I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs Of Fox Hollow

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Detailed Description

Track list:

1. I LOVE (2:10) This track is a must-listen. Grammy winning singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, who often performs Tom T.'s "I Flew over Our House Last Night" in concert, sings the album-opening "I Love."

2. SNEAKY SNAKE (2:42) Tom T. credits Buddy Miller for giving new life to the Hall-penned "That's How I Got to Memphis," which Miller recorded on his Your Love and Other Lies album. Buddy also produced Solomon Burke's soulful version on Burke's 2006 Nashville. Here, Miller sings while Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Duane Eddy (the single most successful rock instrumental artist of all time) provides slither and rumble on "Sneaky Snake."

3. EVERYBODY LOVES TO HEAR A BIRD SING (2:29) Peter Cooper sings this one, and Duane Eddy returns for a stately solo on "Everybody Loves to Hear a Bird Sing." South Carolina-based musician Baker Maultsby also appears, providing a hands-on lesson in befriending a bird. ("First, you get some peanut butter out of a jar...")

4. I LIKE TO FEEL PRETTY INSIDE (2:36) Another Grammy winner, the uber-talented Jim Lauderdale, delivers a rollicking, bluegrass-inflected "I Like to Feel Pretty Inside."

5. THE MYSTERIOUS FOX OF FOX HOLLOW (3:05) Eric Brace and his much-lauded Americana band, Last Train Home (featuring Kevin Cordt on trumpet), offer "The Mysterious Fox of Fox Hollow," a gentle explanation in which Tom T. assures the listener that there's no need to fear the mysterious fox: "Sometimes he will run and jump over a log/For he is afraid of your dog."

6. I WISH I HAD A MILLION FRIENDS (2:02) Elizabeth Cook, the singer-songwriter who hosts Sirius XM's weekday morning Apron Strings show on the Outlaw Country channel, duets on the wistful "I Wish I Had a Million Friends" with husband Tim Carroll, a guitar-slinger whose songs have been recorded by John Prine, the Wrights, Robbie Fulks, Asleep at the Wheel and many others.

7. THE BARN DANCE (2:09) Gary Bennett, known to many country fans for his role as co-founder and co-frontman of impactful, Grammy-nominated band BR549, claims Tom T. among his primary vocal influences. Bennett needed no lyric sheet to sing "The Barn Dance," as he'd performed it onstage for years.

8. SONG OF THE ONE-LEGGED CHICKEN (2:14) Mark & Mike is the duo of former Derailers drummer Mark Horn and Ozark Mountain Daredevil Michael "Supe" Granda. "We're like what Homer & Jethro could have been had they lived to see Dumb & Dumber," said Mark, who sings Tom T.'s true tale about a one-legged chicken, with Supe in the role of the uncaring veterinarian. When Mark first arrived in Nashville, he wrote Tom T. a fan letter (which Tom T. answered, by the way). Now the fandom has come full circle. "I like those one-legged chicken guys," Tom T. says. "They made that song their own."

9. HOW TO TALK TO A LITTLE BABY GOAT (2:50) Alabama-reared Jon Byrd is among Nashville's finest country singers and most compelling songwriters. He arrived at Fox Hollow with a new way of performing "How to Talk to a Little Baby Goat," one that involved a John Prine-inspired finger-picking pattern and a matter of fact delivery to get across Tom T.'s lesson in diversity, inclusion and adaptability.

10. OLE LONESOME GEORGE THE BASSET (1:58) Dixie Hall penned "Ole Lonesome George the Basset," the true story of a beloved hound who managed to upstage the great Johnny Cash. When it came time to revisit George's song, Dixie knew just who to call. The Man In Black is gone, but younger brother Tommy Cash - who scored major country hits in the 1960s and '70s with "Six White Horses," "One Song Away" and "Rise and Shine" - carries on the Cash family singing tradition.

11. I CARE (2:21) The legendary Bobby Bare has likely recorded more Tom T. Hall songs than has anyone not named Tom T. Hall. Bare has cut "Margie's at the Lincoln Park Inn," "Pamela Brown," "Spoken Motel Blues," "The Year That Clayton Delaney Died" and many others, but he'd never before attempted "I Care," a Fox Hollow song of empathy and humor. "When they're filling your teeth, and cutting your hair/I want you to know, I care."

12. I MADE A FRIEND OF A FLOWER TODAY (3:14) Fayssoux Starling McLean (it's pronounced "Fay-SOO," like "ah-CHOO") sang harmony vocals on some of Emmylou Harris' most memorable recordings, and she's stepped out as a solo artist in recent years. Hers was the ideal voice for the brand new song that Tom T. and Dixie had written for the proceedings. Tom T. sings the song's final verse and the wry kicker, "I became buds with a flower today."