Legendary musician Tom T. Hall to give a rare performance in Marion

BY TOM NETHERLAND
Media General News Service

Published: April 2, 2008

Retirement.

Toss out the alarm clock. Book a cruise on the recliner, and sail away at your own pace. Read books. Paint pictures. Do whatever comes to mind.

When Tom T. Hall retired from performing about a decade or so ago, he intended to do as he pleased. Mission accomplished ... mostly.

Thanks to his wife, universally referred to as Miss Dixie, Hall steps on stage and to a microphone maybe once or twice per year.

Hall will headline Song of the Mountains on April 5 at the Lincoln Theatre in Marion. Filmed for national syndication via PBS, Song of the Mountains so far has featured such luminaries as Rhonda Vincent and Larry Sparks. Yet none thus far match the stature of Hall.

Song of the Mountains executive director and host Tim White is thrilled.

“It’s a special thing for me, personally,” White said.

Hall firmly stands as one of the greatest American songwriters of all time. He was recently voted for induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Oh yeah, and he’s retired.

“That means I don’t have anything to sell and anything to explain,” Hall said by phone Thursday from his beloved home, Fox Hollow, in Franklin, Tenn. “No, no, no, Miss Dixie won’t let me retire. So, I do about one show a year.”

But why perform here and on Song of the Mountains? “Tim White is a big family friend, and a friend of Miss Dixie’s,” Hall said.

And so the man known as the “Storyteller” will ease out of Fox Hollow for the show.

OLIVE HILL, KY.

Words first drew Hall’s attention while still a child. Growing up in Olive Hill, Ky., he came from a generation and parents who tried not to argue in front of their kids.

So Hall wasn’t accustomed to seeing adults argue. Then one day while mowing a couple’s lawn at about age 9, he witnessed the couple arguing. He thought it odd, seeing as how his Baptist preacher father and mother didn’t show that side to their son.

“I didn’t know married people had arguments,” Hall said. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s like one of Lefty [Frizzell] or Hank’s [Williams] songs.’ “

Captivated, Hall listened close.

“She said, ‘I’m going home to mama,’ and he said, ‘Haven’t I been good to you?’ “ Hall said.

Boom! The song “Haven’t I Been Good to You” was born in the mind of 9-year-old Hall.

“And so I wrote the song as a joke,” he said.

Hall would sing the song for folks thereafter, and they seemed to like what he had written. Thereby started a road down which he followed to country music stardom.

HILTONS

Long after Hall’s stardom was established, he and Miss Dixie bought a second home in Hiltons. Located but a hoot and holler from the Carter Fold, their getaway place connects roots for both of them.

“Miss Dixie and Mother Maybelle Carter roomed together in Nashville [during the early 1960s] when Maybelle was going through some lean times,” Hall said. “Miss Dixie would hang out with June Carter and the girls before June married Johnny Cash.”

Cash married June Carter. Hall married Dixie Deen. Cash bought a small house in Hiltons to be close to the roots of the Carters. The Halls soon followed.

“Miss Dixie is very close to the Carter Family, so we bought a little summer house up there close to the Fold,” Hall said. “When we go, we live out of the garden there.”

Visit the Carter Family Museum, which was A.P. Carter’s general store, sometime. All sorts of items rest on tables and in cases, some of which Hall made or fixed.

Not surprising, White said.

“They’ve been adding a studio for music videos at their home in Franklin,” White said. “I took some friends out there to meet him a few weeks ago, and Tom T. walked up in a ball cap and coveralls. He was working.”

During an interview in her father’s former store with the late Janette Carter in 2002, she showed some of Hall’s handiwork, such as a podium of sorts upon which rested a mammoth-sized scrapbook of articles written about the Carters and the Fold.

“Tom T. Hall made that,” Carter said, smiling. “He pitches in whenever we need him. He’s fixed benches over in the Fold, fixed all sorts of things around here.”

Modesty fits Hall as surely as a pocketknife fits the hand of a fine whittler. But make no mistake, love as much as Hall’s hammer and nails attach themselves to such good deeds done.

“I do some woodworking there,” Hall said. “I’d take all my tools with me up there for a few weeks. I’ll nail things back up.”

JAN. 1, 1964

Hall packed his things up and drove to Nashville on New Year’s Day 1964. He chose that date for a reason.

“I don’t remember dates well. Dates don’t mean anything to me,” Hall said. “I said if I’m going to go to Nashville, I’ll go on the first day of the year so I’ll remember the date.”

Promise of a career as a songwriter awaited Hall’s arrival. Grand Ole Opry star and song publisher Jimmy Newman had recorded Hall’s “DJ for a Day” in 1963, which helped spur his move to Music City.

“I drove to Nashville in a rose-colored Cadillac,” Hall said. “It was about 10-15 years old and had a whole lot of room in the back seat for my guitars and banjo.”

Unlike many before and more since, Hall journeyed to Nashville not looking for a recording contract. He wanted to write songs.

