, he hadn’t considered a political career, but when the previous mayor, Wendy Keonig, told Gary and Linda that she wasn’t going to run for another term, Linda immediately turned to Gary and said he would make a great mayor.

Clearly, the community agreed, as Linda remembers many people they directly talked to enthusiastically supporting his campaign. His first term lasts through 2028, and he feels that he has been able to embrace a similar skill set as mayor to that during his time at Experian. Linda is now the “first lady” of Estes Park, but she is more than happy to keep herself out of the public eye politically and continue to support Gary in their personal life as well as in his community engagement and political efforts.

Gary hopes to be careful in his emphasis of his and Linda’s titles, recognizing it’s not necessary to mention in Estes performances, but also finding ways to promote the titles elsewhere, including Nederland. Gary and Linda’s primary focus as Share the Road, as well as in their other musical ventures, is the enjoyment of the music. Despite constantly being busy, both have always had a drive to perform and found ways to keep playing shows while managing their private and public life. Linda hopes that people who come to support their musical efforts are inspired to pursue music, whether it’s for their personal expression or whether they end up making it into a career, and Gary hopes that their performances bring joy and cheer to their audiences no matter how big or small the show.

You can see Share the Road performing at Very Nice Brewing Company, located at 20 East Lakeview Drive #112 in Nederland’s Caribou Village Shopping Center, on Saturday, December 28, 2024, starting at 5 p.m.