Reviews

Farewell to the Storyteller

8/22/2021

Tom T Hall passed on Friday, He was a country songwriter who informed my work, telling stories about people. He observed every-day life, regular people, and made them real, with a large dollop of insight and sympathy and wit.

I read the lovely obituary in the Sunday NYT by Bill Friskics-Warren and I tried to remember when I first heard Tom T Hall.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/arts/music/tom-t-hall-country-musics-storyteller-is-dead-at-85.html

I think it was after I had been one of the first reporters on the scene for the terrible mine explosion in Hyden, Ky., on Dec. 30, 1970. I came back many times, met a lot of survivors – “the widders,” as they say.

Turned out, Tom T. Hall was there soon after. He and a buddy drove a pickup from his home in Olive Hill, Ky., not far from the coal region, and he observed with a storyteller’s eye, including the sheriff and the undertaker whom I had met. Maybe he had read my stories, maybe not. Didn’t matter. He put it to music, got it perfect.

(The “pretty lady from the Grand Ole Opry” is Loretta Lynn, who had come off the road to play a charity concert in Louisville in 1971, for the survivors. That’s how I got to know Loretta, and later helped her write her book, “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”)

In the next years, I collected cassettes of Tom T Hall’s best albums and songs and would play them as I drove around Appalachia. .
Some of his best songs were about lost or unrequited love:
“Tulsa Telephone Book” --
Readin' that Tulsa telephone book, can drive a guy insane
Especially if that girl you're lookin' for has no last name.
“The Little Lady Preacher” --
(A picker remembers the gospel singer he backed up every Sunday morning: “She’d punctuate the prophecies with movements of her hips.”)

We never met, but I took my young family to see him in New York in the mid-70s. I learned that he had settled in the lush outskirts of Nashville with his wife, Miss Dixie, herself a fixture in Music City, who passed a few years back.

I owe Tom T Hall a great debt because he helped me recognize the best parts of people, as flawed as we all are. Only he put it to music and he sang it.

In honor of Tom T Hall – a requiem for the older friend who taught him to pick, and other stuff.

Randolph

8/22/2021 10:37:17 am

George,
Thank you for your thoughtful reflection on Tom T. Hall. Yes he was a good storyteller, who understood humans and human misery.

Back some 50 years ago, I was hitchhiking through Kentucky and stopped off to see some of my family. They lived not far from Tom’s homeplace and they took me to see him play at a small venue.

He understood the challenges that Poor people and working class people face on a daily basis. But what amazed me was that he was able, at times, to confront the hypocrisy of the American myth.

He wrote a song America The Ugly:

“He went to the Appalachians and he saw what we all have seen
Where people live on bread and soup fat back and pinto beans
He saw the hungry children and he photographed the ragged clothes
I guess we're gonna try to tell him that it ain't so
There were good men standin' around with nothing to do
Pregnant young women who didn't even have a pair of shoes
The man got his pictures and what are we going to say America the ugly today

He saw the poor man workin' it out while the mighty rich lives high….
America the ugly today America the ugly today

I can’t seem to find any of the modern country singers writing lyrics like that.
Take care of Mis.Whipple
RF

8/22/2021 03:17:39 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhgb9hYjX3g

Randy, thanks. How about the Prophet Iris and "Wasteland of the Free." It's a jumpy live video from a concert...X years ago...but it is Iris Dement telling it....

Randolph

8/22/2021 04:09:35 pm

George,
I found it on YouTube. Excellent!
Thanks,
RF

Angela R McKenzie

8/22/2021 11:01:21 am

George, the following line of yours "He observed every-day life, regular people, and made them real, with a large dollop of insight and sympathy and wit", reminds me of how calypsos are used in Trinidad They serve the same purpose, but also include a quiver full of arrows thrown at politicians to highlight their many shortcomings, often with a course sense of humor

George

8/22/2021 03:23:59 pm

Hi, Angela, been a while. Thanks for the comparison between calypso from your homeland and country music. My exposure to calypso was Harry Belafonte in the 50s....I'm sure, very stylized for mainstream American audiences....I bet the down-home calypso of Trinidad is "folk."But Belafonte never holds back on his points of view.
Then there is reggae from Jamaica....another form of music that "tells it." My friend Tom (next comment) often plays a song by Bob Marley when I am a guest on his radio soccer show in St. Louis. Marley blended religion and politics...and made foreigners like me feel it.
Hope all is well, G

Tom Schwarz

8/22/2021 01:05:54 pm

George, yet another great story about someone I obviously don’t know enough about

George

8/22/2021 03:26:13 pm

Tom, yeah, but you can pick the appropriate Marley song for me...
It is brilliant, the way singer-writers like Tom T Hall and Iris DeMent and Bob Marley and calypso artists find ways to explain why things are the way they are. Such different forms.
Be well, GV

John Jeansonne link

8/22/2021 03:23:41 pm

His song, "Faster horses," always reminded me of the mentality of the Super Bowl. Faster horses. Older whiskey. Younger women. MORE MONEY.

Andy Tansey

8/22/2021 05:05:38 pm

Thanks, George. Good to learn about this. Some of us also believe this religion:

"But it could be that the Good Lord likes a little pickin' too."

- Tom T Hall

Alan Rubin link

8/24/2021 02:51:29 pm

George,

Storytelling, in all its many forms, shows the heart and soul of people. Your years of varied experiences weave a wonderful fabric.

