Tom T. Hall is known as a storyteller, a songwriter with a keen eye for detail and a knack for narrative. He also has racked up a number of solo hits, including seven number one singles. The first singer to have a hit with one of Tom's songs was Jimmy Newman, who brought "DJ for a Day" to number one on the country charts in 1963. In early 1964, Dave Dudley took "Mad" to the Top Ten. The back-to-back success convinced Hall to move to Nashville, and after Johnnie Wright had a number one hit with Hall's "Hello Vietnam," the music industry was pressuring Tom to become a performer. He decided to take the plunge in 1967, and his first single, "I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew," became a minor hit. In the late summer of 1968, Jeannie C. Riley had a major hit with Tom's "Harper Valley P.T.A.," which spent three weeks at the top of the charts and was voted the Single of the Year by the Country Music Association. Its success brought attention to Hall's own recording career, which was evident from the performance of "Ballad of Forty Dollars." The song became his first Top Ten hit, and throughout 1969, he had a string of hit singles, culminated by the release of the number one "A Week in a Country Jail" at the end of the year. The following year was just as successful, as "Shoeshine Man" and "Salute to a Switchblade" both hit the Top Ten. In 1971, he had his second number one single and his biggest hit, "The Year That Clayton Delaney Died," which was based on his childhood hero. For most of the early '70s, Hall was a consistent hit-maker as well as a popular concert attraction. Although he continued to have the occasional Top Ten hit in the late '70s -- most notably the number four "You Man Loves You, Honey" (1977) -- Hall didn't deliver hit singles as consistently as he did the first half of the decade. In 1996, he issued Songs from Sopchoppy, his first album in ten years, and he later returned to bluegrass with the album Home Grown.