Vera Hall

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Vera Hall
Background information
Birth name Adell Hall Ward
Born (1902-04-06)April 6, 1902
Livingston, Alabama, United States[1]
Died January 29, 1964(1964-01-29) (aged 61)
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States
Genres Folk , Piedmont blues,[2] country blues[2]

Adell Hall Ward, better known as Vera Hall (April 6, 1902 – January 29, 1964)[1] was an American folk singer, born in Livingston, Alabama, United States.[2] She is best known for her song "Trouble So Hard" (1937). She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 2005.[3]

Biography

Hall grew up near Livingston, Alabama. Hall sang her entire life, her mother and father, Agnes Efron and Zully Hall, taught her songs such as "I Got the Home", "In the Rock", and "When I'm Standing Wondering, Lord, Show Me the Way". Hall married Nash Riddle, a coal miner, in 1917 and gave birth to their daughter, Minnie Ada. Riddle was killed in 1920. In the late 1930s Hall's singing gained national exposure.

John Avery Lomax, ethnomusicologist, met Hall in the 1930s and recorded her for the Library of Congress.[2] Lomax wrote that she had the loveliest voice [he] had ever recorded.[citation needed] The BBC played Hall's recording of "Another Man Done Gone" in 1943 as a sample of American folk music. The Library of Congress played the song the same year in commemoration of the 75th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1945, Hall recorded with Byron Arnold. In 1984, the recordings were released as a collection of folk songs entitled "Cornbread Crumbled in Gravy".

In 1948, with the help of Alan Lomax, Hall traveled to New York and performed on May 15 at the American Music Festival at Columbia University. During the course of this trip, Lomax interviewed Hall on several occasions, later stating "Her singing is like a deep-voiced shepherds flute, mellow and pure in tone, yet always with hints of the lips and the pleasure-loving flesh... The sound comes from deep within her when she sings, from a source of gold and light, otherwise hidden, and falls directly upon your ear like sunlight. It is a liquid, full contralto, rich in low overtones; but it can leap directly into falsetto and play there as effortlessly as a bird in the wind."

Hall died in January 1964 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.[2]

Today, her work still garners attention. Prized by scholars and folksong enthusiasts, Halls recordings include examples of early blues and folk songs that are found nowhere else.[4]

Legacy

Lomax's son, Alan, also championed Vera Hall – bringing her to New York for a performance at Columbia University in 1948 and assembling Rainbow Sign, a book based on Hall's life and stories.

Moby's 2000 single "Natural Blues" is essentially an extended remix of the song "Trouble So Hard" (1937).[2]

A historical marker in Hall's honor was dedicated on April 21, 2007 in Livingston.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Thedeadrockstarsclub.com - accessed July 2010
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Stacia Proefrock. "Vera Hall". Allmusic. Retrieved November 9, 2011. 
  3. ↑ "Inductees". Alabama Women's Hall of Fame. State of Alabama. Retrieved February 20, 2012. 
  4. ↑ Encyclopediaofalabama.org

Further reading

Authority control
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