“I didn’t want to perform or sing,” Hall said. “I wanted to write songs. I was offered four or five record contracts in that first five years or so. But back in those days you couldn’t make any money on the road. You could book Jim Reeves, as big a name as he was, for $700 or $800. And in those days, country singers had to sing in honky-tonks.”

Hall wanted none of that. Honky-tonks weren’t for him then or later. So, he signed with Jimmy Newman and Dave Dudley’s song publishing company, took up his guitar, sat before a typewriter and wrote songs.

But then an unknown named Jeanie C. Riley recorded Hall’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.” in 1968. The song hit huge, and Hall’s name soared.

THE STORYTELLER

Hall signed with Mercury Records in 1967, and despite his prior reluctance, thus ensued his own successful career as a recording and performance star.

He also added the middle initial “T” to his name.

Hall’s songs read like little novels. Hits mounted with amazingly literate slices of life via “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” and “Shoeshine Man.”

“He’s a poet,” White said.

Some songs featured titles that went unmentioned in the song. But songs like “Ballad of Forty Dollars” and “Homecoming” flew high as hits nonetheless.

“I never dwelled on titles,” Hall said. “I had a lot of songs that don’t mention the title in the song, like with ‘Ballad of 40 Dollars,’ which ends with a line about 40 bucks.”

Regardless, when listening to Hall’s songs, it’s sort of like thumbing through the pages of his life. Some came from actual experiences, such as on “A Week in a Country Jail.” Others came from observances he made, as on “(Old Dogs-Children And) Watermelon Wine.”

Together, Hall’s songs are autobiographical.

“I think so,” he said. “We write autobiographical. The best ones, you write them down and then see what happens.”

Peers and fans alike sure paid attention. His nickname, the Storyteller, fits as perfectly as that of the King for Elvis Presley.

“I was on a tour of Asia,” Hall said. “We went to Hong Kong and Japan, and Tex Ritter was on the show and emceed.”

Each night, Ritter introduced Hall as a storyteller. Listen to songs by Hall such as “Turn it On, Turn it On, Turn it On,” and the nickname makes sense.

“It stuck,” Hall said. “It fit because they are like stories.”

THE MAN

Hall is country. He came from a region rich in moonshiners and bluegrass music. He also stands as something of a renaissance man. He attended Roanoke College, has lectured on college campuses and loves literature.

“I started out as a writer of prose,” Hall said, “but I always had a guitar near.”

His songs aren’t mere, three-chord country and bluegrass songs. They are poetry set to music. Not surprisingly, he loves poetry.

“Tom T. Hall is sort of a Bob Dylan in our world,” said Mark Newton, a bluegrass musician, friend and neighbor of the Halls. “He’s a part of our American culture.”

However …

“He’s humble,” Newton said.

Hall also loves art, particularly impressionist art. To that end, he paints and paints quite well.

“I’m an impressionist,” Hall said. “I work in acrylics. I like to do portraits of bluegrass legends – Mac Wiseman, Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin.”

Hall’s one of them, a legend.

And yet, he has no noticeable hang-ups, no huge head, no swollen ego. Ask anyone in the music business or those who know him as a friend, and Hall does not act the part of a country music legend.

He’s written books, traveled the world, performed for presidents and dined with royalty.

And yet …

“He’s just down to Earth,” White said.

BLUEGRASS

Country music made Tom T. Hall rich. But he grew up in bluegrass, and more than a decade ago returned to his roots.

“He was in the military, on the radio as a disc jockey and had country hits, but he never lost touch with bluegrass,” Newton said.

Nowadays, Hall and Miss Dixie write songs together and lots of them, successfully, too. They were recently honored as 2008 SPBGMA songwriters of the year. Hall also has a new album out, “Tom T. Hall Sings Miss Dixie & Tom T.”

“They are songwriting machines,” White said.

Such musicians as White, Larry Sparks and Alecia Nugent have recorded many of the Halls’ songs.

Newton and scores of other bluegrass musicians have also recorded albums in the Halls’ studio, which is out back of their house in Franklin. At the Halls’ house, they feed the musicians and make them feel like they are at home.

“They feed ‘em more than food,” White said. “They feed ‘em songs.”

Those songs materialize also on the Halls’ record label, Blue Circle Records. They typically sign young though talented musicians who could use a boost that such an affiliation can bring.

“He grew up on bluegrass and understands the history and foundation of the music,” Newton said.

But all goes back to how the Halls are as people. Respect and love for them stretches from Hiltons to Hollywood,

“Tom and Miss Dixie are the absolute salt of the Earth,” Newton said.

And though they pop in and out of Hiltons throughout each summer, don’t expect to see Hall on stage very often.

“I don’t know of a full-blown concert that he’s done in at least nine years when he was at the Carter Fold,” White said.

Bear in mind that Hall is retired. This could be the last time that he performs a full show.

“You better see him while you can,” White said. “Come on out and see Tom T. Hall. You won’t regret it.”