hank and audrey
Hank Williams was truly America's first superstar. From 1949
to 1953, Hank had 34 consecutive hit singles - 32 hitting the top ten and 11
going to number 1. His songs of "drinking, living, and praying" were
never before heard of themes. His troubled and turbulent life was intimately
reflected in his music. Hank was only 29
#HankWilliams beloved son.... #HankJr - they kicked him from the #Opry and that caused his greatest pain but they still playing on his name....
THE CONVERSATION- #HankWilliamsJr and #WaylonJennings - Hank Jr. dressed like a Confederate Soldier and Waylong dressed as a Yankee Soldier cause that's how it is in country.......Hank Jr. and Waylon Jennings...
------------------
Lisa-Brawn_Woodcut_Hank_Williams
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WWII kid on the farm in backwoods Nova Scotia ... 1951.... Hank Williams - Hey Good Looking.... wee ones and old old loved and adored that old radio screaming out the kitchen window.... and here it is 2016- and we are still fighting to have #GrandOleOpryreinstateHankWilliams
------------------------
South side of the 6400 block of Hollywood Boulevard -hank_williams_recording- HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME- HANK WILLIAMS...
HANK WILLIAMS.... for the over 1 Billion Country Music fans
globally.... the FIRST AMERICAN SUPERSTAR.... they kicked him from the Opry and
that caused his greatest pain- Waylon Jennings - some stories, shares, links
and music -The Waterboys 1988 ...Has Anybody
Here Seen Hank?
HANK WILLIAMS... even us kiddies wept....
FINAL WORDS...
We met, we lived, and dear we
loved,
then comes that fatal day,
the love that felt so dear
fades far away.
[[At a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, the driver, after finding him dead, found this on a slip of paper clutched in his hand.]] New Year’s Eve 1953 Hank Williams was truly America's first superstar. From 1949 to 1953, Hank had 34 consecutive hit singles - 32 hitting the top ten and 11 going to number 1. His songs of "drinking, living, and praying" were never before heard of themes. His troubled and turbulent life was intimately reflected in his music. Hank was only 29
then comes that fatal day,
the love that felt so dear
fades far away.
[[At a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, the driver, after finding him dead, found this on a slip of paper clutched in his hand.]] New Year’s Eve 1953 Hank Williams was truly America's first superstar. From 1949 to 1953, Hank had 34 consecutive hit singles - 32 hitting the top ten and 11 going to number 1. His songs of "drinking, living, and praying" were never before heard of themes. His troubled and turbulent life was intimately reflected in his music. Hank was only 29
ENTERTAINMENT
January 3, 2003 | Geoff Boucher
Here along the Alabama River the details of the story are
as wispy as the cotton in the furrowed fields: They say in the 1930s a sickly
shoeshine boy met a hunchbacked bluesman who played the street for coins. The
white youngster, mesmerized, coaxed the black busker to teach him chords. The
result was music history. The boy was Hiram Williams, but the world would know
him as Hank, the doomed titan of country music who died 50 years ago this week
at the age of 29.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 23, 1997 | Richard Cromelin, Richard Cromelin writes
about pop music for Calendar
Don Was isn't the first person to rhapsodize about Hank
Williams, but since Was is one of pop music's leading record producers, you
tend to pay attention when he discusses the songs of the tortured country music
legend. "They're so universal," says Was, whose production credits
include the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Brian Wilson, among many
others. "He found certain emotional common denominators in human existence
that are just part of the human chemistry.
ENTERTAINMENT
June 9, 1995 | ROBERT HILBURN
This album is almost as noteworthy for its marketing
concept as for its music.
ENTERTAINMENT
January 24, 1994 | DAVID J. FOX, TIMES STAFF WRITER
"Now, I can breathe again," said Steven
Spielberg, as he stepped off a backstage podium with his two Golden Globe
Awards for "Schindler's List"--the first time he has actually won one
of Hollywood's major film prizes. In the past, he had been nominated for Globes
and Oscars but never took one home.
ENTERTAINMENT
'Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams' finds good company in Bob Dylan
October
2, 2011 |
Singer and
songwriter Holly Williams, the granddaughter of country music giant Hank
Williams, knew something big was up when Bob Dylan approached her at a gig
several years ago and handed her a handful of song lyrics he wanted her to
peruse. "He didn't say anything," Williams recalled recently,
"but I could immediately tell from the simple English and the
cut-to-your-heart, lonesome lyrics. He said, 'These are some [Hank Williams]
lyrics that were found, and they've asked me maybe to do a whole album, or I
may have other artists do them.'" That was the beginning of her
involvement in "The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams," a long-gestating
project that's finally seeing the light of day on Tuesday.
ENTERTAINMENT
November 15, 1993 | Buddy Seigal
Hank Williams: "I lived with Hank for about a year
before he died. Hank was the one who got me on the Grand Ole Opry. He was a
good ole boy, just confused and trying to cope with some things he couldn't
cope with. And he wasn't on drugs; alcohol killed him, he was an alcoholic. He
was a real unhappy person, raised up on the wrong side of town and mistreated
by everybody." Lefty Frizzell: "Lefty and I got started together in
Dallas.
ENTERTAINMENT
August 20, 1993 | ROBERT HILBURN, TIMES POP MUSIC CRITIC
What new can you say about the late Hank Williams, the most
important songwriter ever in country music and one of the dozen most
influential post-World War II figures in all of pop? Not much, probably, but
Mercury Records' new "Health and Happiness Shows" album gives
Williams' fans something new to hear.
NEWS
June 24, 1993 | RANDY LEWIS
When Del Shannon scored his signature rock hit
"Runaway" in 1961, it came as a surprise to all concerned: Up until
then, Shannon had been Charles Westover, just another country singer pounding
the bars in his native Michigan. A subsequent string of rock hits culminated in
his return to the Top 10 in 1964 with "Keep Searchin' (We'll Follow the
Sun)," shortly before Peter and Gordon scored a Top 10 hit of their own
with Shannon's "I Go to Pieces."
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 3, 2002 | From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Hillous Butrum, 74, a bass player and an original member of
Hank Williams' backing band, the Drifting Cowboys, died Saturday in Nashville.
No cause of death was reported. Born in Lafayette, Tenn., Butrum started as a
staff musician in the Grand Ole Opry at age 16. He played in Williams' band in
1949 and 1950, but left to join Hank Snow's band, the Rainbow Ranch Boys, where
he stayed for four years.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 23, 2001 | Randy Lewis
* * * * VARIOUS ARTISTS "Timeless" Lost Highway
The dozen rock, pop, blues, folk and country luminaries who pack this tribute
to Hank Williams show just how far the influence of the man dubbed "the
hillbilly Shakespeare" extends beyond the borders of country music. As the
title indicates, that influence has only grown in the 48 years since Williams
died at 29 of a heart attack in the back of his Cadillac on New Year's Day
1953.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 25, 2000 | NATALIE NICHOLS
With his eerily familiar high-lonesome tenor twang and
spittin'-image appearance, Hank Williams III naturally evoked his legendary
grandfather at the Roxy on Saturday. The singer-guitarist's two-hour set
touched on the original Hank's legacy but emphasized his own musical identity,
a blend of country and punk that Nashville's Music Row would never embrace. Not
that Hank III (known to friends by his first name, Shelton) cares.
----------
Hank Williams - 'Honky Tonk Blues'
---
Look for the ghost of Hank Williams at Edd's Grocery in Corryton, Tenn., and all you'll find is yo-yo wax, cigarettes and panty hose boxes from the disco era. Might as well comb the nearest beachfront for hockey pucks.
But the well-scuffed little store is a landmark of sorts. It's a U.S. Highway 11W slow-down point, a 66-year-old relic that's positioned just to the Knoxville side of what used to be the Skyway Drive-In Theater.
Fifty years ago, a pale blue Cadillac carrying a similarly hued, 29-year-old Hiram "Hank" Williams sped north from Knoxville, right past Edd's.
The Skyway - now intimated by a rusted sign in a weed-happy field where locals toss garbage - marks the place where a patrol officer stopped Williams' driver, a 17-year-old Auburn University freshman named Charles Carr. The officer, Swan H. Kitts, ticketed Carr for speeding and driving recklessly. To this day, Carr denies the charges.
Either way, the man now viewed as country music's single greatest, most important and most legendary performer lay motionless through the hubbub. As Dec. 31, 1952, passed silently into the new year, Williams may have already passed, as well.
Hank Williams died in Knoxville or Bristol or Mount Hope, W.Va., or any number of other places. Maybe it was within a couple of miles from where the Daddy Owes Pool Hall now stands in Bean Station, Tenn., or right around where you'll see Hillbilly Auto Sales in Ghent, W.Va.
The only place he surely didn't die along twisted 11W or desolate 19 North is the place listed on his death certificate: the West Virginia town of Oak Hill.
"What difference does it make?" snaps Dr. Stuart McGehee, a historian at Bluefield, W.Va.'s Eastern Regional Coal Archives. "What does it possibly matter, other than to satisfy the obsessive people who want to know exactly where did he draw his last breath?"
Maybe the death spot doesn't matter, but the route does. Jan. 1 signifies a new year and commemorates an old, never-to-be-healed wounding.
And while Williams' native Alabama boasts its own Hank Williams Memorial Lost Highway, there is no more sorrow-bound succession than Knoxville to Blaine to Bristol to Bluefield to Princeton to Mount Hope to Oak Hill, with only "The Complete Hank Williams" boxed set for company.
"It's a tough drive, I promise you that," said Carr, who only drove it once, when he had Hank Williams for cargo if not for company. "If I had known what was going to happen, I would not have made the trip."
Stop to snap a photo of the old Skyway sign, step through brush and over a toppled toilet to get back to the car and listen to Hank sing Leon Payne's words: "And now I'm lost/ Too late to pray."
It's a spooky deal for sure, and not at all like a trip to Graceland.
The expiring year had brought divorce from first wife Audrey; an affair with a woman named Bobbie Jett, who became pregnant with a girl who became singer Jett Williams; the recordings of now-classics including Jambalaya, You Win Again, Kaw-Liga and Your Cheatin' Heart; his firing from the Grand Ole Opry; a marriage to the former Billie Jean Jones Eshliman; a continuation of physical frailties including persistent and sometimes debilitating back pain; more than enough pills and booze to derail stronger, stouter men; and a health-related leave of absence from the Louisiana Hayride radio show.
