TomHall

Because Tom T. Hall died at age 85, and no cause of death was initially provided, initial media reports reflected exactly that.

The unwritten (and ultimately erroneous) assumption, due to Tom’s age at death, was that Hall died of natural causes.

Having known Thomas Hall (I’ve never referred to Tom Hall, except for purposes of clarification, by his stage name) for nearly 50 years and his capability of beating statistical odds, despite his increasing age-related issues (in addition to congenital and chronic health conditions to which only those few who knew him as long and as well as I did were privy), I sensed immediately that there was more to the story and, once I could collect my thoughts, I made those sentiments known publicly August 21, 2021, the day after Tom’s passing: “I had had a premonition, as I sometimes do about a myriad of things, that TOM T. HALL would die in the morning. What morning I did not know. I did expect someone I knew personally to die on August 20, 2021 but that someone was my former WLAC Radio and Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Gridiron Show colleague PHIL VALENTINE. (Valentine actually passed the following day.)

''I'm not booked for long," Tom once told me. I was alarmed at the time, especially because Hall refused to elaborate, but that was back when he'd just turned 36.

“During those days the future novelist chatted me up about our shared fascination with Portnoy's Complaint, PHILIP ROTH's novel which I was in the process of reading. (Tom had already read the book, though he preferred BORDEN DEAL's novels, at a time my curiosity prompted me to read Roth's novel to learn, given my preference for nonfiction, what all the fuss had been about when it was published five years earlier.)

“I had forgotten all about that conversation of 49 years before until I got word of Tom's death and thought how ironic it was the news came at a time I had just finished the first of two newly-published Roth biographies competing for my attention (Philip Roth was, after all, my great-aunt's niece's husband's nephew's wife's uncle's wife's sister's husband's first cousin once-removed's ex-husband) that I had borrowed from the Nashville Public Library.

“Ironically, I had been in (infrequent) touch with DEAN HALL earlier in the week, so at a time when others were just learning of Tom's passing I reached out to Dean. To my surprise, given all that he is now dealing with, Tom's son returned my email within the hour.

But because of the nature of our relationship (Tom would introduce me publicly as his friend, I have always referred to him publicly as a mentor, and, over the decades, others have preferred their own characterizations- biographer, or whatever), that same day, as I mourned, I set about writing an appropriate eulogy.

When it appeared Legacy.com did not receive my remarks, I concluded it was also possible that, due to a glitch or my not "saving" what I had written, I ought to write another reminiscence.

Imagine my surprise when both of my contributions were published (the first on August 23^rd and the second on August 25^th)!

It subsequently proved embarrassing when I learned the second attempt to remember Tom reflected some beliefs reality proved later to be untrue. Stay with me. More about that in due course.

Blissfully ignorant in that respect, the uneasiness I was feeling was confirmed when I read Hall’s obituary. Based on what it contained, what it didn’t contain or, put more charitably with the benefit of the doubt being extended, how it possibly reflected what its writer thought were Tom’s wishes or an effort to protect him, rather than to communicate Hall's desires, I knew the obituary as published didn’t ring true. (I brought my doubts to the attention of The Tennessean and Williamson Memorial, neither of which disabused me of my hunch that what was published read like a hurried, clumsy attempt to obfuscate, to provide answers, however misleading, before questions were raised and to otherwise quickly tidy up a traumatic mess.

(I find some vindication in that Nashville's morning daily's obituaries have recently been prefaced with a disclaimer indicating that the newspaper is "not responsible for screening, editing, or verifying obituary content submitted. The submitter is solely responsible for such content.").

Not wishing to rely upon speculation, rumor, to be a party to irresponsible reporting nor to rely solely on my intuition, I decided the first step was to obtain Tom's death certificate.

The reaction to quietly making that sentiment known, which I did in September, 2021, was, to put it mildly, an overreaction similar in nature to the blowback I received when I questioned the content of Hall's official obituary. With respect to the public record, as was the case with many public records referencing Tom (as well as public records from earlier periods of upheaval in Hall's life that have magically disappeared), anyone who has seen the publicly-available portion of Tom's death certificate can deduce omissions just from what has been “disclosed.”

