DavidHoffner.com/ificoulddoanything

The Tennessean January 24, 1999
· Jerry Thompson

Bynum's CD. refreshing, honest music

There's a new type of music emerging in the country that has a unique characteristic about it, reminiscent of the earliest of
country music - it's honest and real. Hal Bynum, an accomplished songwriter with a long list of hit songs to his credit, and
Jim Ed Norman, president of Warner/Reprise Nashville, teamed up to create a CD by Bynum entitled "If I Could Do
Anything".

The record is enhanced by musical arrangements by David Hoffner. After listening to the album, I talked with Bynum about
this new style of music and asked him to give it a label."Well," he said, "I suppose you'd call it a musical narration. It is not
a recitation because of all the music that is on it." He also said the CD is "mostly my autobiography"

The album consists of stories about life - stories many people can identify with. The CD, out just over a month, is already
being played on more than 250 radio stations. "We knew it would be a problem to get it played on traditional country
stations," Bynum said, "but once they start playing it they start getting calls from listeners wanting to hear more. We've
been very pleasantly surprised." The album is also being sold through all the Cracker Barrel restaurants throughout the
country.

The first time I listened to it was on the way to the hospital one morning. After Bynum had recited the Lover's Prayer cut,
tears were streaming down Linda's face, confirming the honesty and realness of what he was saying.

Bynum was born in West Texas during the Great Depression, the son of a sharecropper. He taught himself to play the
guitar and began writing songs at an early age. By the time he was 19, country singer Terry Fell recorded one of Bynum's
songs and soon other artists followed.

George Jones recorded Bynum's "The Old, Old House" and Bill Monroe performed it so much it is now a bluegrass
standard. In 1977, Kenny Rogers recorded "Lucille" and Patty Loveless, in 1989, released "Chains", to name just a few of
his string of hits.

"Hal's vibrant love for life and for people, with all their struggles and triumphs, is expressed in an original and colorful style,"
says Norman. "The minute I heard these songs, I knew that he was producing a new genre of classics that people will
cherish side by side with his country and bluegrass hits for generations to come."

Whether or not the CD is a commercial success remains to be seen. I'm impressed that in these days of mergers,
downsizing, and so much emphasis on the bottom line, there are still people who are willing to take a chance on something
new. It was an album that needed to be made, so they made it.

Bynum was honest in the liner notes as well, when he said "for a while I was a child. I masqueraded as an adult for a period
of years, living a violent, destructive and misguided life as an alcoholic songwriter and rebellious fool.

"After experiencing the requisite amount of pain and disaster, I became as a little child again, awake at last to a world of
great beauty and vast mystery.

"It has occurred to me to try to share what meaning I have taken from this jangled, jumbled odyssey, this clumsy, lonely,
yet ever eventful metamorphosis, this journey of pain and laughter."

And it occurred to me that Bynum is a master at sharing.