KIDS IN THE HALL

A new batch of inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame were announced today, and even your crotchety old pals at Geekery Central can't find any cause to complain about the selections this time. (Don't even get us started about 2007 inductee Ralph Emery). This year, the artists who go down in honky-tonk history are Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, the Statler Brothers, and Ernest "Pop" Stoneman. There's a hell of a lot more hang time in the Country Hall of Fame than there is in the Rock Hall, asa fact exemplified by the "timely" induction of Stoneman, who's been dead for 40 years and started recording in the 1920s. Nevertheless, for a guy who hung with the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, Stoneman (patriarch of the Stoneman Family) isn't as widely known as he should be, so kudos to the Hall for recognizing him anyhow. Emmylou Harris, the baby of the group at age 60, is a no-brainer, the literal "eminence grise" of that crossover paradigm where alt-country, boomer singer/songwriterdom, and mainstream Nashville intertwine (it's practically a rite of passage for everybody who's anybody in the aforementioned areas to record a duet with her). Hall, meanwhile, is another story. His sharply observed story-songs unquestionably place him among the best American songwriters (country or otherwise) of the late '60s/early '70s, but he might as well be Ezra Pound for all the Sugarland/Carrie Underwood crowd knows/cares. And despite the Joe Henry-helmed 1998 Tom T. tribute album, Hall has never really been hipster-embraced either, probably because where his peers (Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, et al) rocked the hirsute hippie look, Hall had more of a high-school-gym-teacher image. As for the Statler Brothers, they've never been a huge favorite here at MG, but they sure could harmonize. You can't deny their pedigree, and they did provide comic relief on the great, short-lived Johnny Cash TV show.