It’s a Tom T. Hall Hidden Gem From 1973 ‘Pay No Attention To Alice’

One of the best things about this career I've had in radio for the past 45 plus years is... a guy get's to hear a lot of music. And I mean a lot of music.

Now, I've had to sift through a lot of bad music, too. Quite honestly, the majority of music I've had in my hands (and on a turntable, tape machine, CD, etc.) hasn't been, uh, the best. But that's part of the fun. If you love music, whether it be country, rock, easy listening, pop, jazz, blues....well, you get the idea...then radio, and now all it's associated digital platforms, is a mighty fine place to hang your hat.

And then, among all those good songs, are a select few that stay with you, stick in your head and lay comfortably in your heart. Nope, they don't have to be the biggest hits that the whole world knows.

In fact, most times they're not.

And so it was for a fresh faced kid of 18 or so in his very first radio job in Winner, South Dakota. The year is 1974 and after the radio station signed off at midnight (yes, in the old days many stations went off the air at a certain time and then came back on in the early morning) I'd have a chance to go through albums, hundreds of albums, and sit in a little production room and get introduced to songs and artist's I wasn't yet familiar with.

One of the albums I came across had come out about a year before by Tom T. Hall, an album called 'For The People In The Last Hard Town'. I was familiar with Tom T., but mostly just through his hit single's (which I loved!). And then I came across it.

The song was called 'Pay No Attention To Alice'. Not one of Tom T.'s biggest hits ever, in fact not even a single at all (You do know the single off that album, a little ditty called 'I Love'). But as has happened to me a number of times through the decades, a song off an album struck me deeper than a hit single.

So now, more than 45 years later, that song that touched an 18 year old is still touching an, ah...older man of over 60.