Tom T. Hall's Storied Career
Bill Friskics-Warren
* 02/17/99
The Washington Post
Copyright 1999, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved
* Tom T. Hall has been called "the poet laureate of country
* music." His finely honed miniatures have been likened to the short
fiction of Sherwood Anderson and Raymond Carver, and most people know
him as "The Storyteller."
"The Essential Tom T. Hall: The Story Songs" (Mercury
Nashville) collects 20 of Hall's indelible yarns, many of them
character studies from his creative surge during the late '60s and
'70s.
"The Year That Clayton Delaney Died," a country chart-topper
and pop-crossover hit from 1971, is Hall's tribute to the unsung
picker who taught him to play guitar and drink whiskey. "Ballad of
Forty Dollars" presents a perspicacious gravedigger, "Ravishing Ruby"
a woolgathering waitress, "Turn It On, Turn It On, Turn It On" an
indomitable inmate facing the electric chair.
Hall's songs are more than sketches of everyday people; they
often take a hard look at cultural values and institutions. "Ballad of
Forty Dollars," for example, touches on issues of class and economic
justice, while "Turn It On" is an indictment of the death penalty.
Hall can be poignant ("Homecoming"), sardonic ("Salute to a
Switchblade") or given to cracker-barrel philosophizing ("Old Dogs,
Children and Watermelon Wine"). And most of his material feels true,
thanks to Hall's conversational baritone, eye for detail and ear for
colloquialisms.
"Real: The Tom T. Hall Project" (Sire) finds 15
* alternative-country and rock acts, as well as Johnny Cash and
* bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley, paying tribute to Hall by covering
his songs. As with most tribute albums, "Real" is a mixed bag,
although the strongest material--performances that subscribe to Hall's
"less-is-more" aesthetic--outweighs the dross.
Foremost among the gems is Cash's solo-acoustic reading of "I
Washed My Face in the Morning Dew," a plea for tolerance that the Man
in Black imbues with biblical authority. Syd Straw and the Skeletons'
roadhouse remake of "Harper Valley P.T.A." taps the righteous fury of
Jeannie C. Riley's million-selling single from 1968. And Joe Henry's
shambling, beat-wise reinterpretation of "Homecoming," easily the most
adventurous track here, succeeds because he so thoroughly inhabits the
character of Hall's conflicted protagonist.
Other highlights include Ron Sexsmith's tender treatment of
"Ships Go Out," Iris DeMent's declamatory "I Miss a Lot of Trains,"
and Freedy Johnston's countrypolitan rendering of Hall's paean to the
percolator, "Coffee, Coffee, Coffee." Richard Buckner, Kelly Willis,
and R.B. Morris all turn in strong, if predictable, performances as
well. None of them, however, matches the fragile beauty with which
Mark Olson and Victoria Williams sing Hall's ode to isolation, "It
Sure Can Get Cold in Des Moines."
The handful of singers who miss the mark here substitute irony
and indulgence for the empathy and economy that have long been
cornerstones of Hall's writing. Jonny Polonsky's smug, tuneless
version of "Old Enough to Want to (Fool Enough to Try)" is perhaps the
most egregious offender. But almost as insufferable is Joel R. L.
Phelps's turgid "Spokane Motel Blues," which clocks in at more than
twice the length of Hall's original. Whiskeytown and the Mary Janes
don't do Hall any favors either.
Notwithstanding his faint praise for the project in the CD's
liner notes, it would be interesting to hear what Hall, a
straight-shooter with little patience for pretense, thinks of such
artifice.
