I first discovered the genius that is Tom T Hall Almost by coincidence. I was browsing in Oxfam in Lanark, while waiting for a bus to take me back to my mum’s house for the weekend, when I saw 2 of his LPs in the vinyl bin, amongst the usual crappy Top of the Pops albums and Jim Reeves pap. They were 99p each, which isn’t a LOT but is a lot more than Oxfam used to charge for LPs (now, they’re about £5). I very rarely buy albums by people I’ve not heard but something about these LPs made me want to hear what the guy sounded like. The song titles (one song is called ‘Greed Kills More People Than Whiskey’), the pictures on the sleeves. Everything, really. Anyway, I bought one of them, ‘Ol’ T’s in Town’, took it home and gave it a spin on the crappy old turntable I keep at my mum’s. To say I was blown away would be an understatement. Songs such as ‘The Different Feeling’ (about a couple’s divorce and the effect it has on their pet dog (yes, weird shit or what?!)), ‘The Old Side of Town’ and ‘Jesus on the Radio (Daddy on the Phone)’ grabbed me by the throat with their honesty and deft storytelling. Each song was like a Raymond Carver story set to music. A little internet investigation revealed that T (as he likes to be known) is actually nicknamed ‘the storyteller’ for this very reason.
I was back in that same Oxfam shop a week later and bought the other Tom T Hall album they had (yes, it was still there!) ‘In Search of a Song’. It, too, was filled with more great songs like ‘It Sure Can Get Cold in Des Moines’ (a complete heartbreaker about observing the lonely people in a hotel bar), ‘The Year That Clayton Delaney Died’ (an ode to a childhood guitar pickin’ hero), ‘LA Blues’ (about Tom not wanting to live in LA!) and so many more.. the cover also has great pictures of tom hanging around truck-stops and motels, giving a flavour of what the music sounds like..
By this time I was getting rather addicted to Tom T Hall, so I got a £5 CD compilation, ‘The Best of’. This includes such gems as ‘I Like Beer’ (chorus ‘I like beer – it makes me a jolly good fellow’), ‘Homecoming’ (a heart-rending true story about Tom visiting his elderly father on a brief hiatus from touring), ‘Margie’s at the Lincoln Park Inn’ (which tells of a man’s infidelity to his wife) and many more. Strangely, there are no real duds on this CD, although I’m sure Tom must have written some in his time. However, ‘Shoeshine Man’ is a bit too quirky and novelty sounding for my liking. ‘I Can’t Dance’ is also on this CD, which was covered by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris back in the day! This is the most widely available collection of Tom’s work I’ve seen and is cheap enough to be a great introduction to anyone unfamiliar with his music. There’s another ‘Best of’ thing, entitled ‘Nashville Storyteller’, which repeats some of the same tracks and has others on it too, like ‘Son of Clayton Delaney’, ‘People As Crazy As Me’, plus live takes of ‘I Like Beer’, ‘Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine’, etc. That’s also worth a purchase, as it’s only about a fiver in most places.
Then I picked up a compilation called ‘Real - The Tom T Hall Project’ which had alt country luminaries such as Whiskeytown, Calexico, Richard Buckner, Marc Olson and Victoria Williams (as well as The Man in Black, Mr Johnny Cash himself, no less) covering a wide range of Tom’s songs. Johnny Cash kicks off proceedings with a solo acoustic take on ‘I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew’, his deep baritone lending this tale of injustice and intolerance a spooky, other-worldly quality. Surely Mr Cash is the best interpreter of other peoples’ songs ever? Other highlights include Kelly Willis’ amazing ‘That’s How I Got to Memphis’, which sounds like a hit single in another dimension (a dimension where records which are actually GOOD become hits!) The swooning pedal steel and Kelly’s aching vocal will reduce the hardest man or woman to tears in seconds. Syd Straw does a cover of ‘Harper Valley PTA’ and I couldn’t believe it. This was a song I’d loved as a child, on my mother’s country music compilation albums and Tom T Hall had written it! Syd’s version is a punky take on the song and she replaces the names of the ‘Harper Valley hypocrites’ with the names of her backing band, the Skeletons! Whiskeytown’s ramshackle version of ‘I Hope it Rains at my Funeral’ will break your heart, even though Ryan screws up the final pay-off line of the song (which should be ‘Let it rain at my funeral so I’ll be the only one left there dry’. Arf!) It sounds like it was recorded at 5am, after a night of heavy drinking. ‘Spokane Motel Blues’, covered here by Joel RL Phelps (with his usual hysterical vocal warblings present and correct), is a song about writing a song in a motel room and includes great lines like ‘I wish I had a Dolly Parton tape’. Like all the greats, Tom T Hall can make you laugh and cry almost simultaneously. Ron Sexsmith does a later Hall song called ‘Ships Go Out’ which is really moving and Calexico’s ‘Tulsa Telephone Book’ gives the song their trademark swinging Mexican vibe.
Tom T Hall sort of retired in the early 1980s, but he still puts out the odd album here and there. He also pens the occasional book and sometimes records children’s music (which I’ve never heard, but it sounds like it’s weird as fuck!) Please check him out sometime. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
For info, try http://www.tthallproject.com