Ben Cooley Hall grew up in a suburb of Boston in a musical family. Beginning in grade school, he studied violin privately and played in local and regional orchestras. He also sang in his church’s junior choir and in his school’s chorus, concert choir, and musical theater productions. Hall picked up the guitar in college, after which he moved to Bozeman, Montana, and helped form the indie-pop outfit Birdbody Hank, serving on bass. The quartet opened for such noteworthy acts as Band of Susans and the Loud Family. Hall first took his original songs on the road in 1995, playing on sidewalks from Memphis to Oklahoma City to Portland, Oregon. Later, back in Massachusetts, Hall recorded a 3-song demo at Zippah Studios (1999) that helped him recruit Deb Klein to co-found The Mary Reillys: Hall wrote, sang, and played guitar, and Klein sang harmony and played bass and guitar. Keira Flynn-Carson later joined on drums. The Reillys won a small following in the Boston indie circuit, and recorded one EP (Sock Is The New Rock, 2001) and one LP (untitled, not yet released). (The trio has been on an extended hiatus ever since Klein relocated to New York in late 2003.) Ben Cooley Hall moved to Providence in 2002, and is based there now. In 2008, Hall began recording and performing solo. Hall’s first solo LP, Owning Up To A Life, was released April 16, 2009.