‘In My Room’ With Alex Hall

Alex Hall is the latest artist to take part in Rolling Stone’s “In My Room” series, in which musicians perform live from their own home base, wherever that may be. But where Hall broadcasts from isn’t actually a room at all: It’s the back bed of a full-size Toyota Tundra planted in a parking lot outside of Nashville, TN. Why? Because a car like this is where his Music City career hopes all started: “I moved to town in a truck just like this, with all the stuff that I had in the back of it,” he says. 

Right outside the Puckett’s Grocery and Restaurant  — a classic restaurant/venue where Wynonna Judd, Tanya Tucker, and Willie Nelson have performed — Hall does stripped-down acoustic renditions of “Never Seen the World” and “Other End of the Phone.” Both are from his recent debut album, Six Strings, an ode to his favorite instrument, the six-string guitar, that featured him dueting on each track with another artist, including Brad Paisley and Vince Gill. 

The Gainesville, Georgia native grew up worshipping Elvis Presley and began performing at restaurants and clubs at just 15 years old, sometimes over 100 shows per year. Now, all grown up, Six Strings shows him as a songwriter mature and measured enough that that younger version of himself, the one who packed up his things into a pickup to pursue his dream, would be proud. “I wanted to make a guitar focused project that showed all sides of me as an artist,” he has said of the album. Mission accomplished.