Skip to main content

Life Changes Show, March 27, 2017

Show Headline
Life Changes Show
Show Sub Headline
Thriving Not Just Surviving with Robert David Hall - Musical Guests Robert David Hall, Judith Stearns Hall & Ken Deifik

Life Changes Show with Filippo Voltaggio and cohost Mark Laisure

Thriving, Not Just Surviving with Character Actor Best Known for His Role as Dr. Albert Robbins on CBS’ Series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Disabled Actor Advocate, Guest Robert David Hall and Musical Guest Robert David Hall with Cellist, Judith Stearns Hall, and Ken Deifik, Harmonica Player, on The LIFE CHANGES Show

GUEST: ROBERT DAVID HALL and MUSICAL GUESTS: ROBERT DAVID HALL with JUDITH STEARNS HALL and KEN DEIFIK

Guest, Robert David Hall

Guest Name
Robert David Hall
Guest Occupation
Actor, Musician, Narrator, Community Activist
Guest Biography

ROBERT DAVID HALL

For the past 16 years, character actor Robert David Hall played quirky coroner Dr. Albert Robbins on the hit CBS series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

For more than six years in the late 70’s and 80’s, he was the daytime voice and music director of KNX-FM, the legendary CBS “mellow-rock” station in Los Angeles.. While working at Columbia Square, newsman Christopher Ames approached Hall about a movie he and his wife were writing. It was Hall’s role as a burn survivor in that film,  Class Action, (with Gene Hackman and Laurence Fishburne) that most closely parallels his own life.

In 1978, an 18-wheel truck struck David’s car and he was severely burned when the car’s gas tank exploded, leading to the amputation of both legs.  Today, he walks comfortably on two prosthetic limbs.

His appearance in Class Action led to film work with Kevin Spacey in The Negotiator and James Spader in Dream Lover.  His many television guest-starring roles include “Brooklyn South,” “Touched By An Angel,” “Highway to Heaven, “LA Law,” “High Incident,” “The Practice,” and “The West Wing.”

In addition to acting, Hall’s passions include music and voice work.  He’s been heard in hundreds of commercials, animated series, and narrations.

In 2011 a CD of his own songs, “Things They Don’t Teach You In School” received praise from music critics and fans- and led to TV performances and an appearance on the Grand Old Opry at the legendary Ryman Auditorium.

A devoted community activist, Hall  is currently on the board of The National Organization on Disability in Washington, D.C.  He served 15 years as the National Chair of the Performers with Disabilities Caucus for both SAG-AFTRA and Actors Equity and has served on SAG’s national board as well.

Hall also spends time speaking to diverse organizations such as the Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities, The Amputee Coalition of America, and the World Congress for Burn Survivors.

In 2005 and 2008, he addressed the United Nations General Assembly and helped present the Franklin D. Roosevelt ‘Disability Awareness’ Award to the King of Jordan and the Consul General of New Zealand.

In 2010, Hall spoke at the White House for the 20th Anniversary of the “Americans With Disabilities Act,” and was honored to introduce President Obama.

He credits much of his acting success to years of study with Gordon Hunt, Gary Austin, and work in Equity waiver classical theater.

A graduate of UCLA, Robert David Hall is the father of an adult son, Andrew. He and his wife, Judy, live in Los Angeles.

Guest, Ken Deifik

Guest Name
Ken Deifik
Guest Category
Guest Occupation
Musician, Songwriter and corporate technical writer
Guest Biography

KEN DEIFIK

I’m a musician. I play harmonica, guitar, I sing, I write songs.

When I was a kid I played in the coffeehouses and nightclubs of Greenwich Village. I then moved to Nashville and played harmonica on recordings, worked for a time with Marty Robbins, and played in those middle-of-nowhere honky tonks where glass gets broken on purpose. I couldn’t have liked it more.

I moved back to New York in 1977. Leiber & Stoller hired me to work for them. The idea that it was Leiber & Stoller and that I was working in the Brill Building masked the fact that I was suddenly a Suit. It took about a year before that started giving me the heebie-jeebies. Leiber & Stoller are cooler than the other side of the pillow, and they could hardly be better guys to work for, but I was really glad that my gig phone was also ringing.

I played music in the downtown music scene, recorded with Laurie Anderson and worked in one of the earliest New Wave bands, the Love Of Life Orchestra. Phillip Glass wrote his only harmonica music for me. My background in honky tonks served me well.

I also played on the great guitarist Arlen Roth’s first record, and played with Andy Statman, whom I had played with when we were hotshot teenagers. Andy was just beginning to morph into the great Klezmer and Jazz musician that he has become. I also performed with the poet Kenward Elmslie at museums and art galleries up and down the east coast. The last day I lived in New York I performed with him at the Museum of Modern Art.

I moved to Los Angeles in 1981, played on soundtracks, jingles, radio ID’s and even the occasional surf punk record. I also wrote film scripts and created the cable show ‘Inside Out’ for Propaganda Films. In the ’90’s I also performed as half of the duo called the vonBrellas, with the great singer Christie Houser. When she sings, glasses that are about to break think twice.

I still live in LA, with my wife Rebecca Bonar. She’s an actor, producer, director, writer and a brilliant wit who has cracked me up several times a day for more than 25 years. You should be so lucky.

Somewhere along the line I got good at computers, which led me to having ‘something to fall back on,’ which led me to fall back onto it. Much later I stepped through a portal and became a corporate technical writer.

If you’ve been a musician most of your life, there comes a point when being a corporate technical writer is simply unacceptable, even though it’s good, clean work. I blew out of that scene and went back to what I’m really supposed to be doing, writing and playing music for you.

I’ve made a new CD called ‘Music For Small Audience.’ I named it that on account of I felt like naming it that.

Try doing that as a corporate technical writer.

Life Changes Show

Show Host

Come and join the conversation about what's going on and what we can do together about it, with it, and for it. We have the choice, we have the power. We can do magic if we just believe!

A show about the changes going on in us, to us, around us, and because of us. Therefore, it's technically a show about "Everything," only with a how to make it better, see it better, be better.

In the show, there is talk about, and with, people who have either been through major changes, are helping others with major changes, or people who are changing the world for the better in a major way.

The show is a one-hour talk show format with a monologue by the host, a 30 minute interview with a guest of note, capped by a "Producer's Wrap" segment, in which Filippo and Co-Host Mark Laisure, and sometimes surprise guests, bring it all home for the listeners in a sometimes humorous and sometimes touching, but always entertaining conversation.

/article-feed.xml/245
Weekly Show
Schedule Station
BBS Station 1
Schedule Broadcast Day
Monday
Starts
9:00 pm CT
Ends
9:55 pm CT
0 Following