Williams ended the year as country music's best-selling artist, but he hoped 1953 would bring comparative peace and calm. He had moved from stressful Nashville in August, first returning home to Montgomery, Ala., then taking an apartment in Shreveport, La., and relocating again to Montgomery.
With a Dec. 31 show booked in Charleston, W.Va., and a gig the next day in Canton, Ohio, Williams stopped on Dec. 29 to see old friend Daniel Pitts Carr at Carr's Lee Street Taxi Co. It was a place of comfort and familiarity, and Hank liked to drink there.
"I had known Hank most of my life,'' said Charles Carr, now a 67-year-old Montgomery, Ala., businessman. "My dad looked after him before he became a star, and Hank never forgot that."
Charles agreed to chauffer Williams to the concerts in exchange for money that would help with the next semester's tuition. On Dec. 30, after Williams took a shot of morphine to ease his back pain, the young man and the country superstar drove off in Hank's conspicuous 1952 Cadillac.
Also because of his back pain, Williams was carrying chloral hydrate, a drug intended to induce sleep. Chloral hydrate can slow the heartbeat, and things can get weird when the drug is combined with alcohol. In the movies, when a bad guy puts someone to sleep by "slipping him a Mickey," chloral hydrate is what the villain has placed in the victim's drink.
"A mixture of chloral hydrate, morphine and alcohol will more than likely bring about psychosis," said Brian Turpen, a Bedford, Ind., police captain who has conducted exhaustive research into Williams' death. "That combination is sometimes used to euthanize critically ill patients."
The two travelers made it to Birmingham that night, and the next morning they reached Knoxville.
Planning to fly to Charleston, they boarded a 3:30 p.m. plane, but poor weather conditions necessitated a boomerang flight. The fellows were back in Knoxville by 6 p.m., knowing that Williams wouldn't make his scheduled performance and figuring there was a long drive involved in making the Canton show.
(Contrary to many reports, the problem with the Charleston airport was fog, not snow. Many - even most - published accounts have Carr and Williams driving through a perilous mix of snow and ice, but Dec. 31, Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 newspapers in Knoxville, Bluefield and Charleston reported no such precipitation.)
In Knoxville, Carr checked his man into the elegant Andrew Johnson Hotel, owned by Mrs. R.J. Reynolds and known for its showy lobby and old-money clientele. By then, a reasonably normal afternoon had become a lousy evening as Hank was back to drinking. Convulsive hiccups necessitated a call to a doctor, and more morphine (two shots, along with some vitamin B-12) soon surged through Williams' blood. At some point, Hank fell to the hotel room floor.
Carr and Williams left the Andrew Johnson before 11 p.m., with the singer's cognizance in question.
"Hank Williams stayed here after a performance, and it is rumored that he died here in 1953," reads a passage in a notebook kept by the public affairs office of the Knox County school system, now located in the old hotel. That rumor stems from porters' reports that an otherwise somnambulant Williams emitted two "coughing" sounds while being carried to his Cadillac. Dead men sometimes make such sounds when being picked up.
But Carr is adamant that he spoke to Williams on a couple of occasions after Knoxville, and the Oak Hill, W.Va., mortician who handled Williams' body says the singer was neither cold nor stiff enough to have died in East Tennessee.
With no complaints from his rider, Carr pressed northward. Pulling
out to pass - right past Edd's, next to the Skyway Drive-In sign, and
quite near the dividing line between Knox and Grainger counties - he
drew the notice of Officer Swan Kitts.
The officer pulled the Cadillac to the roadside. And for a half-century, Kitts has told people that he noticed the zonked-out Williams in the back seat, asked Carr whether the singer was dead and received assurance that Hank was under sedation, had been drinking and was certainly alive.
Kitts later came to believe that Hank had indeed died before the stop, an opinion that still angers Carr.
"Hank was asleep," Carr said. "If he was dead, what was this officer doing letting a 17-year-old ride around with a corpse?"
The Cadillac followed Kitts to the house of a justice of the peace in Blaine, where Carr says he answered "$75" when asked how much money he was carrying.
"You want to know what the fine was?" he said. "You guessed it: $75. In the police report, it said I was fined $25. I wonder what happened with that extra $50?"
All parties were made aware that Williams - the celebrated hillbilly performer - was in the back of the Caddy. Yet neither Kitts nor anyone else checked for a pulse.
But Williams' last meal was a few bites of steak at the Andrew Johnson Hotel, and he and Carr never stopped at the Burger Bar. There was no Burger Bar: In the early 1950s, the building housed a dry cleaners.
Carr did stop, however, at the corner of Moore and Sycamore streets, where he says he spoke briefly with a groggy Williams, bought some gas and bought a sandwich at Trayer's Restaurant, a few blocks from the spot where Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family recorded the 1927 "Bristol Sessions" that helped give rise to the commercial country music industry.
In Bristol, Williams might have taken a couple of the chloral hydrate pills that he had stashed for the trip and washed them down with Falstaff beer: bottles were later found on the Cadillac's floorboard.
Some historians believe Carr obtained a relief driver, Donald Surface, in Bristol. But Carr recalls that pickup as having occurred several hours up the road, in Bluefield, W.Va. Surface hailed from Bluefield and worked at the Bluefield Cab Co., so Bristol would seem an odd embarkation spot.
Between Bristol and Bluefield, 11W falls away in favor of 19 North, and curves begin to sharpen as the elevation increases. Even when the road is clear, filthy snow hugs the winter shoulders. Pop Williams' songs into a car stereo CD player, and his sorghum-and-razor-blades voice is poorly matched to the area's ice and stone.
If Williams was still alive after Bristol, his body was under internal attack. He needed a doctor, and not for another morphine shot. Instead, he got as smooth a ride as could be had over that terrain, as the Cadillac rolled on through the dark early morning.
Bluefield was then a bustling coal town, and the Dough Boy Lunch was open all night. Carr remembers getting a sandwich and a Coke at what was likely the Dough Boy, then speaking to a cab company dispatcher who offered Donald Surface's services.
In today's Bluefield, the Dough Boy has been razed, as has the Cab Co. building. One other potential landmark, the Bluefield Sanitarium, has been torn down as well: At least one published report has Carr seeking a doctor in Bluefield at the sanitarium, trying unsuccessfully to get yet another shot for Hank.
Today, Carr says Williams was awake in Bluefield but that there was no sanitarium excursion.
"The only doctor he saw was at the hotel in Knoxville," he said.
Williams' death is regarded as one of country music's defining moments, yet the Bluefield newspaper - like many others - didn't find the news terribly important. On Jan. 2's front page, a story headlined "Voluntary Health Insurance For Aged and Ill is Urged" was played higher and bolder than was "Hank Williams, 29, dies."
Just up the road in Princeton, the blue Caddy stopped again, probably at the Courthouse Lunch at 101 Alvis St. (it's now a bank). Carr could have let Surface off here or Surface might have continued on the doomed journey, as Carr is simply not sure what happened to the "relief driver." Surface himself died before the matter was resolved to anyone's satisfaction.
The Cadillac wound higher north, over the Bluestone River, past farms and goats and white birches that reached out as if to ensnare. The Bluestone's overpass at Spanishburg, W.Va., is now called the Hank Williams Sr. Memorial Bridge, and the Valley General Store next to it sells coffee for 35 cents.
Asked whether folks in Spanishburg ever talk of Hank Williams' last ride, Valley patron Drema Hall said: "Very seldom. But if you want a story, I'll give you a story: There's an all-girl butcher shop just up the road. It's just women that work there."
She insists that the Caddy stopped right across the street from her,
that a young driver came into Bon Bon's, and that she fixed him a lemon
sour because he said: a) He had Hank Williams in the car, b) Hank wasn't
feeling well, and c) Hank needed a drink. She knows that Williams was
pronounced dead a few miles down the road.
"Here's one for you," she said, passing a Styrofoam cup filled with the sweet blend. "OK, don't die."
When passing through Mount Hope, Carr was monumentally exhausted and probably quite worried about the well-being of his famous passenger, but today he is certain he didn't stop at Bon Bon's.
Carr remembers continuing on toward Oak Hill, a town in which Hank had never performed, never stayed and possibly never heard of, yet which would become forever intertwined with the Hank Williams legend.
Somewhere between Mount Hope and Oak Hill, Carr says, he noticed that Williams' blanket had slid off his frame.
The driver reached back and found Williams' hand cold and stiff. Carr says this happened six miles from Oak Hill, at the side of the road. Investigating officer Howard Janney reported that it happened in the Skyline Drive-In restaurant's parking lot and that Carr talked to an employee at the Skyline. Researcher Turpen thinks it may have been at one of several gas stations closer to the heart of Mount Hope.
Wherever it was that Carr discovered Hank Williams had died, the teenager soon checked with an attendant at what he describes as "a cut-rate service station."
"There was a big heater across the glass front," Carr said. "A man at the service station came out with me and looked in the back seat and said, 'I think you've got a problem.' He was very kind, and said Oak Hill General Hospital was six miles on my left."
Here, oral remembrance and accepted history diverge again. Numerous reports have Carr driving to Oak Hill and pulling into Pete Burdette's Pure Oil station, less than a quarter-mile from the hospital. Deputy Sheriff Janney recently told a reporter with Goldenseal magazine that he and another officer (Orris Stamey, now dead) came to Burdette's and saw the lifeless Williams and that Janney then escorted the car down the street to the hospital.
"No, I drove straight to the hospital," Carr said. "Burdette's had nothing to do with it. I went into the back of the hospital and two interns looked at Hank and said, 'He's dead.' I said, 'Is there anything you can do for him?' They said, 'No, he's dead.' They took him, and they didn't use a stretcher. They put him on an examining table."
"I called my dad and told him what happened, and then Hank's mother called me at the hospital," Carr said. "One of the parting things she said was: 'Don't let anything happen to the car.'
"So I gave the car keys to a law enforcement officer, and he pulled the car across the street to the funeral home. After that, Burdette allowed us to put the Cadillac in one of his bays at the Pure Oil station, so no one would mess with it."
