On this day (August 20) in 2021, the legendary country singer/songwriter Tom T. Hall died by suicide in his home in Franklin, Tennessee. Hall penned some of the biggest and most memorable hits of the 1960s and 1970s, including Jeannie C. Riley’s massive international hit, “Harper Valley PTA.”
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Hall earned the nickname “The Storyteller” for his many story songs. He had the ability to pull a listener into the yarns he spun in songs like “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died,” “Faster Horses (The Cowboy and the Poet),” and the biggest hit he ever wrote, “Harper Valley PTA.” Some of the biggest artists in country music, including Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, George Jones, Loretta Lynn, and Waylon Jennings, recorded his songs.
[RELATED: Top 10 Tom T. Hall Songs]
The Storyteller didn’t limit himself to writing songs. Hall also penned several books. His first two books, published in 1976, were on the art of songwriting: How I Write Songs, Why You Can and The Songwriter’s Handbook. He published his memoir, The Storyteller’s Nashville, in 1979. He also wrote several novels, including The Laughing Man of Woodmont Coves and Spring Hill, Tennessee.
A Look at Tom T. Hall’s Career
Tom T. Hall released his debut single, “I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew,” in 1967. He found his first hit a year later with the title track of his debut album, Ballad of Forty Dollars, which peaked at No. 4 on the country chart. His first No. 1 came in 1969 with “A Week in County Jail.”
Hall continued to see chart success throughout the 1970s with No. 1 hits like “Country Is,” “I Care,” “Faster Horses (The Cowboy and the Poet),” and “I Love.” His success started to dwindle in the 1980s, and he released his final single, “Down at the Mall,” in 1986.
While country fans will remember him for his wit and ability to capture the human condition in song, the world will likely remember him as the man who wrote “Harper Valley PTA.”
In a 2011 interview, he revealed that he based the song on a true story. “I was just hanging around downtown when I was about nine years old and heard the story and got to know this lady. I was fascinated by her grit,” Hall recalled. “To see this very insignificant, socially disenfranchised lady–a single mother–who was willing to march do to the local aristocracy and read them the riot act, so to speak, was fascinating.”
Featured Image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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