One of Nashville’s most idiosyncratic songwriters, Hall, also known as “The Storyteller,” was equally capable of deep pathos, sentimentality, and jaunty humor—the heir, in a way, to the marriage of novelty and profundity achieved by his forebear Roger Miller. Before heading to Nashville, Hall was a DJ in Kentucky small towns like the one he grew up in; the first song he sold was called, fittingly, “DJ for a Day.” The songs that made the understated, emotive singer-songwriter a bona fide hitmaker, like “I Love” and “Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine,” were derided in the moment in part for their ubiquity (which he mocked himself in “That Song Is Driving Me Crazy”). His slower-burn records, like “That’s How I Got To Memphis” and “I Miss a Lot of Trains,” show Hall’s depth and deftness as a songwriter, turning simple language into the most affecting kind of unpretentious poetry.