But the town's only true claim to fame is its permanent place in the Hank Williams time line: "Born Sept. 17, 1923, Mt. Olive, Ala. Died Jan. 1, 1953, Oak Hill, W.Va."
In December 2002, the former Burdette's Pure Oil features a Santa's Workshop scene. Pete Burdette is gone, having killed himself out back of the place, years after taking Williams' cowboy hat from the car.
The hospital is still there, though it's undergone a makeover. And across from Santa's Workshop is the old mortuary, though undertaker Joe Tyree has long since moved his operation to another spot in town. But from the street, passers-by can glimpse the window to the upstairs room where an autopsy was performed on Williams and where Hank was prepared for his Alabama homecoming. The official cause of death was heart failure.
"I don't think he died here in Oak Hill, or in this county," Tyree said. "But he hadn't been dead for more than a couple of hours. I feel like he was alive in Bluefield."
Tyree said he never saw relief driver Donald Surface, who was mentioned in police reports as being present in Oak Hill.
Awaiting the arrivals of his father and Hank's mother, Carr was alone in a very strange place at a very bad time. He remains grateful to Tyree for comforting him.
"We tried to help Charles Carr, because he was in a peculiar situation," Tyree said. "Charles was a nice young boy. We took him to an apartment at the funeral home, and he stayed with our sons."
Tyree remembers that Carr watched New Year's Day football games at that apartment, though Carr thinks he watched at an Oak Hill city council member's home. One of those games was the Orange Bowl, in which Alabama defeated Syracuse, 61-6.
Across Alabama, folks cheered for the Crimson Tide. Many of the Tide backers didn't yet know that one of the state's favorite sons lay still in West Virginia.
"Have you seen the pictures of him at the funeral?" Tyree said. "We put that outfit on him, and we put him in that casket."
Leaving Oak Hill, a modern-day, Nashville-bound car can take one more snaky two-lane highway out of town, then hop on the interstate and make it to big-city Charleston within an hour. Then it's on to Huntington and down to Olive Hill, where a country music fan can start considering the bucolic birthplace of Tom T. Hall and try to stop dwelling on the hopeless final hours of Hank Williams.
Hank's death is shrouded in questions that are likely unanswerable, and the ride from Knoxville to Oak Hill consequently spurs depth of feeling, not breadth of knowledge.
Highway 11W to Highway 19 North was a pathetic, sad-sack end, but Williams' legacy is as enduring as his life was transitory. Fifty years after he exited that Cadillac, it seems likely that Cold, Cold Heart, Hey, Good Lookin', Jambalaya and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry will be around, will be enjoyed, will be alive even after Bean Station, Corryton and Mount Olive crumble to history.
Curse that road. Bless this music.
-----------------------
FROM 2003: Retracing Hank Williams’ ghostly night ride
The
Andrew Johnson Building at 912 Gay St. in Knoxville was the 'threshold
of elegance' when Hank Williams stayed there Dec. 31, 1952. Some
historians think he died in the hotel (photo: Peter Cooper/The
Tennessean)
NOTE: This story originally appeared in the Tennessean on January 1, 2003 edition of The Tennessean.Look for the ghost of Hank Williams at Edd's Grocery in Corryton, Tenn., and all you'll find is yo-yo wax, cigarettes and panty hose boxes from the disco era. Might as well comb the nearest beachfront for hockey pucks.
But the well-scuffed little store is a landmark of sorts. It's a U.S. Highway 11W slow-down point, a 66-year-old relic that's positioned just to the Knoxville side of what used to be the Skyway Drive-In Theater.
Fifty years ago, a pale blue Cadillac carrying a similarly hued, 29-year-old Hiram "Hank" Williams sped north from Knoxville, right past Edd's.
The Skyway - now intimated by a rusted sign in a weed-happy field where locals toss garbage - marks the place where a patrol officer stopped Williams' driver, a 17-year-old Auburn University freshman named Charles Carr. The officer, Swan H. Kitts, ticketed Carr for speeding and driving recklessly. To this day, Carr denies the charges.
Either way, the man now viewed as country music's single greatest, most important and most legendary performer lay motionless through the hubbub. As Dec. 31, 1952, passed silently into the new year, Williams may have already passed, as well.
Hank Williams died in Knoxville or Bristol or Mount Hope, W.Va., or any number of other places. Maybe it was within a couple of miles from where the Daddy Owes Pool Hall now stands in Bean Station, Tenn., or right around where you'll see Hillbilly Auto Sales in Ghent, W.Va.
The only place he surely didn't die along twisted 11W or desolate 19 North is the place listed on his death certificate: the West Virginia town of Oak Hill.
"What difference does it make?" snaps Dr. Stuart McGehee, a historian at Bluefield, W.Va.'s Eastern Regional Coal Archives. "What does it possibly matter, other than to satisfy the obsessive people who want to know exactly where did he draw his last breath?"
Maybe the death spot doesn't matter, but the route does. Jan. 1 signifies a new year and commemorates an old, never-to-be-healed wounding.
And while Williams' native Alabama boasts its own Hank Williams Memorial Lost Highway, there is no more sorrow-bound succession than Knoxville to Blaine to Bristol to Bluefield to Princeton to Mount Hope to Oak Hill, with only "The Complete Hank Williams" boxed set for company.
"It's a tough drive, I promise you that," said Carr, who only drove it once, when he had Hank Williams for cargo if not for company. "If I had known what was going to happen, I would not have made the trip."
Stop to snap a photo of the old Skyway sign, step through brush and over a toppled toilet to get back to the car and listen to Hank sing Leon Payne's words: "And now I'm lost/ Too late to pray."
It's a spooky deal for sure, and not at all like a trip to Graceland.
I Just Don't Like This Kind of Livin'
The latter part of 1952 was a strange and not altogether pleasant time to be Hank Williams.The expiring year had brought divorce from first wife Audrey; an affair with a woman named Bobbie Jett, who became pregnant with a girl who became singer Jett Williams; the recordings of now-classics including Jambalaya, You Win Again, Kaw-Liga and Your Cheatin' Heart; his firing from the Grand Ole Opry; a marriage to the former Billie Jean Jones Eshliman; a continuation of physical frailties including persistent and sometimes debilitating back pain; more than enough pills and booze to derail stronger, stouter men; and a health-related leave of absence from the Louisiana Hayride radio show.
Williams ended the year as country music's best-selling artist, but he hoped 1953 would bring comparative peace and calm. He had moved from stressful Nashville in August, first returning home to Montgomery, Ala., then taking an apartment in Shreveport, La., and relocating again to Montgomery.
With a Dec. 31 show booked in Charleston, W.Va., and a gig the next day in Canton, Ohio, Williams stopped on Dec. 29 to see old friend Daniel Pitts Carr at Carr's Lee Street Taxi Co. It was a place of comfort and familiarity, and Hank liked to drink there.
"I had known Hank most of my life,'' said Charles Carr, now a 67-year-old Montgomery, Ala., businessman. "My dad looked after him before he became a star, and Hank never forgot that."
Charles agreed to chauffer Williams to the concerts in exchange for money that would help with the next semester's tuition. On Dec. 30, after Williams took a shot of morphine to ease his back pain, the young man and the country superstar drove off in Hank's conspicuous 1952 Cadillac.
Also because of his back pain, Williams was carrying chloral hydrate, a drug intended to induce sleep. Chloral hydrate can slow the heartbeat, and things can get weird when the drug is combined with alcohol. In the movies, when a bad guy puts someone to sleep by "slipping him a Mickey," chloral hydrate is what the villain has placed in the victim's drink.
"A mixture of chloral hydrate, morphine and alcohol will more than likely bring about psychosis," said Brian Turpen, a Bedford, Ind., police captain who has conducted exhaustive research into Williams' death. "That combination is sometimes used to euthanize critically ill patients."
The two travelers made it to Birmingham that night, and the next morning they reached Knoxville.
Planning to fly to Charleston, they boarded a 3:30 p.m. plane, but poor weather conditions necessitated a boomerang flight. The fellows were back in Knoxville by 6 p.m., knowing that Williams wouldn't make his scheduled performance and figuring there was a long drive involved in making the Canton show.
(Contrary to many reports, the problem with the Charleston airport was fog, not snow. Many - even most - published accounts have Carr and Williams driving through a perilous mix of snow and ice, but Dec. 31, Jan. 1 and Jan. 2 newspapers in Knoxville, Bluefield and Charleston reported no such precipitation.)
In Knoxville, Carr checked his man into the elegant Andrew Johnson Hotel, owned by Mrs. R.J. Reynolds and known for its showy lobby and old-money clientele. By then, a reasonably normal afternoon had become a lousy evening as Hank was back to drinking. Convulsive hiccups necessitated a call to a doctor, and more morphine (two shots, along with some vitamin B-12) soon surged through Williams' blood. At some point, Hank fell to the hotel room floor.
Carr and Williams left the Andrew Johnson before 11 p.m., with the singer's cognizance in question.
"Hank Williams stayed here after a performance, and it is rumored that he died here in 1953," reads a passage in a notebook kept by the public affairs office of the Knox County school system, now located in the old hotel. That rumor stems from porters' reports that an otherwise somnambulant Williams emitted two "coughing" sounds while being carried to his Cadillac. Dead men sometimes make such sounds when being picked up.
But Carr is adamant that he spoke to Williams on a couple of occasions after Knoxville, and the Oak Hill, W.Va., mortician who handled Williams' body says the singer was neither cold nor stiff enough to have died in East Tennessee.
The
Skyway Drive-In Theatre sign marks the spot where Williams' Cadillac
was stopped by a police officer. The driver, Charles Carr, was ticketed,
charged with speeding and reckless driving (photo: Peter Cooper/The
Tennessean)
The officer pulled the Cadillac to the roadside. And for a half-century, Kitts has told people that he noticed the zonked-out Williams in the back seat, asked Carr whether the singer was dead and received assurance that Hank was under sedation, had been drinking and was certainly alive.
Kitts later came to believe that Hank had indeed died before the stop, an opinion that still angers Carr.
"Hank was asleep," Carr said. "If he was dead, what was this officer doing letting a 17-year-old ride around with a corpse?"
The Cadillac followed Kitts to the house of a justice of the peace in Blaine, where Carr says he answered "$75" when asked how much money he was carrying.