Unfortunately, my curiosity produced just the opposite expectation. On October 6, 2021 I confirmed that Tom’s body had been autopsied. I was also told that it could be up to 90 days from the date of the autopsy before the results would be made public.

I waited for anyone who knew more than I did to put a sourced end to the deception. The effort to thwart the public’s right to know- a right that might not otherwise ever have existed in any other than the legal sense- began with the deception.

The immediate obstacle was that, though the autopsy had long since been complete, the law allows for a minimum of 60-90 days for the release of an autopsy report. That time frame may be extended, due to the circumstances of the death/investigation, the tests being performed, or case load.

In actuality, all of the relevant information including details of the 911 report, the toxicology report, et al came to light in bits and pieces, resulting in the complete report becoming available on September 20, 2021.

In short, the report was available before the 90 days expired, but no members of the media, including me, had requested it. I have only to assume that meant I was the only reporter who had inquired about, and confirmed the existence of, an autopsy report.

Knowing before I read them that the results would be upsetting, I let the 90 days expire before concluding that the truth was eventually going to come out in the tabloids if more responsible and less graphic reporting (explicit only when necessary to confirm the facts) was not available first.

"Suicide runs in families, including Hall's, but there were other reasons for Tom's decision. One of the biggest, in my opinion, was Hall's beginning to lose his mobility. (Tom died less than three months after his 85th birthday. I wonder if Hall was aware that, according to the most recently available data- compiled in 2017- from the Society of Actuaries and the Social Security Administration, the average life expectancy for a person who is alive at age 85 is 92 years of age.)

"Beyond that, if you're looking for reasons, there were any number of them stemming from Tom's acknowledged history of mental illness. Hall's depression, in turn, impacted the way Tom lived his life. He chose to surround himself with a host of sycophants who apparently saw him as a meal ticket affording them 'bragging rights' and, in their estimation, nothing more.

"There were others in his life to whom Tom chose not to listen (including approximately a handful of well-meaning, caring people, some of whom should have put themselves first long before they did) that had me relying on my intuition (my having known Tom, one of my mentors- though he preferred to introduce me to others as his "friend"- all of my adult life and the majority of his) before I received the facts.

"Then there are those uninvestigated (for what seems like obvious reasons) thefts from the Country Music Hall of Fame Library's Tom T. Hall vertical file...

"Here is a G-rated summary of nine (9) pages of otherwise lurid, disgusting and graphic details (and methodology sadly familiar to Tom and what remains of his family), that Report readers would expect from a thorough investigation, and to which I am privy: The 911 call was placed at 11:33 a.m. on August 20, 2021 and paramedics arrived 18 minutes later.

"The toxicology report suggests that, at the time of his death, at least one (metabolizing) drug designed to aid in alcohol withdrawal and anxiety management was in Tom's system. (I earned Hall's ire nearly a half-century ago when, naive and otherwise barely out of my teens, I wrote him an ill-advised, but well-meaning and heartfelt letter, beginning "It's not my place to tell you this but, since those whose place it is will not do so, you are an alcoholic.")

"As if I was giving Tom information he didn't already know and he would abstain forevermore as a result. Right?

"Hey, no one knew what an 'intervention' was in those days, let alone how to plan one. And I'd never heard of Al-Anon.

"As I noted, apparently erring, in a Legacy.com remembrance (ever mindful of posting guidelines, with which, given the delay in publication of the post, I thought I had unintentionally violated, I posted another memory), I thought Tom had succeeded in recovery. It never occurred to me that he may have lapsed decades later, and, even though I knew Hall had been on hunting trips in the distant past, that he owned a gun.

"Those who did know about such a lethal combination should have sounded an alarm.

"That said, as those who knew him best would expect, Tom left no note.

"I never believed that the 2012 incident (not to mention earlier, suppressed incidents at his former Brentwood, Tennessee office) occurred as it was reported and subsequently adjudicated, given Hall's organization's prior history with the Williamson County Sheriff's Office. (I was very public about my feelings in my reporting of the Fox Hollow shooting at the time. Had that incident, and prior incidents, been responsibly handled, sans enabling, Tom would have been forced to make better decisions.)

