Ten Favorite Fake People Songs: The Year That Clayton Delaney Died (#6)

@FourWalls (61328)
United States
December 12, 2017 7:56pm CST
Halfway through the "real people" countdown, there's also a part of my silly brain that says there must also be a fictional people countdown...so I'm halfway home there as well! When I started I said that one of these songs was inspired by a real person, even though the name was fictional. Here's that song. #6: The Year That Clayton Delaney Died - Tom T. Hall Tom T. Hall is a Hall of Fame homegrown favorite. He's known as "the Storyteller" because his songs are like chapters of life's book. He's a musical James Agee, taking snapshots of events in the lives of individuals, both funny ("Salute to a Switchblade"), sad ("Homecoming"), and, in many cases, based in real encounters with people ("Old Dogs, Children, and Watermelon Wine"). "The Year That Clayton Delaney Died" is one of those real encounters songs. "Clayton Delaney" is a composite of local musicians in eastern Kentucky who inspired Hall as a youngster; most notably, Lonnie Easterly. Easterly had TB and died at a young age. He lived on Clayton Hill next to the Delaney family, which explains where the pseudonym originated. "A lot of things I wrote biographically," Hall told CMT in 2005. "I changed the names of people." And so we have Clayton, "the best guitar picker in our town." That's really common: if you go to the area of western Kentucky where the Everly Brothers are from, you'll see a monument to guitar players you've never heard of (like Mose Rager) who had a massive influence on others (Rager's big fan was Merle Travis; and here we have Hall as the child apprentice of the teenage Delaney). It's a bittersweet story of a man who made it big but always remembers the man who taught him what he knows. Near the end Hall sings, "I'd give a hundred dollars if he could only see me now." Thanks to Tom T. Hall, we all know Lonnie Easterly's music...courtesy of a man named Clayton Delaney. The Year That Clayton Delaney Died Written by Tom T. Hall Recorded by Tom T. Hall From In Search of a Song, 1971 Nobody ever knew it but I went out in the woods and I cried:
From the 1971 album "In Search Of A Song"... By Tom T. Hall There was probably a Clayton Delaney somewhere in the life of every musician...I know there was o...
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4 responses
@JohnRoberts (109865)
• Los Angeles, California
13 Dec 17
I know who Tom T. Hall is but unfamiliar with his songs.
3 people like this
@FourWalls (61328)
• United States
13 Dec 17
He wrote "Harper Valley PTA," which inspired a TV movie then a TV series.
3 people like this
@JohnRoberts (109865)
• Los Angeles, California
13 Dec 17
@FourWalls Jeanie C. Riley!
2 people like this
@JudyEv (323706)
• Rockingham, Australia
13 Dec 17
This is a great song. It's nice to know the history behind the lyrics.
2 people like this
@teamfreak16 (43451)
• Denver, Colorado
14 Dec 17
You're right. That's a great story song. I was reading the comments. I don't remember if I ever learned that he wrote "Harper Valley PTA."
1 person likes this
• United States
13 Dec 17
My dad would have loved this.
2 people like this