Riley in 1968, it freed Hall to record his own work, which included songs about burying a man who owed him 40 dollars, mourning the death of the local hero who taught him how to drink and play guitar, and 'Trip to Hyden,' a journalistic tale of a drive to the scene of a mining disaster that was part Woody Guthrie, part Studs Turkel. A Number One pop and country hit for Jeannie C. Taylor uses so much ice when her husband's out of town. His best work was charged with literary irony but unfolded with the ease of spoken language, as when the mini-skirted heroine of 'Harper Valley P.T.A.' struts into the local junior high and exposes small-town hypocrisy by asking why Mrs. Hall was an English major who said he learned to write songs by osmosis, soaking up everything from Dickens to Hemingway.