"You want to know what the fine was?" he said. "You guessed it: $75. In the police report, it said I was fined $25. I wonder what happened with that extra $50?"
All parties were made aware that Williams - the celebrated hillbilly performer - was in the back of the Caddy. Yet neither Kitts nor anyone else checked for a pulse.
Bristol to butcher shop
Ask around in the border city of Bristol, and someone will point you to the Burger Bar and tell you that's where Hank Williams ate his last meal.But Williams' last meal was a few bites of steak at the Andrew Johnson Hotel, and he and Carr never stopped at the Burger Bar. There was no Burger Bar: In the early 1950s, the building housed a dry cleaners.
Carr did stop, however, at the corner of Moore and Sycamore streets, where he says he spoke briefly with a groggy Williams, bought some gas and bought a sandwich at Trayer's Restaurant, a few blocks from the spot where Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family recorded the 1927 "Bristol Sessions" that helped give rise to the commercial country music industry.
In Bristol, Williams might have taken a couple of the chloral hydrate pills that he had stashed for the trip and washed them down with Falstaff beer: bottles were later found on the Cadillac's floorboard.
Some historians believe Carr obtained a relief driver, Donald Surface, in Bristol. But Carr recalls that pickup as having occurred several hours up the road, in Bluefield, W.Va. Surface hailed from Bluefield and worked at the Bluefield Cab Co., so Bristol would seem an odd embarkation spot.
Between Bristol and Bluefield, 11W falls away in favor of 19 North, and curves begin to sharpen as the elevation increases. Even when the road is clear, filthy snow hugs the winter shoulders. Pop Williams' songs into a car stereo CD player, and his sorghum-and-razor-blades voice is poorly matched to the area's ice and stone.
If Williams was still alive after Bristol, his body was under internal attack. He needed a doctor, and not for another morphine shot. Instead, he got as smooth a ride as could be had over that terrain, as the Cadillac rolled on through the dark early morning.
Bluefield was then a bustling coal town, and the Dough Boy Lunch was open all night. Carr remembers getting a sandwich and a Coke at what was likely the Dough Boy, then speaking to a cab company dispatcher who offered Donald Surface's services.
In today's Bluefield, the Dough Boy has been razed, as has the Cab Co. building. One other potential landmark, the Bluefield Sanitarium, has been torn down as well: At least one published report has Carr seeking a doctor in Bluefield at the sanitarium, trying unsuccessfully to get yet another shot for Hank.
Today, Carr says Williams was awake in Bluefield but that there was no sanitarium excursion.
"The only doctor he saw was at the hotel in Knoxville," he said.
Williams' death is regarded as one of country music's defining moments, yet the Bluefield newspaper - like many others - didn't find the news terribly important. On Jan. 2's front page, a story headlined "Voluntary Health Insurance For Aged and Ill is Urged" was played higher and bolder than was "Hank Williams, 29, dies."
Just up the road in Princeton, the blue Caddy stopped again, probably at the Courthouse Lunch at 101 Alvis St. (it's now a bank). Carr could have let Surface off here or Surface might have continued on the doomed journey, as Carr is simply not sure what happened to the "relief driver." Surface himself died before the matter was resolved to anyone's satisfaction.
The Cadillac wound higher north, over the Bluestone River, past farms and goats and white birches that reached out as if to ensnare. The Bluestone's overpass at Spanishburg, W.Va., is now called the Hank Williams Sr. Memorial Bridge, and the Valley General Store next to it sells coffee for 35 cents.
Asked whether folks in Spanishburg ever talk of Hank Williams' last ride, Valley patron Drema Hall said: "Very seldom. But if you want a story, I'll give you a story: There's an all-girl butcher shop just up the road. It's just women that work there."
I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
Algisa Bonifacio was, by her account, a silly teenager when Hank Williams' Cadillac entered Mount Hope, W.Va. Bonifacio remains in the same place she says she was that late-dawning morning: Behind the counter at Bon Bon's, a store along Mount Hope's main drag, on what used to be Highway 19.
Algisa
Bonifacio says she made a lemon sour for Williams in Mount Hope, W.Va.,
a few miles down the road from Oak Hill. Bonifacio still works at Bon
Bon in Mount Hope (photo: Peter Cooper/The Tennessean)
"Here's one for you," she said, passing a Styrofoam cup filled with the sweet blend. "OK, don't die."
When passing through Mount Hope, Carr was monumentally exhausted and probably quite worried about the well-being of his famous passenger, but today he is certain he didn't stop at Bon Bon's.
Carr remembers continuing on toward Oak Hill, a town in which Hank had never performed, never stayed and possibly never heard of, yet which would become forever intertwined with the Hank Williams legend.
Somewhere between Mount Hope and Oak Hill, Carr says, he noticed that Williams' blanket had slid off his frame.
The driver reached back and found Williams' hand cold and stiff. Carr says this happened six miles from Oak Hill, at the side of the road. Investigating officer Howard Janney reported that it happened in the Skyline Drive-In restaurant's parking lot and that Carr talked to an employee at the Skyline. Researcher Turpen thinks it may have been at one of several gas stations closer to the heart of Mount Hope.
Wherever it was that Carr discovered Hank Williams had died, the teenager soon checked with an attendant at what he describes as "a cut-rate service station."
"There was a big heater across the glass front," Carr said. "A man at the service station came out with me and looked in the back seat and said, 'I think you've got a problem.' He was very kind, and said Oak Hill General Hospital was six miles on my left."
Here, oral remembrance and accepted history diverge again. Numerous reports have Carr driving to Oak Hill and pulling into Pete Burdette's Pure Oil station, less than a quarter-mile from the hospital. Deputy Sheriff Janney recently told a reporter with Goldenseal magazine that he and another officer (Orris Stamey, now dead) came to Burdette's and saw the lifeless Williams and that Janney then escorted the car down the street to the hospital.
"No, I drove straight to the hospital," Carr said. "Burdette's had nothing to do with it. I went into the back of the hospital and two interns looked at Hank and said, 'He's dead.' I said, 'Is there anything you can do for him?' They said, 'No, he's dead.' They took him, and they didn't use a stretcher. They put him on an examining table."
"I called my dad and told him what happened, and then Hank's mother called me at the hospital," Carr said. "One of the parting things she said was: 'Don't let anything happen to the car.'
"So I gave the car keys to a law enforcement officer, and he pulled the car across the street to the funeral home. After that, Burdette allowed us to put the Cadillac in one of his bays at the Pure Oil station, so no one would mess with it."
61-6, or The Alabama Waltz
Enter Oak Hill today, and signs proclaim the town as the home of Marian McQuade, the lady who founded National Grandparents' Day.But the town's only true claim to fame is its permanent place in the Hank Williams time line: "Born Sept. 17, 1923, Mt. Olive, Ala. Died Jan. 1, 1953, Oak Hill, W.Va."
In December 2002, the former Burdette's Pure Oil features a Santa's Workshop scene. Pete Burdette is gone, having killed himself out back of the place, years after taking Williams' cowboy hat from the car.
The hospital is still there, though it's undergone a makeover. And across from Santa's Workshop is the old mortuary, though undertaker Joe Tyree has long since moved his operation to another spot in town. But from the street, passers-by can glimpse the window to the upstairs room where an autopsy was performed on Williams and where Hank was prepared for his Alabama homecoming. The official cause of death was heart failure.
"I don't think he died here in Oak Hill, or in this county," Tyree said. "But he hadn't been dead for more than a couple of hours. I feel like he was alive in Bluefield."
Tyree said he never saw relief driver Donald Surface, who was mentioned in police reports as being present in Oak Hill.
Awaiting the arrivals of his father and Hank's mother, Carr was alone in a very strange place at a very bad time. He remains grateful to Tyree for comforting him.
"We tried to help Charles Carr, because he was in a peculiar situation," Tyree said. "Charles was a nice young boy. We took him to an apartment at the funeral home, and he stayed with our sons."
Tyree remembers that Carr watched New Year's Day football games at that apartment, though Carr thinks he watched at an Oak Hill city council member's home. One of those games was the Orange Bowl, in which Alabama defeated Syracuse, 61-6.
Across Alabama, folks cheered for the Crimson Tide. Many of the Tide backers didn't yet know that one of the state's favorite sons lay still in West Virginia.
"Have you seen the pictures of him at the funeral?" Tyree said. "We put that outfit on him, and we put him in that casket."
Leaving Oak Hill, a modern-day, Nashville-bound car can take one more snaky two-lane highway out of town, then hop on the interstate and make it to big-city Charleston within an hour. Then it's on to Huntington and down to Olive Hill, where a country music fan can start considering the bucolic birthplace of Tom T. Hall and try to stop dwelling on the hopeless final hours of Hank Williams.
Hank's death is shrouded in questions that are likely unanswerable, and the ride from Knoxville to Oak Hill consequently spurs depth of feeling, not breadth of knowledge.
Highway 11W to Highway 19 North was a pathetic, sad-sack end, but Williams' legacy is as enduring as his life was transitory. Fifty years after he exited that Cadillac, it seems likely that Cold, Cold Heart, Hey, Good Lookin', Jambalaya and I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry will be around, will be enjoyed, will be alive even after Bean Station, Corryton and Mount Olive crumble to history.
Curse that road. Bless this music.
Tennessean staff writer Peter Cooper may be reached at 259-8220 or by e-mail at pcooper@tennessean.com.
NOTE: This story originally appeared in the Tennessean on January 1, 2003 edition of The Tennessean.-----------------------
hank williams - hey good lookin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95aP0OWx4jY&index=12&list=PL442D11266758962E
Hank Williams Sr. - Lonesome Whistle
---------------
I'M SO LONESOME I COULD CRY (1949) by Hank Williams
------------
hank
williams - cold cold heart Lyrics
Jambalaya (On the Bayou): Hank Williams
PETITION TO REINSTATE HANK WILLIAMS... LET’S GIT R DONE...
