Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 147

Critical Junctions in Country Music

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The music ceased to see drinking as a social disease, but rather as a com
modity for fun and male bonding. Similarly if one was “In the Jail House Now” as
Webb Pierce sang, it was because he had just a little too much “fiin.” The domi
nant theme of the music became heartbreak and reconciliation. Nashville country
singers also had repertoires of gospel songs, and each segment of the Grand Ole
Opry ended on a religious note. Like the bad mix of politics and religion on the
American political scene, Nashville music and politics were blatantly separated
during this period. The lyrics of the music became void of serious content.
By the time Hall arrived in Nashville at the beginning of the 1960’s, the
performers n were beginning to realize that they could not participate in inappro
priate racial stereotypes, and some lyrics changed. A very popular Bob Wills song,
“Take Me Back to Tulsa,” dropped the insulting line, “darkie raise the cotton,
white man gets the money,” and replaced it with “little man raise the cotton, big
man gets the money.” The music was not political. It tried not to offend anyone especially its mainly white audience. There were no civil rights songs, no set of
the Opry ended with the religious song, “We Shall Overcome.” Before the Public
Accommodations Act of 1964 was promulgated, the Opry was an all-white organi
zation—on stage, back stage, and in the audience.
Tom T. Hall Meets Country Music
Tom T. Hall’s music encompassed many of the elements of the country
music of the fifties and sixties. His mark as a country music performer and
songwriter was two-fold. First, he carved out a special niche as a storyteller using
traditional country music accompaniment and a traditional country voice. Sec
ondly, and most importantly, he introduced political themes into country music—
heavy, controversial, political themes. As a storyteller, he accumulated his life
experiences and unusual uncanny perceptions of the experiences of others while
he translated the pathos of ordinary souls into messages that resonated with uni
versal qualities. As a political messenger, he yelled out loudly and clearly that
there were many things that were not right in American society.
Hall drew musical pictures out of images he had seen in his life. Bom on
a farm in Tick Ridge in eastern Kentucky, on May 25, 1936 Hall knew life as a
struggle from an early age.* His father Virgil eked out a living working in a brick
factory, farming, and preaching. His mother died when he was thirteen. Although
he quit school a year later, Tom was an avid reader, determined to be a writer^; but
he had a long way to go before he hit the bookstore circuit.
Many of Hall’s song lyrics recall memories of his early days. “Don’t
forget the coffee Billy Joe” (1973)^ reflects on the day to day stmggles of a kid
helping his family survive by mnning to town and trying to make a deal on logs, or
on the sale of an animal. An uncle introduced him to show business as he was