Memphis writer and researcher Ron Hall writes about the garage bands, rock ‘n’ roll stars, TV wrestlers, and other uncompromising artists who put his longtime hometown on pop culture with the passion of a fan and the integrity of a historian. , championing and documenting innovators, oddballs, and oddballs. A map of the years after Elvis’ explosion.
From his youth until his death Tuesday night at the age of 73, Hall never lost his enthusiasm for Memphis, attending garage rock concerts at the old Frazier Skateland and attending his own teenage years. He did not deny the exhilaration of performing with the band 13th Muse at such an impossible concert. The venue serves as a home for unwed mothers in Oak Haven.
Hall is an unassuming and versatile man whose resume spans drive-ins, TV dance parties, Overton Shell rock concerts, and a dream job for Memphis baby boomers in the era of pop-rock radio. It represented roll call.
He drove a popsicle truck. He was the “engineer” for the children’s train at the Memphis Zoo. He was playing in a teen rock band. He booked concerts, including Brownsville Station (“Smokin’ in the Boys Room”), the Steve Miller Band (of “Joker”), and a young banjo-strumming comic named Steve Martin. I took him to Memphis. He was a record seller, radio deejay, record collector, and avid concert fan.
Finally, he presents CD anthologies, film documentaries, radio shows, and the Memphis rock concert scene, a carefully researched and lavishly illustrated book that presents the definitive history of Memphis’ “garage” and “frat bands.” He helped immortalize that enthusiasm through a series of illustrated books. The 1960s and 70s and the classic early days of Memphis Pro Wrestling.
“These are the days when Memphis ruled!” Hall wrote while signing copies of his 2009 book, “Sputnik, Masked Men and Dwarves: The Early Years of Memphis Wrestling.” The book was a precursor to the successful feature-length documentary Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Rathlin, released in 2011, with Hall serving as executive producer along with Sherman Willmott, and the film and Hall This is the office affiliated with the Shangri-La Project, which published the book.
“Ron was a scholar who shed light on what it meant to grow up in the midst of a postwar pop culture explosion in one of the most influential music and pro wrestling cities in the world.” Wilmot said. “Ron had an uncanny knack for finding and deconstructing the essence of what really fascinated people in Memphis’ rough and woolly past.”
Hall passed away on Tuesday after a period in hospice (and where fellow collectors sometimes gather to marvel at Hall’s vast collection of paradoxically timeless pop culture ephemera) It was also the location). The news, while not unexpected, was deeply upsetting to Memphis’ close-knit but international community of pop culture enthusiasts.
“We’re all on a detective mission in search of good music, and we’re all driven by curiosity,” said Zach Ives, co-owner of Cooper-Young-based shop Goner Records. Gonerfest concert weekend. “He was always generous and informative and very passionate, which was contagious.”
“We have always been inspired by Ron’s passion for Memphis music and bringing notable musicians out of obscurity,” said Goner founder Eric Friedl. He is the author of Hall’s 2001 book Playing for a Piece of the Door: A History of Garage & Frat Bands in Memphis 1960-1975 and its sequel, The Memphis Garage Rock Scrapbook.
“This is something Ron shared and we share with Shangri-La and all the record stores. We just want people to hear good stuff,” Friedl said. .
According to a 2008 article in The Commercial Appeal, Hall keeps 2,000 record albums in his “private collection” and sells another 10,000 or so to collectors or at the Memphis flea market. It was kept there for 38 years, and maintained a booth there for 38 years.
In the preface to his 2014 scrapbook book Memphis Rocks: A Concert History 1955-1985, Hall writes that he began his passion for live music in 1968 at the former Ellis Auditorium downtown. I even traced the concert I went to by Scottish folk rock artist Donovan. Hall wrote, “Even though Donovan sat in a flower bed during the set, I was hooked.”
As a young lover of occasional ponytails, Hall turned “going crazy” into a full-time hobby. He rocked every aspect of rock, including as a teen club musician, as a promoter, as a record salesman, and even as a driver for the Dolls in 1973, when his glam rock band opened for Iggy Pop & The New York. I was involved in music. The Stooges in the South Hall of the Auditorium (ticket price: $6 at the door).
But his most important contribution to Memphis arguably came decades after the heyday of rock and roll, when he became a tireless evangelist for local music and culture, with various projects and projects he hosted. They shared their passion through the show “The Roaring Sixties”. Memphis Public Library Radio Station, WYPL-FM 89.3.
Hall’s Shangri-La book and CD anthology, as well as praise and praise for garage and frat bands such as the Guillotines, Flash & the Casuals, Randy & the Radiants, and the largely forgotten 45 RPM singles and TV show Talent. Showing new interest. The band’s appearances on “Party” blended the enthusiasm of Sun Records and the energy of Memphis soul-blues with the experimentation of the British Invasion, and the punk movement represented by later bands such as Tub Falco’s Panther Burns and the Oblivians. was a direct forerunner of fearlessness.
“I have an album by a group called Title Unit that they made at a roller rink in Millington,” Hall told Commercial Appeal. “They couldn’t have done a lot of presses, maybe 300 to 400.”
“Ron’s work really embodied Memphis’ musical history,” said writer and filmmaker Robert Gordon. His seminal 1995 book, It Comes from Memphis, covers some of the same territory in narrative form. “I knew quite a few of the songs, but those CDs were an eye-opener for me.”
Mr. Gordon describes the “scrapbook” format of some of the books, including newspaper ads for Black Sabbath at Ellis Auditorium, snapshots of Tom Waits at the Ritz on Madison, and advertisements for Sputnik Monroe. (Reproduced portraits, etc.) “enhanced the everyday,” he said. ”
“The way Ron has assembled a collection of ticket stubs, advertisements, and all sorts of memorabilia really ties many pieces together and, perhaps most importantly, connects us to the special things that are always around us. We trained our eyes to actually tell the difference,” Gordon said.
Hall was born in Long Beach, California, the son of a Navy chief petty officer. He spent his childhood at various naval bases, until he was 10 years old, when his family settled in Fraser and his father was assigned to Memphis Naval Air Station in Millington.
His first passion was sports, especially the New York Yankees. He became a collector of his baseball cards, and at the time he was playing Memphis State for his Tigers and Dallas he was also an avid Cowboys fan. (As an adult, he played softball in the City League for his team, the Dixie Diamonds, which he coached for 30 years.)
Hall formed 13th Muse while attending Fraser High School (from which he graduated in 1968). He and his friends also founded Third World Productions, a promotion company for his concerts. He worked in record sales for Record Sales Co. in Memphis and then for Stan’s Record Distributors in Louisiana, but for most of his life he made his living as a U.S. Postal Service employee rather than music. was standing. He retired in 2017 after 34 years with the Post Office.
He met his wife, Sue Valle Hall, in 1979. According to Mrs. Hall, his first words to her were, “I’m in love and I’m going to get married!” Halls was supposed to celebrate its 43rd anniversary this month.
He also leaves behind three sons, Dustin, Nicholas and Stephen, all of Memphis. brother Larry Hall of Memphis; and four grandchildren.
In 1995, Hall converted to Catholicism. He was an active member of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church. Visitation will be held at the church on Monday, March 11th at 10 a.m. with a funeral mass to be held at noon. Burial will be in Calvary Cemetery. Canale Funeral Directors is in charge.
The family requests that memorials be made to the church’s Mother Cabrini Circle.