Charlie Hunter: Flying Under Radar Creator Is Not Your Typical Artist

BELLOWS FALLS, VT.- Resident artist Charlie Hunter is a renaissance man; painter, graphic designer, music-artist manager, concert promoter and the founder of Hunter-Young Music Management, the Flying Under Radar concert series and both the Roots on the River and Roots on the Rails Music Series'...and the man somehow, still finds time to paint?

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Photo courtesy of Charlie Hunter

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Raised in Weathersfield, Charlie graduated from Exeter Academy and then Yale University, where he studied painting under Richard Lytle, Bob Reed and William Bailey. After college, Charlie returned to Vermont and settled in Ludlow, painting signs while working with his brother, who published the Black River Tribune, before moving to Northampton, MA.

Charlie started working as a graphics designer for a company which specialized in creating concert posters for colleges. He also started doing artwork and design for the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, which created a lot of music connections and consequently, work doing album cover designs for various indie musicians. These musical connections led Charlie to starting a music management firm in the 90's under the name Young-Hunter Music Management, which included clients such as Grammy Award winner Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams, Grammy nominee Greg Brown, Chris Smither and Richard Shindell.

In the late 90's Hunter would return to Vermont and settle in Bellows Falls, looking to help revitalize in what was being called the "creative economy in the old Vermont mill towns." After connecting with Robert McBride, creator of the Rockingham Arts And Museum Project(RAMP),Hunter started to promote local shows and thus launched Flying Under Radar.

"The name ‘Flying Under Radar’ came about because I wanted a name for my live-event productions that didn't sound like some alarmingly dull vision of what music in Vermont would be, such as "Covered Bridge Music Series" or something awful like that," Charlie Hunter said in a recent interview. "I had just gone to a yard sale and picked up a cassette of Jerry Harrison(from the Talking Heads)album Walk On Water and the first song was called "Flying Under Radar'. It had a cool beat and you could dance to it… I thought, the music I like flies under the radar of corporate America… plus it sounded decidedly hip."

Flying Under Radar's first concerts in July of 1999 were held on Sunday nights in the vacant Corner Pharmacy space on The Square in Bellows Falls, and the series grew from there. Later, Hunter would promote similar shows at Oona's Restaurant and the Hotel Windham, also in Bellows Falls.

In the summer 1999, Charlie launched the Roots on the River concert series, which sort of came about through happenstance. Upon setting up a show in Bellows Falls for Canadian singer/songwriter Fred Eaglesmith, the event received a great response. "We set up 65 seats for the show and some 120 people showed up from as far away as Syracuse, New York," Hunter added.

"So the next year we did two shows with Fred, including one at the Rockingham Meeting House, which has no electricity, mind you. It was something very unique for his fans and we had about 150 dedicated 'Freadheads' come to the show. With that success, we grew the festival over the next decade to where it became quite successful." In 2007, Hunter would turn the Roots on the River festival over to Ray Massucco, a local attorney who is also passionate about music.

However, Hunter was not done yet, creating the still ongoing Roots on the Rails adventure in 2001. During his time as a music manager, folks within the folk music circles learned that Charlie has a deep appreciation for trains. So, his music friends on the East coast asked him to organize a train trip across Canada to Vancouver, where the annual Folk Alliance event was being held. The annual train event has now grown to four runs a year and is going strong.

Nowadays, Hunter concentrates more on his painting, but continues to promote occasional shows, including a recent performance by former indie-pop band Let's Active front man and REM producer Mitch Easter and his band The Mystery Crystals, at Main Street Arts in Saxtons River. "My friend Pete Weiss lives in Athens and runs a recording studio, when he's not playing with his instrumental band The Weisstronauts," Hunter said.

"He's buddies with Mitch Easter and one evening while Pete and I were having a beer at Pleasant Valley Brewing, he mentioned that Mitch had a concert date fall through on a short tour he'd put together in the Northeast. I said I'd try to find a way to do the show and on just three weeks notice, we were able to put the everything together with Main Street Arts. It's amazing that we were able to get him here for such an intimate setting."

Moving forward, what can we expect next from Charlie? "Ray Massucco, Josh Hearne and I may collaborate on a show-or maybe a small series of shows-at the Rockingham Meeting House this summer. That's just a magical place for a live music event. The building is 200 years old, has no electricity and is like being inside an acoustic guitar. The annual Fred Eaglesmith shows up there are holy events… that place has a real presence." Indeed, Charlie Hunter has certainly come a long way since the little shows held at the Corner Pharmacy building on the Square.

"My goal starting out was simply to bring excellent live, original music to Bellows Falls and did that a lot for ten years and now I can sit back a bit as Ray, Josh, Patrick LeBlanc, Beau (at Stone Church Arts) and Gary Smith of WOOL Radio are all presenting great live music in Bellows Falls. Now I can do the occasional show that appeals to me, do a lot of painting most of the time and run four music trains a year… not bad!"