Rough Truth

Village Voice
September, 1971 David Vaught

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It's unfortunate that the talent of Tom T. Hall, the singer and songwriter, has gone virtually unrecognized during the recent upsurge in the popularity of country music. Country music fans will remember Hall as the guy who wrote Harper Valley P.T.A., made famous by Jeannie C. Riley. It was about that time that Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Kris Kristofferson were breakinginto the popular market. Each went on to become an overnight superstar in a glut of newsprint, prison concerts, TV shows, awards, and rumors. Albums, both good and bad, poured forth, were listened to and written about; controversies over the political significance of Haggard's Okie from Muskogee or the production of Cash's TV show flared and faded with time. Through it all, Tom T. Hall was writing and singing good, simple country songs.

Back when Merle was singing Fightin' Side of Me, Tom T. Hall wrote and sang America the Ugly, a song that appears on his I Witness Life album (Mercury SR-61277). The album is characteristic Hall, reflecting his special touch with country music, a style that moves from the protest in Hang Them All to the unadorned country tale, The Ballad of Bill Crump . Tom T. Hall writes about the things around him--about drinking in bars, a man working with his hands, what people think about law and order. That'll Be All Right with Me is perhaps the best song on the album, and provides a rare introspective look into what makes up the man behind the music. "I don't believe I'm where I'm going," he sings in a plaintive, yet strong whine, "not by many a mile. If you don't like me, help me to change, I'm still looking for a style." The words don't ring with the lyric genius of Kristofferson or with the wizened hindsight of Haggard or Cash. Hall writes in a lower key than does Kristofferson. His songs are less poetry and more rough truth, not at all unlike Dylan in his early days. I listened to the I Witness Life album for a few weeks and then forgot it. Then a few months ago, I started hearing cuts from it on a radio show in my hometown in Illinois and began to listen to Tom T. Hall again.

Tom's new album, In Search of a Song (Mercury SR-61350), is different. His songs are still unhurried observations of day-to-day life, but somehow the whole album is stronger, harder hitting. Jerry Kennedy's crew down in Nashville is largely responsible for this change. With this album, they've finally learned how to play around Tom's songwriting pattern, which lacks the standard breaks and choruses of straight country music. Pete Drake, Harold Bradley, Pig Robbins, Charlie McCoy and the boys have found new ways to emphasize Hall's words and make parts of the song stand out, almost like a break or chorus. For, like the early Dylan, Hall's songs ramble in their storytelling and need the signposts that skilled, understanding accompaniment provides. The big song on the album is The Year That Clayton Delaney Died, a story about the best guitar picker in Tom's hometown. He taught Tom to drink and passed on his accumulated wisdom with words: "Son, you better put that ol' guitar away. Ain't no money in it, it'll lead you to an early grave." Jerry Kennedy and the rest of the boys, who are among Nashville's best sidemen, give the song the treatment it deserves. Their guitars talk for Clayton Delaney and make him come alive in Hall's words.

Who's Gonna Feed Them Hogs, and Kentucky, Feb. 27, '71 maintain the earthy down-home flavor of Hall's earlier albums, and Trip to Hyden is full of the cold, unreal horror of the Hyden mine disaster. The album is laced with the social commentary that has been a big part of Hall's approach in the past, and it stands out most strongly in It Sure Can Get Cold in Des Moines and Tulsa Telephone Book. Both songs describe the stark impersonality and dehumanization of daily life for country folk.

It is Tom T. Hall's gentle, understanding treatment of the common man that sets his music apart from the best of Kristofferson, Cash, and Haggard. This quality in his songs also puts Hall right up there with them as one of the best country songwriters alive today.