TOM T. SOUNDTRACKED MY 1980 TRIP TO THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS

YouTube - OLD DOGS AND CHILDREN AND WATERMELON WINE


Back in 1980, when i was just five years old and a bit, my parents took
me and my three siblings on a holiday down to the Snowy Mountains in
NSW, and one of the few things i remember of that holiday is my mum
playing Tom. T. Hall as we drove around through the snowfields from
Jindabyne to Perisher Valley and beyond. I think i must have always
had an ear for music, because music is one of the first things that
i can remember from my earliest days. I was raised on music which
my family members were into really, my sister was into Cold Chisel
and Dire Straits, my brother was into the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt,
and my mum was into John Denver & country music. There was also a
lot of other sorts of music floating around my household, it wasn`t
cool to admit when i was young that you liked country music, but if
there were two artists which i admitted to liking a bit when i was a
young kid it was John Denver and Tom T. They might have been
a couple of wafflers a lot of the time, but i really admire their
storytelling lyricism. Tom. T. Hall has got to be one of the best
wordsmiths in the history of country music, he made you think &
he painted a picture in your mind everytime he sang a verse, even
if the song was somewhat incongruous. Tom. T. Hall is still going,
not sure if he is making too much music anymore, he is now in his
70`s, but he did outlive John Denver, who passed away tragically
in 1997 in a light aircraft crash. Both men were the true masters
of country/folk fusion, Tom. T. Hall was the more country of the
two. My mum played and played Tom. T on that trip to the snow in
1980, the songs which stand out the most are `I Like Beer`, `The
Year That Clayton Delaney Died` and the song which is featured in
the music clip `Old Dogs, Children & Watermelon Wine`. He over-
states everything in his songs, but then again i get accused of
overstating everything in my blogs so maybe that`s why i have a
lot of time for Tom. T. Hall. There are plenty of other fantastic
country/folk tunes in his repetoire from over the past 40 years,
too many to name in one blog, until i write another blog on the
legendary `Nashville Storyteller`, go and buy yourself a decent
compilation of Tom. T. Hall. It`s no nonsense trad country music.