Two of this year’s Country Music Hall of Fame honorees (Emmylou Harris and Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman) were inducted in a ceremony in April. They’re certainly worthy of recognition, but let’s take a moment to recognize the two inductees that the Hall paid tribute to on Sunday night, Tom T. Hall and the Statler Brothers.
Tom T. Hall is probably one of my favorite songwriters of all time, and I would likely say that even if the only song of his I had actually heard was “That’s How I Got To Memphis”. Sadly, the only versions I could find on the web were kind of spotty live recordings of the Avett Brothers, but that’ll have to do.
Or, of course, a cover by French singer/actor Eddy Mitchell:
The Statler Brothers–only two of whom are actually brothers, and none of whom are named Statler (they took their name from a tissue company)–have a long list of hits, including the Pulp Fiction-immortalized “Flowers On The Wall,” which Reba McEntire and Vince Gill performed at the ceremony:
“New York City,” while terribly depressing, might be my personal favorite:
You’d think the Country Hall could parlay at least a hour or two from Great American Country (the non-CMT country music station) for a live simulcast of the induction ceremony, but I suppose a chopped and edited version sometime in the near future is as good as we’re going to do.
Tom T. Hall, Statler Brothers inducted into Country Music Hall of Fame with musical tribute [Star Tribune]
fuck and yes. tom t. hall is perhaps the most ruling country songwriter of the last 40 years. tulsa telephone book, hang them all, shit, even i like beer is amazing! and you can buy all his records for a dollar a piece. my favorite kind of artist.
Don Reid of the Statlers was my Little League baseball coach (I grew up in Staunton). I’ve never cared a whole lot for their music in general, but they certainly were very gracious to the local community of fans they cultivated.
I spent my 14th birthday at a Statler’s concert with my aunt, and her drunken boyfriend. It was epic, as he got louder and louder, yelling about how Harold should go solo.
My friend Angus called attention to Tom T.’s latest tracks over on his myspace site:
[www.myspace.com]
Some very good stuff on there.
I was expecting something snarky here, so it was a relief to find otherwise.
Covers of “That’s How I Got To Memphis” don’t come much better than Buddy Miller’s, on Your Love And Other Lies from 1995.
Please ignore the ital on “from 1995.”
@Chris N.: Oddly, I think my coverage of country music is vastly more reverential than for any other genre.
I agree, that is odd.
@Dan Gibson: Whoops, that one slipped my mind — thanks for the reminder. We’ll call it a tie.
@Reidicus: I’m partial to the Kelly Willis version from the Tom T Hall tribute, but the Buddy version is certainly quite good.