Hiram Hank Williams

Who I'd like to meet:

"I thought he lived in our house. When I was a boy in Alabama, his voice, his words, his agony and joy and spirit were as inescapable as the heat, the damp, the sound of the wind in the pines… Even in his beautifully tailored western suits, he had told our story with beauty and pride and pain and something very close to love, for a man who had seemed to loathe himself, before he died…" - Excerpt from Bragg's liner notes

Liner notes by Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the best-selling novel All Over But The Shoutin'. Congratulations to Rick Bragg on his Grammy Nomination in the album liner notes category for Live At The Grand Ole Opry.

©2000 Mercury Records, a Universal Music Company



HANK WILLIAMS By: Colin Escott
More than fifty years after his death, Hank Williams ranks among the most powerfully iconic figures in American music. Iconic to the point that man and myth are inextricably entwined. He set the agenda for contemporary country songcraft and sang his songs with such believability that we feel privy to his world, despite the fact that he left no in-depth interviews and just a few letters. His brief life and tragic death have only compounded his appeal.

Born in the tiny settlement of Mount Olive in south-central Alabama on September 17, 1923, Hiram "Hank" Williams grew up with a sense of apartness that never left him. A spinal condition, in all likelihood spina bifida occulta, ensured that he couldn't work in the same occupations as his contemporaries: logging or farming. When Hank was six years old, his aloneness was compounded when his father, Lon, went into a veterans' hospital; Hank would see him just twice in the next seven years. His mother, Lilly, ran rooming houses, first in Greenville, Alabama, and then in Montgomery.

Local influences shaped Hank's music more profoundly than the big stars of the day. The gospel songs of both the black and white communities taught him that music, whether sacred or secular, must have a spiritual component. He learned traditional folk ballads and early country songs from neighbors and friends, and blues from a local African-American street musician, Rufus Payne (also known as Teetot). Payne not only taught Hank how to play the guitar, but helped him overcome his innate shyness. The blues feel that suffuses much of Hank Williams' work is almost certainly Teetot's legacy.

Entering local talent talent contests soon after moving to Montgomery in 1937, Hank had served a ten-year apprenticeship by the time he scored his first hit, "Move It on Over," in 1947. He was twenty-three then, and twenty-five when the success of "Lovesick Blues" (a minstrel era song he did not write) earned him an invitation to join the preeminent radio barndance, Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. His star rose rapidly. He wrote songs compulsively, and his producer/music publisher, Fred Rose, helped him isolate and refine those that held promise. The result was an unbroken string of hits that included "Honky Tonkin'," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Mansion on the Hill," "Cold, Cold Heart," "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)," "Honky Tonk Blues," "Jambalaya," "Your Cheatin' Heart," and "You Win Again." He was a recording artist for six years, and, during that time, recorded just 66 songs under his own name (together with a few more as part of a husband-and-wife act, Hank & Audrey, and a more still under his moralistic alter ego, Luke the Drifter). Of the 66 songs recorded under his own name, an astonishing 37 were hits. More than once, he cut three songs that became standards in one afternoon.



The fourteen "Luke the Drifter" recordings were narrations and talking blues. Luke the Drifter walked with Hank Williams and talked through him. If Hank Williams could be headstrong and willful, a backslider and a reprobate, then Luke the Drifter was compassionate and moralistic, capable of dispensing all the sage advice that Hank Williams ignored. Luke the Drifter had seen it all, yet could still be moved to tears by a chance encounter on his travels. Although little known in comparison with the hits, the "Luke the Drifter" narrations were the closest Hank Williams came to bearing his soul.

As a songwriter, Hank Williams matured surprisingly quickly, and his fractious relationship with his first wife, Audrey (whom he'd married in 1943), provided him with much of the raw material. After Tony Bennett covered "Cold, Cold Heart" in 1951, his songs found a broader market, a market that Hank himself would have found it hard to penetrate. To the end, he was unapologetically Southern, unable to make the compromises that Elvis Presley would make just a few years later. But Williams' songs went where he couldn't, and from 1951 onward, there was a rush to reinterpret them for the pop market. Ironically, those pop versions, which comfortably outsold Williams' originals in the early Fifties, now sound over-ornamented and outdated, while Williams' spare and haunting versions sound ageless.

It all fell apart remarkably quickly. Hank Williams grew disillusioned with success, and the unending travel compounded his back problem. A spinal operation in December 1951 only worsened the condition. Career pressures and almost ceaseless pain led to recurrent bouts of alcoholism. He missed an increasing number of showdates, frustrating those who attempted to manage or help him. His wife, Audrey, ordered him out of their house in January 1952, and he was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry in August that year for failing to appear on Opry-sponsored showdates. Returning to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he'd been an up-and-coming star in 1948, he took a second wife, Billie Jean Jones, and hired a bogus doctor who compounded his already serious physical problems with potentially lethal drugs.

In late December 1952, Hank Williams returned to Montgomery, attempting to recuperate, but decided to meet two prearranged showdates on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. He died en route, aged just twenty-nine. Contrary to myth, Williams did not die with his star in the ascendant. "Jambalaya" had been one of the best-selling records of 1952, but while his records were topping the charts, he was so unreliable that he was reduced to playing beerhalls in Texas and Louisiana. There's a persistent myth that he would have returned to the Opry had he not died on New Year's Day 1953, but surviving correspondence suggests nothing more than a few more beerhall gigs. On a record released after his death, Williams sang of being pursued by the "Pale Horse and His Rider." On a home recording made shortly before his death, he directly addressed "The Angel of Death." It's impossible to escape the feeling that he lived with the spirits every day, and drank in part to escape them.

