Song:Small Town Saturday Night
Album:The Hits
Hal Ketchum had success on the country music charts in the early 90s. Small Town Saturday Night was his first single in 1991 and one of his biggest hits. He was born Apr. 9, 1953 in Greenwich, NY which is in the Adirondack mountains. He performed in local clubs as a teen. He moved to Austin, TX in 1981 and began to write songs while working in local clubs. He released an album independently in 1988 and then he moved to Nashville and signed with Curb Records. His major label debut Past the Point of Rescue was released in 1991. The album was produced by veteran producers Allen Reynolds and Jim Rooney. Reynolds is best known for producing Garth Brooks. Rooney is best known for producing Nanci Griffiths. Small Town Saturday Night was the first single and it reached #2 on the Country Singles chart. Though Ketchum wrote most of the songs on the album, Small Town Saturday Night was written by Pat Alger and Hank DeVito. Alger started out in the 70s with the folk duo Happy and Artie Traum. He's worked a lot with Rooney writing songs for Nanci Griffiths. DeVito is best known as steel guitarist for Emmylou Harris. He wrote the Juice Newton hit Queen of Hearts. Ketchum's other top five hits were Past the Point of Rescue, Sure Love and Hearts Are Gonna Roll. You can get them all on this comp which was released in 1996. By then he had faded though he continued to record for Curb until 2008. Ketchum slowed down when in 1998 he was diagnosed with acute transverse myelitis which is similar to multiple sclerosis. It affects the nerves in the spine and Ketchum suffered from paralysis. He recovered from that and he released an album on his own label last year. He is currently on tour. Here's the video for Small Town Saturday Night by Hal Ketchum. The film in the video is the infamous 1939 all midget western Terror Of Tiny Town widely considered to be one of the worst films ever made.
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