"It was always hillbilly music," he recalled. "And when the CMA was formed, they wanted to call it Country Music. Now that's the norm. But for an organization to set out to change the entire image of an art form seems like a colossal, phenomenal undertaking. And then to succeed is a marvelous success, wouldn't you say?"
If Hall were just starting out today, chances are he'd play at the CMA Music Festival. In fact, he was one of the artists on the bill for the first-ever Fan Fair® in 1972. "I suppose I did - I played at the first everything," he deadpanned.
Hall remembered the early days of his career in the late '60s, when he was a young songwriter and reluctant recording artist.
"Jerry Kennedy wanted me to make records," he said of his longtime producer. "I said, 'I just want to write songs.' He said, 'If you don't record these songs, nobody's ever going to hear 'em.' That really frightened me. So that's when I started recording. Because the songs were so personal, so autobiographical."
Hall's plainspoken, simple stories struck a chord with Country fans everywhere. "I never fixed a story," he declared. "I didn't make judgments, I let the listener make judgments. When I got to the end of the story, if it had a moral, I let the listener find it instead of me telling them pointedly, 'What this song is all about is, you're a bad guy and I'm a good one.'
"I don't know that I did this methodically or intentionally," he continued, "but it was my style of writing. I'd tell them exactly what happened and leave the listener the moral options on the song. That's been my biggest success."
As for his biggest personal success, Hall answered the question with - what else - another good story.
"When I was younger and had a lot of money, I drove a 10-year-old Pontiac convertible," he said. "It was a wonderful car, great character. And no front suspension, so when you'd cross a railroad track, it just went in all directions at once. It was amusing and entertaining. My bass player said, 'Man, if I had your kind of money, I'd be driving a Porsche.' I said, 'Well I have a plan here. I don't want them to [have to] have a benefit to bury me.' So that's what I'm most proud of."