Timing is everything and Hank Williams came and went at precisely the right time. Country music was a cottage industry at the time of his arrival, yet, just a few years after his death, it was shaking off its "hillbilly" image. An artist as unapologetically rural as Hank Williams would have been shown the door. Elvis Presley appeared on the Grand Ole Opry just two years after Hank was dismissed, and Nashville's response to Elvis was to nurture artists who could cross between country and pop, leading to the birth of the Nashville Sound. Hank Williams didn't belong in the Nashville Sound era, but his tragically early death spared him the indignity of trying. Instead, his songs have lived on, reintrepreted by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, jazz diva Norah Jones, crooner Perry Como, R&B star Dinah Washington, and British punk band, The The.
Source: PBS.ORG
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters



HANK LINKS

Hank Williams Official site for the country music legend. Category: Country Music > Hank Williams, Sr. (1923-1953) www.hankwilliams.com

Hank Williams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hiram "Hank" King Williams (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an ... Man", with vocals provided by Hank Williams III, on their 2000 release The Crybaby. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Williams

Hank Williams - American Masters PBS broadcast celebrating the highly influential figure in American music. Includes essay, timeline, additional footage, and a filmmaker interview. Category: Country Music > Hank Williams, Sr. (1923-1953) www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/williams_h.html

HANK WILLIAMS ... father of contemporary country music, Hank Williams was born on September 17, ... Hank and Audrey Williams had their first child, Randall Hank, in the ...www.thehankwilliamsmuseum.com/hankbio.htm

CMT.com : Hank Williams : Artist Main CMT.com presents complete Hank Williams information including Music Videos, Photo Galleries, News, Radio, TV Appearances, Discography, Message Board, Awards and more.www.cmt.com/artists/az/williams_sr_hank/artist.jhtml

Hank Williams Hank Williams is the father of contemporary country music. ... Hank Williams was scheduled to play a concert in Canton, OH, on January 1, 1953. ...www.alamhof.org/williamh.htm

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Hank Williams Provides information on the singer and songwriter who influenced country and rock. Category: Country Music > Hank Williams, Sr. (1923-1953) www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=211

Hank Williams - AOL Music Download, listen and watch Hank Williams music, mp3's, song lyrics, music videos, ... Price, Charley Pride, Carl Smith, Faron Young, Webb Pierce, Hank Williams, Jr. ...music.aol.com/artist/hank-williams/138231/main

CMG Worldwide CMG Worldwide also represents the world's greatest legends for marketing, licensing and legal purposes. Clients include: Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Bill Elliott, ...www.cmgww.com/music/hank

Hank Williams ... of everyone just which day it was that Hank Williams breathed his last breath. ... session, you'll see the artists listed as "HANK WILLIAMS And The Country Boys" ...www.rockabillyhall.com/HankWilliams1.html

Artists : Hank Williams Sr. : Hank Williams Sr. Biography : Great American Country By 1953 and literally worn out at 29, Hank Williams was gone. ... Cadillac en route to a show, Hank Williams fulfilled the prophecy of his own " ...gactv.com/gac/.../article/0,,GAC_26936_4805323,00.html

Amazon.com: The Complete Hank Williams: Music: Sr. Hank Williams Hank Williams rose to prominence at the exact middle of the 20th century, and ... haphazard, oft-overdubbed, slapdash Hank Williams reissues, this lavish package ...www.amazon.com/Complete-Hank-Williams-Sr/dp/B00000AFE0

ADAH: Hank Williams, Sr. - A Look Back Hank Williams Rides on down Trail of National Popularity on Air Records ... Country Song Roundup - Special Hank Williams Memorial Issue (Cover Only) ...www.archives.state.al.us/hank

Hank Williams Appreciation Society International Focusing on the relationship between Hank Sr. and Father Harold Purcell of the ... [Links to Internal and External Hank Williams Resources] ...www.angelfire.com/me2/kulacoco/hank.html

Hank Williams Museum ... is the resting place of Hank and Audrey Williams, is located only five minutes ... Hank Williams who died on January 1st, 1953. USA TODAY reports on Hank ... Category: Alabama > Montgomery > Museums and Exhibits www.xaust.com/hank/homepage.htm

Ron's Hank Williams Page Pictures, lyrics, sounds, facts, and more. Category: Country Music > Hank Williams, Sr. (1923-1953) www.geocities.com/Nashville/3439

Hank Williams Hank Williams Sr bio page. Links to Hank's music Photos of the country music legend. ... Hank Williams Sr's soulful, lonesome and at times mournful voice along ...www.goldencountry.net/hank.htm

Hank Williams In 1943 Hank Williams met an Alabama country girl named Audrey Mae Sheppard. ... To see video clips of Hank Williams songs, buy his albums, and complete ...www2.smumn.edu/stupages/~amrose04/hank_williams.htm

The Complete Hank Williams Website: The Death Of Hank Williams But in the end it doesnt really matter, Hank Williams was dead at 29 years old. ... Charles Carr had the porters carry a lifeless Hank Williams down to the car. ...www.angelfire.com/country/hanksr/death.htm

Hank Williams Boyhood Home & Museum - Georgiana, Alabama When you visit Hank Williams' Boyhood Home & Museum at 127 Rose Street, ... street singer known as "Teetot", taught Hank Williams how to play the guitar. ...www.hankmuseum.com

Be sure to check out myspace for Hank Williams pages.
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