WORLD – LET’S GET R DONE- one billion fans of country music can do this...
reinstate Hank Williams to the grand ol opry
------------------
Be Careful Of Stones That You Throw by Hank Williams
Hank William Sr - Your Cheatin Heart lyrics
Everything's Okay by Hank Williams
-----
Hank Williams - We Live In Two Different Worlds
Hank Williams - Why Don't You Love Me
19 Feb 2003 ... Target: Steve
Buchanan, President, Grand Ole' Opry. Region: United ... Sign the petition ·
Sponsor ... Before he could make that return, he passed on, in the back seat of a car on the way to an
Ohio show. Even now, Hank Williams has yet to
be reinstated to the Opry. ....
Like · Reply · 2 · Aug 16, 2013 6:11pm.
www.savingcountrymusic.com/reinstate-hank-petition-crests-50000-
31 Jul 2011 ... In 1952, Hank
Williams was dismissed from the Opry with the understanding that he would sober up and ... all
this time, maybe it's time that we can get Hank
Williams
reinstated back in the Grand Ole Opry folks. ... I had signed a “reinstate” petition @ a
show several years back… ... July 31, 2011 @ 2:26 pm.
12 Jan 2010 ... When Hank Williams III's album Damn Right, Rebel
Proud went to #2 ... “Well back then
they called him crazy, now days they call him a saint ... Hank III himself has said himself in interviews
that his “Grand Ole ... and signing petitions
instead should make sure that the opry never ..... June 2, 2013 @ 7:48 pm.
 |
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ0SuDdhUS413 Jan 2013 - 15 min - Uploaded by corporalhenshaw
Lots of rare footage in this fantastic film about the life of Hank Williams. Worth watching just for ... |
Hank Williams Sr - Long Gone Lonesome Blues
---
Hank Williams
Hank Williams, Sr. (born Hiram King Williams - 1923-1953) was on of the first superstars in country music, but like many others before and him and many after, lived hard due to an addiction to alcohol and morphine and died at a young age before truly reaching his potential as a singer and songwriter. Although, his legacy and influence endures not only in Nashville, but in rock and roll as well. Born and raised in rural Alabama, Hank began playing guitar at eight years old and had his own band my 13, the Drifting Cowboys. As a boy, he befriended a local street performer, Rufus Payne, known as "Tee-Tot", who taught him the guitar, but more significantly introduced Hank to the blues, and gospel music which would ultimately mold and define his sound. Stricken with spina bifida in his youth, Williams suffered through excruciating back pain that led to his withdrawal, his interest in music and his eventual dependence on alcohol and drugs. When he was 21, he met Audrey Sheppard, whom he encouraged to begin playing the stand-up bass, to which she was added to the band. The two married in 1944. By the early 1940s, Hank had already developed a following around Alabama and caught the attention of Nashville executives. In 1946, he set out for the Music City where he met Fred Rose and Roy Acoff, of Acoff-Rose Publications, and whom helped Hank land a record contract with MGM Records in 1947. In 1947, Williams released the hit "Move It on Over" and he began performing weekly on the radio show, the Louisiana Hayride. With the help of Shreveport, Louisiana radio station KWKH's 50,000 watts, Hank's popularity spread throughout the south and he his touring schedule stretched from Georgia to Texas. In 1949, he covered Cliff Friend and Irving Mills song "Lovesick Blues", which became his first #1 hit on the Billboard chart and remained in the top spot for more than 16 weeks. Unfortunately, despite his success and career at an all-time high, he was spiraling out of control.
Heading into the 1950s, Hank Williams produced a number of radio hits lie "Wedding Bells", "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", Dear John" and "Cold, Cold Heart", the latter of which Tony Bennett topped the charts with his version holding the top spot for 27 weeks. Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1949, but by 1952, he was dismissed due to habitual drunkenness. HIs health was deteriorating at an alarming rate and by 1952, at the age of 29, he was treated for a possible heart attack. He had also been treated for alcoholism in 1951, but it made little impact. On New Year's Eve, while driving from Alabama to Canton, Ohio, Hank Williams died just after midnight in the back seat of a Cadillac.He was found in the back seat with a handful of empty beer cans and an unfinished lyrics. During his almost blink-of-an-eye professional career, Hank Williams became one of the great songwriters in the history of music and influenced many of those that followed from country to rock and roll. Other hits from Williams include "Honky Tonkin'", "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey Good Lookin'", "Lost Highway" and the prophetic tune "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." Hank Williams had 11 Top Ten hits and in 2010 was awarded with Pulitzer citation for his songwriting. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1961), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987). In 2003, CMT ranked him #2 on the 40 Greatest Men in Country Music, behind only Johnny Cash - a list on which son Hank Williams, Jr. is also ranked. Hank Jr. also carved out an excellent music career of his own, and endured his own share of hardship coming up, which highlights in his hit song "Family Tradition."
http://www.psacard.com/AutographFacts/AutographDetail/1975/hank-williams
------------------
Hank Williams
Hank Williams, Sr. (born Hiram King Williams - 1923-1953) was on of the first superstars in country music, but like many others before and him and many after, lived hard due to an addiction to alcohol and morphine and died at a young age before truly reaching his potential as a singer and songwriter. Although, his legacy and influence endures not only in Nashville, but in rock and roll as well. Born and raised in rural Alabama, Hank began playing guitar at eight years old and had his own band my 13, the Drifting Cowboys. As a boy, he befriended a local street performer, Rufus Payne, known as "Tee-Tot", who taught him the guitar, but more significantly introduced Hank to the blues, and gospel music which would ultimately mold and define his sound. Stricken with spina bifida in his youth, Williams suffered through excruciating back pain that led to his withdrawal, his interest in music and his eventual dependence on alcohol and drugs. When he was 21, he met Audrey Sheppard, whom he encouraged to begin playing the stand-up bass, to which she was added to the band. The two married in 1944. By the early 1940s, Hank had already developed a following around Alabama and caught the attention of Nashville executives. In 1946, he set out for the Music City where he met Fred Rose and Roy Acoff, of Acoff-Rose Publications, and whom helped Hank land a record contract with MGM Records in 1947. In 1947, Williams released the hit "Move It on Over" and he began performing weekly on the radio show, the Louisiana Hayride. With the help of Shreveport, Louisiana radio station KWKH's 50,000 watts, Hank's popularity spread throughout the south and he his touring schedule stretched from Georgia to Texas. In 1949, he covered Cliff Friend and Irving Mills song "Lovesick Blues", which became his first #1 hit on the Billboard chart and remained in the top spot for more than 16 weeks. Unfortunately, despite his success and career at an all-time high, he was spiraling out of control.
Heading into the 1950s, Hank Williams produced a number of radio hits lie "Wedding Bells", "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", Dear John" and "Cold, Cold Heart", the latter of which Tony Bennett topped the charts with his version holding the top spot for 27 weeks. Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1949, but by 1952, he was dismissed due to habitual drunkenness. HIs health was deteriorating at an alarming rate and by 1952, at the age of 29, he was treated for a possible heart attack. He had also been treated for alcoholism in 1951, but it made little impact. On New Year's Eve, while driving from Alabama to Canton, Ohio, Hank Williams died just after midnight in the back seat of a Cadillac.He was found in the back seat with a handful of empty beer cans and an unfinished lyrics. During his almost blink-of-an-eye professional career, Hank Williams became one of the great songwriters in the history of music and influenced many of those that followed from country to rock and roll. Other hits from Williams include "Honky Tonkin'", "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey Good Lookin'", "Lost Highway" and the prophetic tune "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." Hank Williams had 11 Top Ten hits and in 2010 was awarded with Pulitzer citation for his songwriting. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1961), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987). In 2003, CMT ranked him #2 on the 40 Greatest Men in Country Music, behind only Johnny Cash - a list on which son Hank Williams, Jr. is also ranked. Hank Jr. also carved out an excellent music career of his own, and endured his own share of hardship coming up, which highlights in his hit song "Family Tradition."
http://www.psacard.com/AutographFacts/AutographDetail/1975/hank-williams
------------------
Kaw-Liga - Hank Williams
CANADA- NOVA SCOTIA- Kawliga, In Mi'kmaq Joel Denny Eskasoni
this was on myspace page since 2008- Uploaded on Mar 14, 2009
This is song was sung by Hank Williams Jr. This has
my version of the music mastered in our studio..This was fun to do all the
mastering and the music done in my computor.. The humor in our language is
always a pleasure to listen too. When you trancribe the words in Mi'kmaq
Language shows more humor in the song. so enjoy, poor ol kawlaga..LOL.. Joel
--------------------------
Hank Jr. and Waylon- THE CONVERSATION- Hank Jr. with Confederate Hat and Waylon with Yankee-
LYRICS- Hank, let's talk about your daddy
Tell me how your mama loved that man
Well, just break out a bottle, hoss
I'll tell you bout the driftin' cowboy band
We won't talk about the habits
Just the music and the man, that's all
Now Hank, you just got to tell me
Did your daddy really write all them songs? Did he?
That don't deserve no answer, hoss
Let's light up and just move along
Do you think he wrote 'em about your mama
Or about the man who done her wrong, you know that
Yeah, back then they called him crazy
Nowadays they call him a saint
Now the ones that called him crazy
Are still ridin' on his name
Well, if he was here right now, Bocephus
Would he think that we were right? Do you think he might?
Don't you know he would Watasha
Be right here by our side
If we left for a show in Provo
He'd be the first one on the bus and ready to ride, [Incomprehensible]
Wherever he is I hope he's happy
You know I hope he's doin' well, yes I do
He is 'cause he's got one arm around my mama now
And he sure did love Miss Audrey and raisin' hell
I won't ask you no more questions
To the stories only Hank could tell
[Incomprehensible]
Back then they called him crazy
Nowadays they call him a saint
Most folks don't know that they fired him from the Opry
And that caused his greatest pain
I loved to tell you about lovesick
How Miss Audrey loved that man
You know I've always loved to listen
To the stories about that driftin' cowboy band and the man
You know when we get right down to it
Still the most wanted outlaw in the land, yeah, woh
Waylon....getting kicked out of the Opry caused his greatest pain
VIDEOS
-------------------------
Hank Williams’ too-brief career set the bar for country music. He was a charismatic showman, and a gifted vocalist who could make his virtuosic singing sound like passionate, folksy speech—listen to the way his delivery on “Cold, Cold Heart” makes his split-second yodels sound like his voice is cracking from emotional pain. But what he could do better than anybody else was write lyrics that expressed complicated states of mind in simple, foursquare language (“now I know your heart is shackled to a memory”). “Cold, Cold Heart” was originally stuck on the B-side of a single, apparently on the grounds that shatteringly sad slow songs didn’t sell. Nonetheless, it ended up being an enormous hit, and once pop singer Tony Bennett sold a pile of copies of his own version, other performers started noticing that Williams wasn’t just a country star—his songs were powerful enough to translate into any idiom.
