Tom T. Hall Biography

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Tom T. Hall
Country Music | 3 CD Set
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Story songs are a significant part of country music and standing tall in that style is a Kentuckian named Tom T. Hall, whose work consistently roamed around the top of both country and pop charts for years. Born in 1936, Hall learned the guitar at age ten, picking up pointers from a local musician who died of tuberculosis at age 22. That episode later became one of Hall’s masterpieces, "The Year That Clayton Delaney Died." When his mother died and his father became injured in a shooting accident, he left school to help the family (he was one of eight children) survive. He joined his neighbor, Hurley Curtis, who had a small traveling show and accompanied him on bluegrass guitar as a member of a small band. Hall later wrote "A Song For Uncle Curt" from this venture. As a member of the Kentucky Travelers, Hall was on the radio and continued playing and becoming a disc jockey, leaving to join the Army (1957-61) and then later to study journalism in Virginia. He wrote songs about his Army career, about struggling through school ("Ode To a Half Pound of Ground Round") and living with friends while trying to get his music into the Nashville scene. He managed to get one recorded in 1963 and the following year moved to Nashville and subsequently married Iris Dixie Dean, who was the editor of Music City News. He later wrote several songs about the Vietnam War. When Margie Singleton asked Hall to write a story song like the popular "Ode To Billie Joe," a runaway hit penned and played by Bobbie Gentry in 1967, he wrote "Harper Valley PTA." It is said Singleton was not available to record the tune and it went to Jeannie C. Riley, who took it to #1 on the pop charts and cemented Hall’s status as a songwriter. He told an interviewer that the song came out of a childhood incident in which a mother criticized a teacher for spanking her child. With a contract with Mercury Records signed in 1968, Hall’s offbeat country songs were popular. He hit the top of the country charts with his "A Week In the County Jail" but he also had hits with "Ballad of Forty Dollars" and "Homecoming." Hall’s expertise is in setting real-life situations to music, whether singing about why he can’t dance, about "Pinto the Wonder Horse," why he misses trains, the ubiquitous "cheatin’" song or the goings-on in a small town. Much of this sort of sentiment ended up in one of his best albums, IN SEARCH OF A SONG. He followed with WE ALL GOT TOGETHER…and while not as well-received as SEARCH, it included one of his best songs, "Pamela Brown," the song he thanks a girl for not marrying him. THE STORYTELLER had more Hall masterpieces and by now his band was called the Storytellers, and in it was the soon-to-be rising star, Johnny Rodriquez. Hall has won a number of awards and honors in his long career, including a Grammy for his notes on TOM T. HALL’S GREATEST HITS. Other albums include a bluegrass album, THE MAGNIFICENT MUSIC MACHINE, and a well-received set with Earl Scruggs. He has also managed to be known for his interpretations of songs by other writers. As the ‘90s dawned, Hall was into writing a novel and composing children’s songs.

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