I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow has been nominated for a 2011 Grammy Award for Best Children's Album, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced this week.
You can hear the songs at www.songsoffoxhollow.com.
Produced by Peter Cooper and Eric Brace, the CD is a celebration of country music songwriting legend Tom T. Hall's 1974 album of songs for children of all ages.
The songs on the album were performed by Tom T. Hall, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Duane Eddy, Bobby Bare, Peter Cooper, Eric Brace & Last Train Home, Jim Lauderdale, Elizabeth Cook & Tim Carroll, Gary Bennett, Mark & Mike (Mark Horn & Mike "Supe" Granda), Jon Byrd, Tommy Cash, Bobby Bare, Fayssoux Starling McLean, and Baker Maultsby.
The band included Lloyd Green on pedal steel guitar, Jen Gunderman on keyboards, piano, and accordion, Mike Bub on bass, and Mark Horn on drums.
The album was recorded at Tom T. and Dixie Hall's Fox Hollow farm. Engineers were Richard McLaurin, Alex McCollough, Troy Engle, and Adam Bednarik. It was mixed by Adam Bednarik at House of David and mastered by Alex McCollough at Yes Master in Nashville. Original album artwork was created by Julie Sola, with CD design by Bill Thompson.
I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow is a co-release of Red Beet Records and the Country Music Hall of Fame's CMF Records. The Grammy Award winners will be announced on February 12, 2012.
Recently, Brace and Cooper hosted a Tom T. Hall Night on the weekly radio program, "Music City Roots: Live from the Loveless Cafe." McLean and Cooper performed "I Made A Friend of a Flower Today" co-written by the incomparable, legendary, Queen of bluegrass songwriting, Dixie Hall who also wrote "Ole Lonesome George the Basset." They were joined on stage for the final verse by Hall.
This CD is a fantastic remake of the 1974 "Songs of Fox Hollow" by the great storytelling songwriter Tom T. Hall. You may have heard a review of it in August on NPR's "All Things Considered." It's been getting lots of great notices, and we believe it deserves to be on the final Grammy ballot. On this newly interpreted "Songs of Fox Hollow," we've got folks like Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Bobby Bare, Elizabeth Cook, Duane Eddy, Jim Lauderdale, Fayssoux Starling McLean, Tommy Cash, and Tom T. Hall himself, and many others singing about life on Hall's farm south of Nashville. Hall never talks down to kids in these songs, which have great lessons without being annoyingly didactic. There are no purple dinosaurs or choo-choo trains. These songs are as relevant and great now as they were almost 40 years ago, with great storytelling to help young folks make sense of the world....
Says Miss Dixie: "No matter what our genre alliance may be, we were all kids once, and it is impossible not to be touched yet again by this magical collection."
The original Songs of Fox Hollow was born one long-ago summer, when two young nephews of Tom T. and Dixie Hall spent the summer roaming the farm and asking Tom T. a host of questions about the land and the animals. To the kids, Fox Hollow was a place of activity and enchantment, and pretty soon Tom T.’s answers began to rhyme. The record that came about offers kids laughter, melody, and lessons in kindness, care, and conservation. For adults, it offers the same, as well as a welcome window into our kids’ thoughts and feelings.
When it was released in 1974, Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow produced three No. 1 hits, “I Love,” “I Care,” and “Sneaky Snake,” and the album entered the consciousness of a generation. At Red Beet Records they decided it was time for another generation to hear these wonderful songs, and set out to re-imagine the time-honored work. For a week in June 2010, Peter Cooper and Eric Brace rounded up fellow Tom T. fans and headed to Fox Hollow, the farm that inspired “Songs of Fox Hollow” and is still home to Tom T. and Dixie Hall. Over three magical days in this idyllic setting just south of Nashville, they recorded the eleven songs that made up the original Songs of Fox Hollow, plus a brand new tune written especially for this release by Tom T. and Dixie.
Titled I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow, the CD features a different vocalist on each song: Patty Griffin sings “I Love,” Buddy Miller performs “Sneaky Snake,” Bobby Bare sings “I Care,” Jim Lauderdale’s take on “I Like to Feel Pretty Inside,” Eric Brace sings “The Mysterious Fox of Fox Hollow,” and Tom T. himself joins Fayssoux Starling McLean on the Hall’s new song, “I Made a Friend of a Flower Today.” Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Duane Eddy lends his twangy guitar to two of the tracks.
Peter Cooper and Eric Brace have produced a gem of Americana music, a new classic for kids and adults alike.
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