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At a storage facility off Route 22 in Springfield, Charlie Bernhaut sifts through the thousands of albums of chazzonus he has amassed as part of an inadvertent passion that began over 30 years ago.

For the past three decades, Bernhaut, a real estate consultant who for years lived in central New Jersey and now resides in Manhattan, has shared his love of cantorial music through hosting radio programs, organizing live concerts, and — for the past year — recording a weekly online show at www.charliebernhaut.com.

''When people say they don't like cantorial music, I think many of them have never heard good cantorial music,'' Bernhaut told The Jewish State in an interview at his office in Springfield. ''They might have heard a cantor and confused that with cantorial music. It's easy to be turned off.''

Bernhaut, who grew up in the predominantly Jewish Weequahic section of Newark, was not exposed to cantorial music until years later as part of his hobby of collecting gramophones and Victrolas.

When he purchased these old record players, they would occasionally come with the owner's record collection -- which often included albums of Jewish music.

Still, at that point, Bernhaut had little interest in these records and remained principally interested in the machines that played them.

In 1977, however, while promoting an event featuring Simon Wiesenthal on Larry Gordon's ''Jewish and Hebrew Sound'' on the radio station WFMU, the host invited Bernhaut to come in Friday mornings to play these records as part of a pre-Shabbat program.

It was then, Bernhaut recalled, that he first became ''enamored'' with chazzonus.

''It just touches me,'' he said of the music. ''It's something I can't describe other than when I listen to it I was turned on to it and it is what I say epitomizes soul music.''

In 1980, he got his own show on WSOU at Seton Hall University and in 1983, the show grew to two hours, including an hour of cantorial music and another of different Jewish genres -- klezmer, Israeli, etc. Also, in the early '90s, Bernhaut helped to organize several concerts of cantorial music at the State Theater in New Brunswick.

A little over a year ago, Bernhaut decided to host his own Internet radio program after funding dried up for a midnight program he had been hosting for several years on a commercial radio station.

For Bernhaut, the advantage of an online show is its ability to showcase the music at a relatively low cost.

''I went back on the air so to speak,'' he said, noting that since he first went on Gordon's show in the late '70s he has never made any money from his involvement in Jewish music.

While the United States, Israel, and Canada top the list of where his listeners hail from, Bernhaut said that they also come from the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and eight other countries.

The program follows the same format of his previous show with one hour of a mixture of Jewish music and the second devoted exclusively to chazzonus.

In addition, some shows focus on a specific cantor with his music plus an interview with the subject himself or with a relative. Already, he has interviewed the sons of cantors Leib Glantz and Eleazor Schulman.

Bernhaut keeps an index of all the songs he has played and tries not to play the same one more than once a year. If a show falls around the time of a holiday, the program will feature relevant music.

Bernhaut said that although among his listeners are ''the crazies'' -- those who grew up on chazzonus and are as obsessed with music as he is — most people are ''indifferent'' to the music.

''You don't find many people in between. They either like it or they don't like it,'' Bernhaut explained. ''I find it's more of a question of what they've heard. If they've never heard good music, they don't know what there missing and if they hear bad music, they're turned off.''

Yet despite what he perceives as the indifference towards chazzonus, Bernhaut said that, at the same time, he has been struck by the diverse makeup of those who appreciate the music, ranging from the ultra-Orthodox to the secular.

Even with this wide appeal, Bernhaut acknowledged that there are some divisive issues that come into play, especially when it comes to gender.

Bernhaut said that though he will occasionally play a female singer in his Yiddish or Israeli music segments, he rarely features female cantors in fear of offending his listeners who have religious objections to hearing a woman's voice in song.

''Those are issues that I have,'' he said. ''I wish I didn't have that issue, because there are some female cantors that I love.''

Still, Bernhaut feels the music transcends those divisions.

''It has the potential of unifying, despite all the issues involved,'' he said. ''It does have the potential of bringing Jews of all stripes together.''