WEST MARLBOROUGH: Charlie Zahm returns to the Hall

For the third year in a row, the weather was utterly perfect for local balladeer Charlie Zahm's outdoor concert in the walnut grove at Primitive Hall. Charlie and fiddler Tad Marks played a wide variety of songs, from "This Land Is Your Land" to Irish and Scottish folk tunes to the stirring "Bring Him Home" from "Les Miserables." "The morbid side of Charlie Zahm," as Tad put it, emerged as Charlie sang "The Green Green Grass of Home" (about a man awaiting execution) and a song about a massacre in 17th-century Scotland. The two musicians closed the show with a rousing version of "Those Were the Days," the 1960s hit by Mary Hopkin that was in fact one of the first 45s I ever purchased.
About 50 people attended the show, many bringing coolers and picnic baskets. Charlie, who lives in East Fallowfield, has a loyal following of locals, who call themselves "The Zahm-bies."