Hank Jr. and Waylon- THE CONVERSATION- Hank Jr. with Confederate Hat and Waylon with Yankee-
LYRICS- Hank, let's talk about your daddy
Tell me how your mama loved that man
Well, just break out a bottle, hoss
I'll tell you bout the driftin' cowboy band
We won't talk about the habits
Just the music and the man, that's all
Now Hank, you just got to tell me
Did your daddy really write all them songs? Did he?
That don't deserve no answer, hoss
Let's light up and just move along
Do you think he wrote 'em about your mama
Or about the man who done her wrong, you know that
Yeah, back then they called him crazy
Nowadays they call him a saint
Now the ones that called him crazy
Are still ridin' on his name
Well, if he was here right now, Bocephus
Would he think that we were right? Do you think he might?
Don't you know he would Watasha
Be right here by our side
If we left for a show in Provo
He'd be the first one on the bus and ready to ride, [Incomprehensible]
Wherever he is I hope he's happy
You know I hope he's doin' well, yes I do
He is 'cause he's got one arm around my mama now
And he sure did love Miss Audrey and raisin' hell
I won't ask you no more questions
To the stories only Hank could tell
[Incomprehensible]
Back then they called him crazy
Nowadays they call him a saint
Most folks don't know that they fired him from the Opry
And that caused his greatest pain
I loved to tell you about lovesick
How Miss Audrey loved that man
You know I've always loved to listen
To the stories about that driftin' cowboy band and the man
You know when we get right down to it
Still the most wanted outlaw in the land, yeah, woh
Waylon....getting kicked out of the Opry caused his greatest pain
VIDEOS
-------------------------
Hank Williams’ too-brief career set the bar for country music. He was a charismatic showman, and a gifted vocalist who could make his virtuosic singing sound like passionate, folksy speech—listen to the way his delivery on “Cold, Cold Heart” makes his split-second yodels sound like his voice is cracking from emotional pain. But what he could do better than anybody else was write lyrics that expressed complicated states of mind in simple, foursquare language (“now I know your heart is shackled to a memory”). “Cold, Cold Heart” was originally stuck on the B-side of a single, apparently on the grounds that shatteringly sad slow songs didn’t sell. Nonetheless, it ended up being an enormous hit, and once pop singer Tony Bennett sold a pile of copies of his own version, other performers started noticing that Williams wasn’t just a country star—his songs were powerful enough to translate into any idiom.
--------------
Hank
Williams: The Complete Website| The Death Of Hank Williams |
| Hank Williams death remains somewhat of a mystery to this day. The
exact cause of death, and what happened in the last 48 hours of his life will
perhaps never really be known. But in the end it doesnt really matter, Hank
Williams was dead at 29 years old. Here I have tried to tell the story as
briefly as possible using information from a number of sources. Everything
here has been contested by someone or another at some time or another. But in
general this is pretty much what supposedly happened. On December 30, 1952 Hank Williams loaded up his '52 Cadillac with his guitar, stage suits and other things he would need for this short tour that would take him up through West Virginia and Ohio. At around 11:30am Charles Carr, a 19 year old college freshman Hank had hired to drive him, left his mothers boarding house on N. McDonough St. in Montgomery, Alabama. Hank was wearing dark blue pants, a white button up shirt, a tie and a navy blue overcoat. It was unseasonably cold over the south that day as a snow storm covered the entire southeastern united states. |
| The two drove around Montgomery for a while, visiting radio DJ's, and someone talked Hank into attending a local highway contractor's convention at a local hotel where Hank more than likely had a few drinks. After that, Hank had Carr drive him to his doctor to get a shot of morphine to ease his back pain for the ride to Charleston, WV. Smelling liquor on Hank's breath, The doctor turned him away. Hank then went to another doctor and received his shot. Then, sometime in the early afternoon, the two set off for West Virginia on Highway 31 which would carry them through Birmingham and Knoxville, TN. |
The two checked out of the hotel and continued their journey north early that next morning. It was during this time somewhere along the way that Hank bought some type of alcohol. By the time they made it to Chattanooga, it was snowing. By the time they made it to Knoxville, around 10:30am it was obvious Hank was not going to make it to Charleston by showtime unless he was able to fly. They proceeded to the airport and found there was a flight leaving out at 3:30pm. Hank had Charles Carr book the flight and also had him make a phone call to Cas Walker at WNOX and tell him he would make an appearance on the "Mid-Day Merry Go 'Round", but he never showed up.
| The flight departed at 3:30pm but was turned around due to the bad
weather. The plane landed back on the runway shortly before 6:00pm. Charles
Carr checked himself and Hank Williams into the Andrew Johnson Hotel in
Knoxville at 7:08pm. Hank was reportedly helped to his room by two porters.
Carr ordered two steaks and recalls that Hank ate a little of his as he layed
on the bed. Later falling onto the floor. Hank called for a doctor after he started having hiccups that were sending his body into mild convulsions. Dr. P.H. Cardwell arrived shortly thereafter and administered Hank two shots of Morphine mixed with vitamin B12. Charles Carr called promoter A.V. Bamford to let him know they would not be making it to Charleston. Bamford told Carr to make sure they made it to Canton for the matinee show at 2:00pm January 1. With that information, Charles Carr had the porters carry a lifeless Hank Williams down to the car. As they carried Hank, he started making what the porters described as wheezing sounds. They disregarded rattling in he breath and bundled him in the back seat of his cadillac, laying his arms across his chest in a V position and covering him with his overcoat. Charles Carr left Knoxville for Canton at 10:45pm. In all likelyhood Hank had died shortly before then in a bed at the Andrew Johnson Hotel. |
Having drove now for almost 24 hours non-stop Carr was growing tired. He stopped in Bristol, TN and picked up a relief driver named Donald Surface. Surface drove for a while and Charles Carr claims he dropped him off and paid him somewhere in West Virginia. Perhaps Bluefield or Princeton where he had stopped for coffee. At some point early that new years morning, Charles reached back to pull Hanks coat back over his body, when he did he noticed Hanks hands were cold to the touch and when he tried to move them they snapped back across his chest to the position the porters had put him in at the hotel. Around 5:30am Charles Carr pulled into Burdette's Pure Oil Station telling the men working at the time there was a problem. They tried to wake Hank but to no avail, they told Carr the hospital was only six miles from the station.
Charles Carr drove the cadillac to the emergency room entrance where two orderlies picked Hank up by the armpits and feet and carried him into Oak Hill Hospital Emergency Room. Hank was pronounced deat at 7:00am January 1, 1953 by Dr. Diego Nunnari. The doctor concluded Hank had probably died some six hours earlier, but he could not determine the time of death with any certainty. Hanks body was then taken across the street to the Tyree Funeral Home where an autopsy was performed. Dr. Iven Malinin who performed the autopsy was a Russian intern who spoke almost no english. His report noted needle marks in Williams' arms, bruises on various parts of the body, a welt on his forehead and hemorrhages in the heart and neck. The official cause of death was attributed to acute right ventricular dialation, an unusual conclusion, meaning that his heart just stopped beating. Traces of alcohol but no drugs were found in his blood, probably because they hadnt looked for them.
----------------
1988-
The Waterboys - Has Anybody Here Seen Hank (High Quality)
I
ain't here for to do any business
(I got nobody special to thank/I'm not looking for glory or thanks)
I'm trying to find
A friend of mine
Has anybody here seen Hank
Well he's sure to be wearing a Stetson
He's as long and as thin as a plank
He's got a fistful of charm
And a gun beneath his arm
Has anybody here seen Hank
Now he ain't in the back of a limo
And he ain't in his bed
He ain't in jail
He ain't out on bail
He ain't getting out of his head
I don't care what he did with his women
I don't care what he did when he drank
I want to hear just one note
From his lonesome old throat
Has anybody here seen Hank
Has anybody here, has anybody here
Has anybody here seen Hank
(I got nobody special to thank/I'm not looking for glory or thanks)
I'm trying to find
A friend of mine
Has anybody here seen Hank
Well he's sure to be wearing a Stetson
He's as long and as thin as a plank
He's got a fistful of charm
And a gun beneath his arm
Has anybody here seen Hank
Now he ain't in the back of a limo
And he ain't in his bed
He ain't in jail
He ain't out on bail
He ain't getting out of his head
I don't care what he did with his women
I don't care what he did when he drank
I want to hear just one note
From his lonesome old throat
Has anybody here seen Hank
Has anybody here, has anybody here
Has anybody here seen Hank
The Waterboys - Has Anybody Here Seen Hank (High Quality)
----
Vintage poster stolen from Hank Williams Museum
Published 11:28am
Thursday, July 2, 2015
A piece of history was stolen from the Hank Williams Sr. Boyhood Home and
Museum.According to museum curator Margaret Gaston, a black and white poster printed in the 1940s that was used by MGM to advertise a number of Williams’ songs was taken right out of the front door of the museum, which is located on Rose Street in Georgiana.
“It was discovered on Monday when I opened.,” she said. “The screen door latch was forced open, the glass panel in the wooden door was broken, the night latch and a sliding bar latch opened.”
The poster, which measured 24 inches by 36 inches, hung on a wall in the first room of the house.
“I looked at that poster everyday when I was at work.” Gaston said. “The advertisement had one of Hank’s oldest songs on it, ‘My Son Calls Another Man Daddy.’”
Gaston said she believes someone broke into the museum on June 7 and snatched the poster, which the museum has had for more than a decade. June 7 was the final day of the 36th annual Hank Williams Festival.
During the festival, admission to the museum was free on Saturday to anyone who paid to enter the festival.
“At least a couple of hundred people toured the museum on Saturday,” Gaston said.
The Georgiana Police
Department is investigating, and Gaston said investigators were able to collect
evidence from the scene.
Anyone with information about
the location of this poster or with information about the burglary is asked to
call the Georgiana Police Department at (334) 376-2222.
