Tom T Hall

Thomas Hall (May 25, 1936 – August 20, 2021), known professionally as Tom T. Hall and informally nicknamed "the Storyteller", was an American country music singer-songwriter and short-story author. He wrote 12 number-one hit songs, with 26 more that reached the top 10, including the number-one international pop crossover hit "Harper Valley PTA", and "I Love", which reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. He is included in Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Songwriters. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008, and the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame alongside his wife Dixie in 2018.

Hall was born on Tick Ridge, seven miles south of Olive Hill, Kentucky, on May 25, 1936. As a teenager, he organized a band, called the Kentucky Travelers, which performed before movies for a traveling theater. Hall enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1957, serving in Germany. While in the service, he performed over the Armed Forces Radio Network and wrote comic songs about army experiences. Following his discharge in 1961, he used G.I. Bill educational benefits to enroll at Roanoke College, where he worked as a disc jockey. His early career included being an announcer at WRON, a local radio station in Ronceverte, West Virginia. Hall was also an announcer at WMOR (1330 AM) in Morehead and WGOH (1370 AM) in Grayson, both in Kentucky. Hall was also an announcer at WSPZ, which later became WVRC Radio in Spencer, West Virginia, in the 1960s.

Hall's big songwriting break came in 1963, when country singer Jimmy C. Newman recorded his song "DJ for a Day". In 1964, Hall moved to Nashville and started to work as a $50-a-week songwriter for Newkeys Music, the publishing company belonging to Newman and his business partner, Jimmy Key, writing up to half a dozen country songs per day. Key suggested that he add the middle initial "T" to his name. Hall was nicknamed "The Storyteller", and he composed songs for dozens of country music stars, including Johnny Cash, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings, Alan Jackson, and Bobby Bare. He also penned "Hello Vietnam", a song that openly supported the Vietnam War at a time when war-protest songs were beginning to dominate the pop music chart. The song proved to be a hit for country singer Johnnie Wright and was later used by Stanley Kubrick to provide the soundtrack to the barbershop montage that opens his 1987 Vietnam film Full Metal Jacket.

One of Hall's earliest successful songwriting ventures, "Harper Valley PTA", recorded in 1968 by Jeannie C. Riley, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Singles charts a week apart. It sold over six million copies and won both a Grammy Award and a CMA Award. The song went on to inspire a motion picture and television program of the same name. Hall himself recorded the song for his album The Definitive Collection (as track number 23). His recording career took off after Riley's rendition of the song, and he released a number of hits from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Some of his biggest hits include "A Week in a Country Jail", "(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine", "I Love", "Country Is", "The Year Clayton Delaney Died", "I Like Beer", "Faster Horses (the Cowboy and the Poet)", and "That Song Is Driving Me Crazy". One of Hall's best-known numbers, "Pamela Brown", was recorded by Leo Kottke and became a staple of Kottke's performances. Hall is also noted for his child-oriented songs, including "Sneaky Snake" and "I Care", the latter of which hit number one on the country charts in 1975. His song "I Love", in which the narrator lists the things in life that he loves, was recorded by Heathen Dan, with completely altered lyrics, as "I Like" and appeared many times on Dr. Demento's show in the early 1980s. Hall's song was also used with altered lyrics and a hard-rock arrangement in a popular 2003 TV commercial for Coors Light. In the mid- to late 1970s, Hall was a commercial spokesperson for Chevrolet trucks.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.