"As a 2021 graduate of The Davidson County Sheriff's Office's Citizens Academy, my skepticism has been reinforced by the WCSO's evasion and lack of responsiveness in its handling of Tom Hall's death, beginning with an unwillingness/inability to explain why, given the findings I have reported (which it does not dispute) as it informed me, most recently on November 24, 2021, the investigation remains 'open.'

"It must be noted that there is a possibility that Hall was aware of an informal (and subsequently botched) investigation (having nothing to do with the WCSO) that was underway in the months prior to his death, the details of which will likely surface during an upcoming election cycle, perhaps as opposition research. If that is the case, voices more powerful than my own will establish that there are bungling enablers with (if only figuratively) blood on their hands." (Editor's Note: The WCSO investigation has since quietly ended.)

While Stacy's Music Row Report is read by members of the music industry, media and fans from, by their collective admission, all 50 states and around the world, whom I encourage to rebut, refute or offer any constructive criticism of my writing, if they want their remarks published in my forum they do know that I demand accountability (e.g. full names, city and state- or province, country, etc. if outside the U.S.- though, I will withhold names upon request.).

Many if not most blogs demand no such standard of responsibility and thus it was that, with rumors percolating to that point, at 3:59 p.m. on Friday, December 31, 2021 "Steve" posted what he evidently intended to be an offhand New Year's Eve reference ("Tom T. Hall's suicide still bothers me") on the Saving Country Music blog. ("Steve"'s post received three "likes.") In a same-day 8 p.m. response, "Trigger" (the site's manager) responded with his own post: "For the record, I haven't seen any evidence or reporting that Tom T. Hall died of suicide. I've never heard any rumors of this either." ("Trigger"'s post received nine "likes." The amen corner tends not to check things out.)

At 10:09 p.m. on December 31 2021 "Steve" posted "I originally read this at Stacy Harris' music row report: https://stacyharris.com/report.html.

"I can't believe she would run this story if it were false... Diane Diekman's newsletter also quoted this report." (No "likes" for this post at the time of capture.)

At 10:38 p.m. on December 31, 2021 "Trigger" defensively and condescendingly responded, "Look, I'm not saying that Stacy Harris is lying. I will have to look into it. But there's a reason when you do a deep search engine result for Tom T. Hall and suicide her website doesn't come up. Not only is it laid out like a 2003 Geocities page, her screed-like delivery hides whatever factual information is being conveyed. Her link to the 'report' is literally a link back to the very page that the link is being served on, which is a Google death sentence.

"On Monday when the appropriate offices are open again, I will see if I can independently verify that information. Until then there is nothing in that report that makes it capable for me or anyone else to in any way independently confirm that Tom T. Hall died of suicide. He very well may have, but if so, it should be reported with way more professionalism, reverence and authority than what it displayed in that link you shared. Don't mean to insult Stacy Harris. She may very well be right."

So why assume otherwise when I'm an email, letter, fax or a phone call away and the unnamed officials, if in a position to truthfully answer inquiries, are used to being available 24/7 to media on deadline?

As it was, presumably following the Monday opening of the unnamed "appropriate offices," rather than admit to his readers he had no reason to question my reporting, let alone a fact-based example to justify that he did, "Trigger" waited till January 5, 2022 to misinform his readers that "after [Hall's] passing was formally announced by his son Dean Hall, no questions were asked, and no reporting was done following up on a cause of death. It didn't feel particularly necessary, and for some, it might even feel inappropriate. It was likely an open and shut case, anyway.

"Not having seen any news about this, nor being able to find anything about it in any official or verifiable capacity anywhere, I initially questioned the validity of the suicide claims. What I did discover through scouring the internet is that it was a fairly pervasive rumor, tied in part to one poorly-worded and undated report." (A lack of "reverence" slam and now a linguistics excuse from "Trigger" [a/k/a Kyle Stephen Coroneos], in the wake of two separate reports; each with verifiable dates, as is true of any information posted to the internet, some of which is retained even as there are attempts to delete cached postings? Beyond this, again, Kyle needed only to have reached out to the original source.)

Coroneos finally got around to his "looking to refute, or potentially, verify the possible rumor," informing his Saving Country Music readers on January 5, 2022 that after he "made some inquiries to officials in Williamson County" the unnamed "officials" told him what Stacy Harris exclusively reported November 23, 2021.