---
Hank
Williams Biography
Songwriter,
Singer (1923–1953)
Hank Williams became one of
America's first country music superstars, with hits like "Your Cheatin'
Heart," before his early death at 29.
quotes
“I was a pretty good
imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I
started singin' like myself.”
—Hank Williams
Synopsis
Hank Williams was born
September 17, 1923, in Mount Olive, Alabama. Considered one of the most popular
American country music singer/songwriters with songs like "Cold, Cold
Heart," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'" and
"I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." He died of a heart attack
at the age of 29 in 1953 in the backseat of his Cadillac.
Early Years
Widely considered country
music's first superstar, Hiram "Hank" Williams was born September 17,
1923, in Mount Olive, Alabama. Cut from rural stock, Williams, the third child
of Lon and Lillie Williams, grew up in a household that never had much money.
His father worked as a logger before entering the Veterans Administration hospital
when young Hank was just six. Father and son rarely saw each other over the
next decade, with Williams' mother, who ran rooming houses, moving the family
to Greenville and later Montgomery, Alabama.
His childhood was also
shaped by his spinal condition, spina bifida, which set him apart from other
kids his age and fostered a sense of separateness from the world around him.
The world he seemed to
identify most with was the musical sounds that poured out of the radio and
emanated from church choirs. A quick study, Williams learned how to play folk,
country and, from an African-American street musician named Rufus Payne, the
blues.
By the time he'd moved with
his mother to Montgomery in 1937, Williams' music career was already in motion.
Picking up the guitar for the first time at the age of eight, Williams was just
13 when he made his radio debut. A year later he was entering talent shows and
had his own band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys.
In full support of Williams'
musical aspirations was his mother, Lillie. She drove her son and his band to
shows throughout southern Alabama. By the early 1940s he'd caught the attention
of music executives in Nashville.
But coupled with Williams'
obvious talents as a singer and songwriter was an increasing dependence on
alcohol, which he'd started abusing in order to relieve his sometimes
excruciating back pain. As a result he was not considered a reliable performer.
Married Man
Williams' personal life took
a major turn in 1943 when he met Audrey Mae Sheppard, who was the mother of a
young daughter and had only recently left a messy marriage. Under Williams'
guidance Sheppard started playing bass and began performing in his band.
Williams and Sheppard
married in 1944. In 1949 they had a son together, Hank Williams Jr., on May 26,
1949.
Sheppard, it seems, was
extremely eager to make a mark in show business and, despite her obviously
limited talent, pushed her husband to let her sing. In addition, her
relationship with Hank's mom proved complicated. The two were often rivals for
Williams' time and attention.
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reading below
Commercial Success
In 1946 Williams traveled to
Nashville to meet with music publisher Fred Rose and the Acuff-Rose
Publications company. What began with Williams writing material for singer
Molly O'Day eventually gave way to a record contract with the recently created
MGM label.
A year after first meeting
with Rose, Williams had his first hit, "Move It On Over." In April
1948 he scored a second Billboard success with "Honky Tonkin.'"
But along with this early
success came increased erratic behavior from Williams, who often showed up at
live performances drunk. For a time his relationship with Fred Rose
deteriorated, but the two were able to mend fences, paving the way for Williams
to become a regular on the "Louisiana Hayride," a regular Saturday
night performance hosted by a radio station in Shreveport.
The performances greatly
increased Williams' name recognition, but he still lacked a number one hit.
That all changed in 1949 with the release of "Lovesick Blues," a
throwaway rendition of an old show tune he'd pushed to tape at the end of a
recording session.
The song resonated with
music fans, as well as executives at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, who
invited Williams to perform.
In ways that must have
seemed unimaginable to this poor country boy, Williams' life quickly changed.
His stardom put money in his pocket and gave him the kind of creative freedom
artists long for. Over the next several years he churned out a number of other
big hits, including "Cold, Cold Heart," "Your Cheatin'
Heart," "Hey Good Lookin'," "Lost Highway," and I'll
Never Get Out of This World Alive." He also wrote a number of religious
songs under the pseudonym Luke the Drifter.
Troubled Times
As the titles of some of
Williams' songs suggest, heartbreak and turmoil were never that far from his
life. As his success deepened, so did Williams' dependence on alcohol and
morphine. The Opry eventually fired him, and in 1952 he and Sheppard divorced.
His physical appearance
diminished, too. His hair began falling out, and he put on 30 extra pounds. In
late 1951 he suffered a minor heart attack while visiting his sister in
Florida.
A little more than a year
later, on December 30, 1952, Williams, newly married to a younger woman named
Billie Jean, left his mother's home in Montgomery for Charlestown, West
Virginia. Liquored up and abusing morphine, he collapsed in a hotel room in Knoxville,
Tennessee. A doctor was called to examine him. Despite his physical failings,
Williams was cleared for more travel.
On New Year's Day, he took
his seat in the back of his 1952 powder blue Cadillac. As his driver, a young
college student, barreled toward West Virginia, Williams' health took a turn
for the worse. Finally, after not hearing from the singer for two solid hours,
the driver pulled the car over in Oak Hill, West Virginia, at 5:30 in the
morning. Williams was pronounced dead a short while later.
His passing did not bring
about the end to his stardom, however. It could be argued, in fact, that his
early death only enhanced his legend. If Williams had lived, it's not entirely
certain that the Nashville music community, so eager to shed its hillbilly
roots, would have continued to embrace Williams' music. In the years since his
death, Williams' impact has only grown, with artists as varied as Perry Como,
Dinah Washington, Norah Jones and Bob Dylan all covering his work.
Today Hank Williams is a
member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in 2010 the Pulitzer Board
awarded Williams a special citation for songwriting.
Fact Check
We strive for accuracy and
fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!
Cite This Page
APA Style
Hank Williams. (2015). The
Biography.com website. Retrieved 02:32, Aug 20, 2015, from http://www.biography.com/people/hank-williams-9532414.
Harvard Style
Hank Williams. [Internet].
2015. The Biography.com website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/hank-williams-9532414
[Accessed 20 Aug 2015].
MLA Style
"Hank Williams."
Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 20 Aug. 2015.
---
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
Singer reshaped country music
December 17, 2013 | Randy
Lewis
When a fan told Ray Price that he sounded like Hank Williams, the young
country singer should have been thrilled. It was 1953, not long after Williams'
death, and Price had taken over fronting the revered musician's band. But Price
did not take the comment as a compliment. "A red light went off," he
recalled years later. "Going home that night, I told the boys, 'I love the
lot of you, but you sound like Hank.'" Not satisfied to be merely a
standard-bearer of honky tonk, he began to experiment by tinkering with rhythm
and later even adding lush strings, reshaping country music with a vibrant new
energy that continued long after the 1950s and '60s.
ENTERTAINMENT
Ray Price, country music hall of famer, dies at 87
December 16, 2013 | By Randy
Lewis
Country singer Ray Price, whose propulsive 1956 hit “Crazy Arms” helped
revolutionize the sound of country music in the 1950s, died Monday at his home
in Mount Pleasant, Texas, following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 87.
His death was announced by family spokesman Bill Mack, a country music disc
jockey. Price charted more than 100 hits during a span of nearly 40 years as a
regular presence on the country charts from 1952 to 1989, from “Crazy Arms” and
“Heartaches by the Number” during his first round of fame in the '50s through
deeply felt ballads such as his 1970 Grammy-winning recording of Kris
Kristofferson's “For the Good Times.” PHOTOS: Celebs react to the death of Ray
Price Price cited country giant Hank Williams as one of his few mentors.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
Charles Carr dies at 79; driver on Hank Williams Sr.'s final trip
July 7, 2013 | Times
Staff and Wire Reports
Charles Carr, who was just 18 and a college freshman when he drove country
music legend Hank Williams on his final journey more than 60 years ago, died
July 1 after a brief illness. He was 79. His death was confirmed by Beth Petty,
director of the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, Ala. "When he was
younger, he didn't have an interest in being defined by that moment in his
life," said his son, Charles "Lands" Carr. But after the museum
embraced the elder Carr later in life, he became more comfortable talking about
the last days of Williams, who died during the car trip at 29. The elder Carr
was a friend of the Williams family and found himself behind the wheel after
the singer hired him to drive him from Montgomery to a New Year's Eve show in
Charleston, W.Va., and then to another concert scheduled for Jan. 1, 1953, in
Canton, Ohio.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
Slim Whitman dies at 90; TV sales gave country singer new fame
June 19, 2013 | By Randy
Lewis, Los Angeles Times
The down-on-his-luck
singer sat on the steps of Nashville's famed Grand Ole Opry, bemoaning the job
he'd just lost at a radio station, when out walked country legend Hank
Williams. The celebrated but troubled singer and songwriter, who had just been
fired from the Louisiana Hayride radio show in 1949, suggested they apply for
each other's former jobs. "Just go down there and give them all you've
got," Williams told cowboy balladeer Slim Whitman, who died Wednesday of
heart failure outside Jacksonville, Fla. He was 90. His death was announced by
his son-in-law, Roy Beagle.
-------------
ENTERTAINMENT
George Jones had contrarian appeal for young country fans, artists
April 27, 2013 | By August
Brown
George Jones
reminded Andrew Dalton of his dad, for better and for worse. "I came out
of your typical teenage punk past, and though I liked Johnny Cash and Willie
Nelson, I didn't really 'get' George Jones until I was about 22 or 23,"
said Dalton, a onetime DJ who is now a reporter at the Associated Press' Los
Angeles bureau. "I was siting in a bar in Santa Cruz when 'She Thinks I
Still Care' came on and I knew that was it. There's no element of cool there --
it's just beautiful drinking music with no attempt at modernity.
----------
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
Steel guitar player for Hank Williams
August 14, 2008 | Randy
Lewis, Times Staff Writer
Don Helms, the steel
guitarist whose aching instrumental cry gave musical voice to the anguish and
the joy in virtually all the key recordings by country music titan Hank
Williams, died Monday in Nashville, apparently of a heart attack. He was 81.
Helms died at Skyline Medical Center, said Michael Thomas, a director at Forest
Lawn Funeral Home.
