Tom T. Hall (elected 2008)

Born: May 25, 1936 -

Career Achieved National Prominence Between World War II and 1975
(First of Two Acts in this Category)

Tom T. Hall was born May 25, 1936 in Olive Hill, KY. He learned to play guitar at age 4. His father, Rev. Virgil L. Hall, who was a brick plant worker and an ordained Baptist minister, gave him his own guitar when he was eight. This encouraged the youngster to grow from writing poetry to writing music, and at age 9 he wrote his first song, “Haven’t I Been Good to You.”  A local musician named Clayton Delaney taught Hall the musical technique that would serve him well in his career.

Hall’s mother, Della, died when he was 11. Four years later, his father was shot in a hunting accident, which prevented him from working.  Hall quit school and took a job in a local garment factory to support himself and his father. He also formed his first band, the Kentucky Travelers, and played Bluegrass at local schools as well as a radio station in Morehead, KY. Hall wrote a jingle for one of the radio stations sponsors, the Polar Bear Flour Company, and later became a D.J. at the station when the band broke up to serve their country. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1957 and was stationed in Germany where he finished high school and performed on the Armed Forces Radio Network, singing mostly his own original songs. 

Following three years in the Army he returned to the U.S. where he studied journalism at Roanoke College and worked as a D.J. at a radio station in Salem, VA. A Nashville songwriter visiting the radio station, impressed after hearing Hall’s songs, convinced publisher Jimmy Key of New Keys Publishing to sign him. Jimmy C. Newman reached No. 1 with Hall’s “D.J. For A Day” in 1963, while Dave Dudley charted No. 10 with the Hall penned “Mad” in 1964. These successes convinced Hall to move to Nashville and pursue a career as a professional songwriter. Drawn by their strong narratives and detailed observations, additional artists started to record his songs, including Johnnie Wright who reached No. 1 with “Hello Vietnam” in 1965.

At a BMI banquet in Nashville that same year, Hall met United Kingdom native Iris Lawrence, better known as Miss Dixie, who was attending the event because she’d written the Dudley hit “Truck Drivin’ Son-Of-A-Gun.” Miss Dixie had moved to Nashville to work for Starday Records after successfully obtaining a record release for Tex Ritter in Great Britain. She was living with Mother Maybelle Carter, and was a member of the family. It wasn’t long before Hall also was pulled into the loving circle. The new friends, who shared a love of songwriting and bluegrass, soon started dating and eventually married. 

Hall signed with Mercury Records in 1967 and that summer released his first single “I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew.” While this became a minor hit, his following two singles did not crack the Top 40. But in the summer of 1968, Jeannie C. Riley had a major hit with the Hall-penned “Harper Valley P.T. A.”  The song hit No. 1 on both the Country and pop charts, which inspired both a motion picture and television series.

The success of “Harper Valley P.T. A.” put a spotlight on Hall, and his single “Ballad of Forty Dollars” rose to No. 4. After several additional hit singles, Hall charted at No. 1 in 1969 with “A Week in a Country Jail.” A year later, he had two Top 10 hits with “Shoeshine Man” and “Salute to a Switchblade” before reaching  No.1 again in 1971 with his biggest hit, a tribute to his musical mentor, “The Year that Clayton Delaney Died.”

The ‘70s were successful for Hall on radio and as a touring act. He earned the nickname “The Storyteller,” bestowed on him by Tex Ritter, because his songs contained strong and detailed narratives that revealed his observations on life. He had five additional No. 1 hits between 1971 and 1976: “(Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine,” “I Love,” “Country Is,” “I Care,” and “Faster Horses (The Cowboy and the Poet).”  He also had hits with “Me and Jesus,” “Ravishing Ruby,” “That Song is Driving Me Crazy,” “I Like Beer” and more. Blessed with a multi-generational following, Hall released the children’s album Songs of Fox Hollow (For Children of All Ages) in 1974, which contained his much-loved song, “Sneaky Snake.” He also produced a PBS television special on the history of bluegrass music.

Hall continued to enjoy success in the latter half of the ‘70s, including the No. 4 hit “Your Man Loves You, Honey” in 1977. He appeared in the 1979 television movie “Skinflint: A Country Christmas Carol” and hosted the hit syndicated television series “Pop! Goes the Country” in 1980. By the early ‘80s, Hall’s success at radio had begun to slow down. His final Top 10 hit was in 1984 with a cover of the Rudy Vallee hit “P.S. I Love You.”  In 1982, Columbia Records put out the classic Storyteller and the Banjoman by Hall and Earl Scruggs. Then, after releasing the album Song in a Seashell in 1985, he took a 10-year break from recording. 

He wasn’t recording, but Hall still had stories to tell. He had already published his autobiography; The Storyteller’s Nashville, in 1979 and went on to write several novels, among them: The Laughing Man of Woodmont Cove (1982), The Acts of Life (1986), Spring Hill, Tennessee: A Novel (1990) and What A Book!: A Novel (1996). He also wrote the children’s book Christmas and the Old House in 1989, illustrated by Laura L. Seeley.

During this time he also helped with his wife’s humane shelter work in Tennessee and Florida, where they had a second home on St. George Island. He began to write songs again and played music for pleasure with a community of “swamp billies” who made him a lifetime member of the Sopchoppy Possum Club Recording Studio.             

Mercury Records put out the 2-disc Storyteller, Poet, Philosopher box set in 1995, reigniting interest in Hall and his career. That same year they also released Country Songs for Children, featuring all the songs from Songs of Fox Hollow (For Children of All Ages) plus seven new songs recorded by Hall. These projects convinced Hall to record his first, all-new album in 11 years, Songs from Sopchoppy, released in 1996. That album, inspired by his “swamp billy” friends and their location, contained his song “Little Bitty,” which Alan Jackson covered and took to the top of the charts that same year. Hall followed up with two albums in 1997: The Hits and Homegrown, which contained “Bill Monroe for Breakfast,” the No. 1 and most played bluegrass song of the year. That year he also appeared in the TV movie “Miracle on Highway 31,” which contained “There’s A Miracle Everywhere You Go.”

For the past decade, Hall and Miss Dixie have immersed themselves in a shared love of bluegrass music. They have extended a helping hand to fledging musicians and veterans alike, with many established artists taking a new Hall song up and over the bluegrass charts. On the rising tide of new music, the Halls created two new publishing companies, Good Home Grown Music (BMI) and More Good Home Grown Music (ASCAP). The couple also transformed a building at their Fox Hollow farm outside Nashville into a state-of-the-art acoustic recording studio. The Halls have jointly received the Songwriter of the Year Award from the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music Association’s (SPBGMA) for seven years in a row (including the Master’s Gold). They have also received numerous awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), including the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Recently, Hall released a collection of songs he co-wrote with his wife, Tom T. Hall Sings Miss Dixie and Tom T., on their independent, multiple-award-winning bluegrass label, Blue Circle Records. The project has received more than 70 five-star rated reviews.

Throughout his career, Hall was nominated for seven CMA Awards, including Entertainer of the Year in 1973; received an RIAA Gold certification for his album, Greatest Hits Volume II for sales of 500,000 units; and received the Grammy Award for Best Album Notes in 1972 for Tom T. Hall’s Greatest Hits. He also had 33 Top 20 singles on the Billboard Country Singles chart between 1967 and 1985.  He is a member of the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. He has an honorary degree at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas and has a Doctor of Musical Arts from Morehead State University in Morehead, Ky.

Official Website: http://www.TomTHall.net