Tom T. Hall
Thomas " Tom T. " Hall ( born May 25, 1936 in Olive Hill, Kentucky) is an American country singer, songwriter and author.
He has written eleven number - one hits, including songs for stars like Johnny Cash, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, Waylon Jennings and Alan Jackson. Hall is also called " The Storyteller ".
Life
Childhood and youth
Before Hall started playing guitar, he had already written some short stories. His first song he wrote at the age of nine years. When he was eleven, his mother died. Four years later, his father suffered a hunting accident that made him unable to work. Hall had to leave school to earn money. Initially, he worked in a textile factory. When performing with a local bluegrass group he earned added a few dollars. He was also a disc jockey at the local radio station.
In 1957 he joined for three years in the army, which he spent mostly in Germany. He often played in American clubs, where he delivered the GIs his own songs.
Career
First, Hall once again worked as disc jockey. The established country star Jimmy C. Newman sang in 1963 one of his songs, DJ for a Day, and thus created a Top 10 hit. Hall moved to Nashville and added a 'T. ' in his name. The first to be successfully interpreted his songs Dave Dudley and again Jimmy C. Newman. 1965 had a number 1 hit with Johnny Wright Hello Vietnam. Two years later, Hall played for the first time even a single one, namely I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew. A text line of socially critical songs was: " The rich got richer and the poor got Poorer and to me it did not seem right".
Hall's big break came in 1968, when Harper Valley PTA be Jeannie C. Riley singing the top of the country charts and reached even listed in the pop charts. The single was sold six million times, Country Single of the Year and won a Grammy. The song was about small-town hypocrisy, a typical theme Halls. A well-known version is by Dolly Parton in 1969.
In the next twenty years he has published more than fifty singles and more than thirty albums such as The Ballad of Forty Dollars ( 1968), The Year That Clayton Delaney Died (1971) or Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine (1973). Between 1970 and 1976 seven of his singles reached the top spot on the country charts
From the mid- 80s, when it went slowly downhill with record sales, Hall wrote propagated books. He wrote, among other things, a novel, a collection of short stories and autobiographical A Storyteller's Nashville.
2008 Tom T. Hall was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.