Many years ago, a young African-American woman had an oral documentary on NPR about the vanishing folk singers and storytellers from the Mississippi Delta. Although I listen to most music, except rap, I equally enjoy both classical and folk.

She wanted to record all the old-times before they died out. I wish that I could have recorded it, but I was driving and it was before i Phones. One said that you cannot sing about it if you have not lived it.

World folk music has so much to offer about countries and their cultures, but I’m drawn to the music of the British Isles.

My wife, both before we met and during the early years of our marriage, spent hours at the former Gerde’s Folk City, which was on Forth and Mercer Streets in NYC’s Greenwich Village.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s, Cynthia Gooding had an hour-long Sunday morning folk music program on WBAI. She featured many of the singers who would be appearing that week at Gerde’s. Many were making their first NYC appearance, including Bob Dylan, the Clancy Brothers, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, etc., etc.

It was amazing to sit about ten feet from Odetta, one of my favorites along with Josh White, in a small Village club. Later, I met her as a customer in my retail store. She went by the name Wilson, but I commented, “That may be your name, but you sound like Odetta.”

I mentioned that my cousin Ruth’s bathroom shared a wall with hers and she loved listening to her sing in the shower. Odetta offered to take requests.

My best friend and I were taking graduate courses two nights a week at the then NYU Bronx campus. One night each week we went to the White Horse Tavern on Hudson and Twelfth Streets. It was a former longshoreman’s bar that became trendy when Dylan Thomas made it his regular pub.

It had a big front room where everyone stood jammed together. The back room had tables around an open space in the center. They served good hamburgers and other bar food. Small tables were often shared by strangers.

One evening we were sharing a table with an American woman, an English doctor and his friend.

About ten young men and women were sitting on the floor singing folk songs. We quickly realized that the group included the two younger Clancy Brothers, who were singing up a storm.

After they had sung several verses of an Irish protest song, our English table-mate burst into a pro-British version. Expecting some push-back, we were invited to join them.

We ended up helping them close the place at 3 AM. There was an accident on Rt. 4 heading home to Teaneck, NJ. I sobered up enough during the traffic delay and made it home safely.

Randolph

8/24/2021 06:57:03 pm

Alan,
You are a good storyteller.
Thanks,
RF

Andy Tansey

8/25/2021 09:56:17 pm

Wonderful story!

Check out Magnolia Blues by Adia Victoria. Music with roots in the South ain't dead, by a long shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVlQPpQ3xlY

Alan Rubin link

8/25/2021 01:21:39 pm

Randolph, thanks for your kind words. It is really easy when the events are so interesting.

My daughter Jen is the real storyteller in the family.
www.rubinjen.com

Randolph

8/25/2021 03:04:43 pm

Alan,
I would speculate that your daughter, Jen got part of her storytelling ability from you.
I always enjoy your stories.
When you, George and others get on a roll, I feel as though I am a New Yorker.
Isn’t that the beauty of a good storyteller? They make you feel like you are there.
All the best,
RF

Alan Rubin link

8/26/2021 11:00:35 am

Everyone is a product of their accumulative experiences. Some are quite evident and others very subtle. Also, people tend to form self-images at an early age that are not always correct

None of my friends or family believe me when I tell them that I was shy and reserved as a youngster. For example--I was an all-east soccer goalkeeper my sophomore year at Lehigh, but worried that I would not make the team my junior year, etc.

This all changed when I was interviewed for a job with a small start-up company in Wilmington, DE. The VP who interviewed my indicated that after I had a year of experience, he would put me in sales. I thought about what he had said on the ride back to Hartford, CT and thought he was crazy.

Later, when I went into the family retail business, one of my strengths was in sales. I always keep this in mind when I mentor youngsters, students or businesses. It is important to look below the surface and discover what makes the person tick. So many people do not realize what they have to offer.

George’s diverse blog followers always discuss things of interest.

Storytelling began for me at a very early age. I learned basic business practices and human relations from my father while commuting a half-hour each way when I worked for his retail business during high school. He discussed growing up in the Ukraine under Czarist antisemitism and his work history after emigrating in 1921 at age 12.

My favorite story among so many was when he was a soda-jerk at a lunch counter in a pharmacy. It is so simple and basic.

The pharmacist wanted to make more money on malteds by adding an egg. When my dad was the only one selling eggs, he wanted to know how he did it. “Very Simple” –the others ask if the customer wants an egg, I ask do you want one or two?”

I cannot think of a more basic business lesson that that.

To this day, and I just turned 86, my first thought when I approach something is— “It’s Simple”.

Jen does come from a storytelling background, but she is the best of the lot.

Peter J. Kennedy link

8/26/2021 12:45:56 pm

Wonderful story, Alan. We all value your wit and wisdom. As you say, it really is simple. That is an ageless lesson, one that has been passed down through my family, and which becomes that much more compelling in this time of complexity and mind-numbing change. All best.

Ed Martin

8/26/2021 02:50:18 pm

Thinking of Alan’s stories- years ago I worked at a place where there was a man who created a myth, in part by actions, in part by writing and telling hero stories, about himself. In reality he was a person with weaknesses and strengths, some of each were significant, but the myth did not include negatives.

The subject interested me and I discovered there was phenomena that had been observed by political scientists, business leaders and others.
Creating a myth as a path to success.

I am struck by how our political process has been dominated by self-created myths.

Meanwhile Alan, as a one time soda jerk on LI, I resonate.

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Farewell to the Storyteller

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