List of Tom T. Hall’s favorites became a hit
Editor’s Note: Doug Davis is on haitus. This column ran previously.
This week in 1974, Tom T. Hall had a hit on both the country and pop music charts with a song that started as a suggestion from a psychiatrist friend of his.
Hall commented, “I wasn’t a patient of his, but I probably could have been. He suggested that people could overcome a sense of unhappiness by making a list of all the things that were out of place in their lives. And that in most cases—they would wind up with a short list. But Ithought that was a negative exercise, so one morning I sat down and started making a list of all the things I love — and from force of habit, I started singing as Iwent along. I wrote the song in about five minutes, but the song is actually a list of things that I really care about.”
He titled the song “I Love,” and it has been compared to The Sound of Music’s “My Favorite Things,” although Halls’ favorite things include onions, rain, squirrels and pickup trucks.
Tom T. Hall was born in 1936 in a log cabin in Olive Hill, Kentucky. His dad was a lay preacher and worked in a brick factory and owned an old beat up Martin guitar. Tom T. took an early interest in the old guitar, repaired it and learned to play it. When he was 14, his mother passed away and Hall quit school to work in a graveyard, a funeral home, and a clothing factory.
Two years later he had formed a band called The Kentucky Travelers. They played local events and performed on Morehead, Kentucky’s WMOR Radio. When the group disbanded, Hall became a disc jockey at the radio station for five years before joining the army. Following his discharge, he worked at several radio stations, performed with local bands and started writing songs.
He moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1964 to write songs—on the strength of his tune, “D.J. For A Day,” which became a hit for Jimmy Newman. Later, he was offered a recording contract with Mercury Records and racked up 54 chart singles on the country music charts between 1967 and 1986, six of which also scored on the pop charts.
Tom T. Hall’s “I Love”entered the country music charts November 10, 1973, made it to No. 1 and stayed there for two weeks. It was on the country charts for 22 weeks.
The single also scored a No. 12 on the pop charts the week of March 2nd, 1974.