Kyle added "I've been sitting on this information for a few days now" because he "wanted to reach out to Tom T. Hall's survivors, and specifically to his son Dean." Coroneos confirms that Dean Hall chose not to respond but doesn't name, let alone elaborate on, how much (or how little) effort he made to contact the other "survivors." (Since Coroneos, evidently for the [and/or otherwise misogynistic] reasons he cited was continuing to go out of his way to refrain from contacting me, he might have at least contacted Hall's remaining sibling, half-sibling or even Joseph Gregory.)

In any event, Kyle's quest to confirm the circumstances of Hall's death "in a way that dignified" Tom's "contribution to American letters and music, or that could be verified in a manner that would set this information properly within the public record," could have easily been achieved with proper attribution, rather than by taking credit for someone else's work before leaving it "to gossip channels, and social media posts, and eventually click bait." (A high school dropout, who took minimal advantage of the GI Bill to advance his formal education, Tom would be the first to suggest that being remembered for his "contribution to American letters"- Hall's last book was self-published- is a hyperbolic remembrance in death transcending his reality-based, much-deserved contributions in life.)

Kyle's continued disinterest in encouraging copycat media and search engines to give credit where credit is due accentuates Coroneos' "big lie" that "we didn't know how Tom T. Hall died until many months later- and nobody in the media... thought to ask" (let alone confirm, as I did exclusively, that Tom's suicide occurred, as it sadly did, on his niece's birthday).

As it is, Kyle continued to abrogate his responsibility to immediately set the record straight when Joseph Hudak gave him credit for having "first reported the story." Hudak and I go back to the former's TV Guide days when a story idea I first pitched to the magazine was rejected, only to promptly turn up as a featured article with someone else's byline. (Though I had the sense not to mention it, Hudak seemed clearly embarrassed when we finally met in Nashville.)

Small wonder I have yet to receive a response to a January 5, 2022 email I sent Joe giving him the opportunity to correct his timeline and attribution, providing full disclosure on Rolling Stone Country's Hall reporting instead of perpetuating a myth (though hedging his bets by acknowledging my source) that was picked up by The Tennessean, the wire services and virtually every national and international print and broadcast news organization with any interest in the "facts."

Over a period of two days and four updated reports, the morning daily's inexperienced reporters continued to present old news as "new" without providing proper attribution, prompting me to write (and, to The Tennessean's credit, without being censored) in the comments section provided: "You don't have to be a journalist to know that you don't take credit for someone else's work. I am appalled that The Tennessean, Rolling Stone, The Daily Mail et al are reporting this information either as an exclusive or crediting each other.

"The fact is I knew of Tom Hall's suicide shortly after it happened, as a Google search and my email exchanges with RALPH EMERY in August and September 2021 will confirm, and reported it when I received the autopsy results... on November 23, 2001; results that were unavailable until that day."

Adding that Sherod Robertson (who, apparently tiring of, and embarrassed by, my, of necessity, sporadic factual corrections to his publication's reporting, removed its comments section entirely- with The Tennessean recently following suit) and LB Cantrell ignored my alerting "them with the expectation that they would see the value in providing their readers accurate information," I opined "Taking personalities out of it, it's never too late to do the right thing...

"Seeing [Hudak's reference] to 'Thomas T. Hall' in his dispatch, I pointed out first-hand documentation (i.e., Tom's memoir, The Storyteller's Nashville), chief among other forms of reputable sourcing, that makes it indisputable that Tom was not born with a middle name...)

"Regrettably, Rolling Stone Country has not made the correction nor any other updates to its (un)original 'reporting,' nor has MUSIC ROW felt the need to do so.

"Neither 'respected' entertainment news outlet has felt it necessary to acknowledge receipt of, nor otherwise reply to, my email.

The Tennessean's next-day edition's featured cutline retraction, also on Page 2A, read: "Correction: Country Music Hall of Fame member Tom T. Hall is alive and well... Because of a production error, the information was incorrect in a photo caption on Page 2A on Thursday."

The newspaper's history of inaccuracies is all the more reason Cindy Watts should have known better. While a Tennessean reporter, in an article published on August 26, 2012, Cindy incorrectly referenced the number of years Hall and his second wife had been married.

