The man Hall identified as “Clayton Delaney” in “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” was his neighbor and childhood hero. To stay active in music, Tom’s friend had moved to Ohio and Indiana to work clubs while he was still a teenager. He was doing pretty well but he got sick and was forced to come home. He died when he was about nineteen or twenty (of an undiagnosed lung disease), but a lot of people thought the song was about an old man.
The man who inspired “The Year That Clayton Delaney Died” was not really named Clayton Delaney at all. His real name was Lonnie Easterly. Tom T. Hall had veiled the late guitar picker’s legacy by using two street names in the song. Lonnie (“Clayton Delaney”) had impacted Tom in a very strong way. Hall didn’t just write the line “I remember the year that Clayton Delaney died,” he lived it. Tom was eight or nine and had just been given an old Martin guitar when he first met Easterly, who was already in his teens. Tom was impressed with Lonnie’s guitar picking, but what impressed him most was the older boy’s great independence and style.
Easterly would take the hit records of the day (tunes by Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, etc.) and sing them in his own style. He didn’t imitate anyone, he just tried to be himself. That was one of the most valuable lessons Hall learned from him. So much so that, after Easterly passed away, Tom vowed to start singing like himself too, and not try to copy anybody. Like “Clayton Delaney,” Hall did everything he could to be true to himself and his own feel for music, not just in his singing but in his songwriting as well. Easterly had played regularly at the Buckeye Gardens in Connersville, Indiana, and when Tom resumed performing after his Army service was over, he started at that same club.
Hall was hardly blessed with exceptional vocal skills, but did well enough to convey his story songs quite effectively, notching twenty-one Top Ten country hits, with seven of those going all the way to #1. His career culminated with his induction into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 2008. Tom had a creed when it came to his own recordings. His first and foremost rule was that nothing was to get in the way of the lyrics. He didn’t want any fancy guitar riffs, dramatic backup vocals or sophisticated instrumentation. He didn’t even allow his own vocal to stand out. Only the song’s message was important. It was the story he was trying to sell above anything else. Hall’s policy is, of course, completely forgotten today in this new, modern era of “imitation” country music (and that’s putting it nicely), where profound lyrics are a thing of the past, replaced by ridiculous bubblegum fluff, meaningless lyrics about driving pickup trucks down dirt roads, partying all night, guzzling beer and “making out” down by the river, all backed by blaring rock guitars. Total garbage.
