The “Golden Hits Of The 70s”
Main MenuConcept Refinement The Author..Wayne JancikGolden Age Of The 50sGolden Age Of The 60s1970s and There After
TOM T. HALL
“I LOVE”
(TOM T. HALL)
Mercury 73436
No. 12 March 2, 1974
.
.
.
When Hall’s career cooled in the late ’70s, he took some time off to do book reviews for the Nashville Ten
nessean and write books–How I Write Songs … , Why You Can, The Storyteller’s Nashville, The
Laughing Man ofWoodmont Coves, and Acts of Life. He also hosted the syndicated “Pop Goes the
Country” TV variety show.
Tom T. Hall has been called “the Nashville Storyteller” and “the Mark Twain of Country Music.” Hall’s
songs are vignettes of intriguing characters and offbeat situations. Tom has written of a visit with a dying
girlfriend (“Second Hand Flowers”), of the aftereffects of a mining disaster on a small community (“Trip
to Hyded”), and of the would-be star who insists that his next record will be his big one (“Homecoming”).
You need not be a die-hard country-music fan to have heard many of Tom T. Hall’s tunes. JEANNIE C.
RILEY’s “Harper Valley P. T. A.” (#1, 1968) is a landmark Hall hit. You might have caught DAVE
DUDLEY’s performance of the anti-war anthem “What Are We Fighting For” (C&W: #4, 1966), or Hall’s
own voice on both “Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine” (C&W: #1, 1973) and “The Year That
Clayton Delaney Died” (C&W: #l, 1971).
Hall (b. May 25, 1936, Olive Hill, KY) was born in a log cabin, and into poverty. His father, the Reverend
Virgil L. Hall, was a lay preacher, a worker in a brick factory, and the owner of a battered old Martin
guitar. Tom took an interest in the instrument and repaired it. The year after his mother died, when he
was 14, Tom quit school to work in a graveyard, a funeral home, and later, a clothing factory.
Within two years, Hall had himself a band of blue grass pickers called the Kentucky Travelers. They
played local dates, and made radio appearances on WMOR in Morehead, Kentucky. When the band broke
up, Hall remained at the station as a DJ for five years before joining the army. On his return to civilian life
in 1961, he moved around, filling various DJ slots. Tom would work in the evenings with a band called the
Technicians, all the while sketching out songs based on the characters he observed.
In 1963, JIMMY NEWMAN recorded Hall’s “DJ for a Day” (C&W: #9, 1964); the following year, Dave
Dudley cut his “Mad” (C&W: #6, 1964). Tom moved to Nashville in 1964 to work as a staff writer, and
soon other country artists were approaching him for hits: Bobby Bare, ROY DRUSKY, Flatt & Scruggs,
Burl Ives, STONEWALL JACKSON, and George Jones. With the phenomenal success of “Harper Valley
P.T.A.,” Hall was offered a recording contract with Mercury Records. And despite the lone Top 40
charting of “I Love,” Tom T. has racked up more than 60 C & W chartings, induding “Ballad of Forty
Dollars” (#4, 1969), “Me and Jesus” (#8, 1972), “That Song Is Driving Me Crazy” (#2, 1974), and “I Like
Beer” (#4, 1975).