The newspaper, has at times, invited factual corrections to its reporting, but in this instance mine was met with Watts' insistence that her information was correct as she had been given her information by "Hall's people."

While I understood the inference that "Hall's people," in Tom's absence, would be the definitive source, assuming that Tom valued accuracy in such reporting, the proof was in public records. My producing a copy of the marriage certificate prompted a grudging factual correction.

As it was, nearly nine years later, Watts' January 5, 2021 CMT.com report repeated the copycat reporting of the day; old news reported as new with improper attribution.

American Songwriter (a publication to which I was a regular contributor decades ago, when it was under reputable ownership), not only got it wrong, it doesn't permit corrections to its website's less-than-fully-researched articles from anyone who doesn't first agree, and sign up via credit card, to become a paid "member."

To its credit, Billboard, which, thanks to its reliance on inexperienced music reporter Jessica Nicholson, originally got the story wrong, incorporated a correction, of sorts, courtesy of Melinda Newman's intervention. So did the deservedly much-maligned for its inaccuracies, Wikipedia- at least initially before revisionist historians scrubbed the proper attribution with a John Seigenthaler. (I wish Wikipedia could afford my services. Were it so, there would be corrections to many of its factually-challenged entries, including an egregiously and erroneous reference to me, brought to my attention by Rachel Hirschfeld's angry significant other who mistakenly assumed I was responsible for writing a Wikipedia profile about Rachel and trying to pass myself off as her half-sister; admittedly a mathematically impossible event given the years and places of our respective births as well as the time frames and locations suggested for the birth parents.

(Further, Wikipedia has managed to conflate my work as an actress with that of the late Canadian actor Stacy Harris and my work as a writer with that of my fellow author Stacy Lyn Harris; a lack of verification causing the untruths to multiply like rabbits as these falsehoods have been repeatedly copy-and-pasted to otherwise legitimate websites. )

On the other hand, the New York Times got it wrong from the beginning with its August 21, 2021 Hall obituary, compounding the error with Bill Friskics-Warren's erroneous September 2, 2021 update reading "Correction: September 2, 2021. An earlier version of this obituary misstated the name of the man who was the inspiration for Mr. Hall's song, 'The Year That Clayton Delaney Died.' He was Lonnie Easterly, not Floyd Carter."

Well, not exactly. Tom Hall grew tired of stock questions and began varying the answers, mostly for his own amusement.

"Floyd Carter" had been ''credited'' as a real person after which the fictional Clayton Delaney was modeled and also cited as the name Tom chose, so as not to draw attention to himself, when he registered at hotels. But ''Lonnie Easterly'' is also often, referenced as the inspiration for Clayton Delaney.

Lonnie Easterling was born June 20, 1924 in Kentucky (probably in/near Tick Ridge, where Tom was born 12 years later).

There is a discrepancy between Tom's indication that the real "Clayton" died of tuberculosis or lung cancer circa age 19 and the fact that Lonnie died on April 12, 1997 at age 72 and is buried in Kentucky's Olive Hill Memory Garden. However, the discrepancy is in keeping with Hall's predilection for playing fast and loose with the facts which, in turn, may explain Hall's self-professed "not being very good with dates" and favorite rhetorical question: "Have I ever lied to you?," wisely abandoned when he became aware of his words being used against him.

During the course of correcting this information as it is now known, shouldn't the Gray Lady now list Tom Hall's cause of death, as it routinely does those of others in obituaries where that information has been provided?

NYT Senior Editor/Assistant, Standards Department Isabella Paoletto doesn't feel the obligation. Defending a view that runs counter to the Times' own policy, Paoletto responds to a second request (albeit belated in contrast to the first, which was ignored) to set the record straight: "We make every effort to correct errors when they are brought to our attention in a reasonable period of time. After that, I'm afraid, our general policy is to not alter them.

Moving from matters of opinion to matters of fact, will The New York Times print my correction to Bill Friskics-Warren's Shelby Singleton obit?

Dan Abrams may have answered that question during the October 21, 2022 edition of NewsNation's Dan Abrams Live when Abrams opined "The partisans in the media will never say 'We got it wrong.' The New York Times will do a correction when they misspell someone's name, but when it comes to something big- well, don't expect to see that."