----
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
PASSINGS: Claude King
March 8, 2013
Claude King, 90, a
country singer-songwriter who was best known for the 1962 hit "Wolverton
Mountain," died early Thursday at his home in Shreveport, La., where his
family found him unresponsive in bed. King was one of the original members of
"Louisiana Hayride," the Saturday night radio and TV show on which
Elvis Presley got his start and Hank Williams Sr. performed. The show
transformed country and western music from 1948 to 1960 - "Hayride's"
heyday - with music genres such as hillbilly, western swing, jazz, blues and
gospel.
----
ENTERTAINMENT
December 27, 2010 | By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times
Ultra-deluxe box sets for Miles Davis,
Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and others are priced at up to $1,200. Scanning
the upper stratosphere of this year's end-of-the-year holiday-centric music
releases, it's tempting to think some record company execs decided it's time to
head into full kamikaze-dive mode. Despite so much news revolving around the
record industry's struggles to sell 99-cent singles and $9.99 album downloads,
several labels have recently cooked up ultra-deluxe box sets for Miles Davis,
Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and others priced at $200 up to $1,200.
-----
ENTERTAINMENT
October 28, 2008 | Robert Hilburn
More than a half century after his death, Hank Williams
remains so revered as a songwriter that his gifts as a singer are often
underappreciated. But one of the strengths of "The Unreleased
Recordings," a remarkable new CD boxed set released today, is the way it
showcases the brilliance of his vocal skills.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 14, 2008 | Randy Lewis, Times Staff Writer
Don Helms, the steel guitarist whose aching instrumental
cry gave musical voice to the anguish and the joy in virtually all the key
recordings by country music titan Hank Williams, died Monday in Nashville,
apparently of a heart attack. He was 81. Helms died at Skyline Medical Center,
said Michael Thomas, a director at Forest Lawn Funeral Home.
ENTERTAINMENT
November 19, 2007 | David Ng, Times Staff Writer
A legendary country-western performer
succumbs to the plague known as the jukebox musical in the Laguna Playhouse's
current revival of "Hank Williams: Lost Highway." This biographical
show, written by Randal Myler and Mark Harelik, compiles the
singer-songwriter's greatest hits for an evening of shameless sentimental
uplift. Nothing if not formulaic, "Lost Highway" amounts to a list of
biographical bullet points.
---------------
Hank Williams Sr.
Jeffrey J.
Lange, University of St. Francis
Hank
Williams Sr.
Hiram (Hank) Williams was born on
September 17, 1923, near Mount Olive in Butler
County, Alabama, to Lon Williams, a locomotive engineer, and
Lillie Williams, a church organist. The couple separated early in Hank's life,
and he was raised primarily by his mother during his formative years. Williams
spent most of his childhood in Georgiana
and Greenville, Alabama, and early on became enthralled with
music, playing harmonica, learning the organ from his mother, and acquiring his
first guitar around the time he was eight years old.
Family
Reunion
In 1937, Lillie Williams and her
son moved to the capital city of Montgomery,
where Lillie opened a boarding house. Hank augmented the family income by
shining shoes and selling peanuts on the street. He maintained his interest in
music and eventually began
Williams returned to Montgomery
near the conclusion of the war, formed a band, and resumed his pursuit of a
musical career in earnest. In addition to performing at dances and other local
events, Williams and his group also played the "honky tonks," the often
rough and rowdy beer joints frequented by the city's newcomers. The experience
helped to form Williams's percussive, rhythmic musical style, ultimately a
combination of Payne's teaching and the influence of one of honky-tonk music's
pioneers, Ernest Tubb.
Hank
Williams Sr.
Hank and
Audrey Williams
Hank
Williams Sr. and Jr.
Leaving Jail
In the autumn of 1952, Williams
married Billie Jean Jones of Louisiana and had two singles
("Jambalaya" and "Settin' the Woods on Fire") rising on the
charts. His life and career suddenly appeared to be on the upswing.
Unfortunately, Williams's health steadily declined in November and December.
Back problems that had plagued him his entire life grew worse and caused him to
increase his drinking, which in turn exacerbated developing heart problems. In
search of relief from the painful ailments that plagued him, Williams began taking
pain medication as well. After a brief tour in Texas, Williams returned to
Montgomery in late December to rest before heading north for a scheduled New
Year's Day appearance in Canton, Ohio. During the trip northward, Williams
slipped into unconsciousness and was pronounced dead on New Year's Day in Oak
Hill, West Virginia, at the age of 29. Williams was interred in Montgomery's
Oakwood Annex Cemetery, and his grave attracts many visitors each year.
The legacy of Hank Williams
remains alive today, with the heartfelt nature of his performances and the
vivid imagery and honesty of his lyrics remaining the benchmark by which
country music performers are measured. In a recording career that spanned only
six years, Williams wrote several classics of American music, including
"Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey Good Lookin'," and "I Saw
the Light," and together with Ernest Tubb, Floyd Tillman, and Lefty
Frizzell forged the honky-tonk sound that became the standard for country music
in the latter half of the twentieth century. More than 50 years after his
death, Hank Williams remains enshrined in the hearts and minds of his fans and
music followers as a folk hero and country music icon. In April 2010, the
Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Williams with a posthumous Special Citation
lifetime achievement award to honor his contributions to music.
Hank Williams Jr. went on to
pursue a very successful country music career, as did his son, Hank Williams
III. Antha Belle Jett would later change her name to Jett Williams and also
make a career as a country singer. She fought a protracted legal battle to
prove her paternity and gain a share of the Williams estate, winning the case
officially in 1990.
Additional Resources
Escott, Colin, et. al. Hank Williams: The Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.
Additional Resources
Escott, Colin, et. al. Hank Williams: The Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.
Hemphill, Paul. Lovesick
Blues: The Life of Hank Williams. New York: Viking, 2005.
Whitburn, Joel. The
Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits. New York: Billboard Books,
1996.
Williams, Roger M. Hank Williams. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Records, 1981.
Recordings
Hank
Williams: The Original Singles Collection . . . Plus. Produced by Colin Escott. New
York: Polygram Records, 1990.
Hank
Williams—40 Greatest Hits. New York: Polygram Records, 1990.
The Complete
Hank Williams. Nashville,
Tenn.: Mercury Nashville, 1998.
Published: March 19, 2007 | Last
updated: September 18, 2014
----
Louisiana Hayride- hANK wILLIAMS
Jim Reeves’s first appearance on the Hayride came when
he was a stand-in for Hank Williams when Williams was
unable to perform. He then performed as a stand-in
several more times over the next couple of months, and
although his performances went over well, they weren’t
enough to catapult him into instant success. Reeves
developed his sound as he worked as an announcer on the
show, and eventually he found a song called, “Mexican
Joe,” which he first recorded in the KWKH studio with
the Hayride staff band. Some of his later hits include
"Four Walls," "Touch of Velvet," "Guilty," "I Could
Cry," "I'll Follow You," and "He'll Have to Go."26
http://www.caddohistory.com/louisiana_hayride.html
---------------
Louisiana Hayride- hANK wILLIAMS
BEGINNING THE LOUISIANA
HAYRIDE
The name “Louisiana Hayride” was not original; it was a
borrowed term, as Harnett T. Kane had written a book on
Governor Huey P. Long with the same title, and a
Broadway production also carried the name. It was early
1948 when the show by that same name aired.1
KWKH, a local radio station, broadcast it,
and it was held in the Municipal Memorial Auditorium at
705 Grand Avenue in Shreveport.2
The Municipal Memorial Auditorium was constructed from
the designs of architect Sam G. Wiener and completed in
1929 for a total cost of about $750,000.3 In
1975 the structure, which was dedicated to World War I
veterans, was one of the fifty-four chosen for a
photographic exhibit in New York City that honored the
Art Deco style.4 When it opened it had a
seating capacity of nearly 4,000, and nearly all of
these seats were filled on Saturday nights.5
The first Hayride broadcast, held on April 3, 1948,
included performers Johnny and Jack and the Tennessee
Mountain Boys, the Mercer Brothers,
Kitty Wells, the Bailes Brothers, the Four Deacons, Harmie Smith and the
Ozark Mountaineers, Curley Kinsey and the Tennessee
Ridge Runners, Tex Grimsley and his Texas Playboys, and
Pappy Covington.6
HANK WILLIAMS, SR.
Hank Williams, Sr. had both a strong desire to be on the
show and a drinking problem, so he made a deal with
Horace Logan, the show’s producer and emcee. If Williams
remained sober for the following six months, he’d have a
spot on the show.7 Six months later, on
August 7, 1948, Hank Williams, Sr. made his debut on the
Hayride. The first song he played was an original song
he’d previously recorded for MGM, “Move It on Over.” A
few days later he signed a one-year contract with KWKH
and became a regular name on the cast list for the
Hayride.8
At the Hayride in the fall of 1948, Williams first sang
“Lovesick Blues.” The audience loved it, gave Williams
so many encores that there was little time for anything
else, and barely let him leave the stage. He performed a
number of times on the Hayride over the next year, but
on June 3, 1949 crowds packed themselves into the
Municipal Memorial Auditorium to bid farewell to
Williams, who was heading to the Grand Ole Opry. Tickets
at that time were sixty cents for adults and thirty for
children, and the auditorium was filled with people,
while hundreds of others were turned away for lack of
seating.9
Williams would later return to the Hayride on September
20, 1952, playing “Jambalaya” and “Settin’ the Woods on
Fire.” He signed a contract with the Hayride on
September 24, 1952, guaranteeing that he would perform
there for three years.10 Unfortunately,
Williams was unable to keep this contract: he died on
New Year’s Day, 1953.11
SLIM WHITMAN, WEBB PIERCE, and FARON YOUNG
After Hank Williams left in 1949, the bigwigs in charge
of the Hayride feared the show would decline. The crowd
lessened, but not as much as they had expected. The
Hayride saw Slim Whitman debut on April 7, 1950.12
He recorded “Indian Love Call,” “Rose-Marie,” and “Love
Song of the Waterfall” first in the KWKH studios.
Whitman was later invited to perform on the Grand Ole
Opry, but refused and stayed on the Hayride.13
Webb Pierce made his debut a week after Whitman on April
14.14 Pierce was a talent scout of sorts.
Originally from West Monroe, Pierce worked at Sears in
Shreveport after high school, working his way up the
ladder to becoming the men’s department manager.15
But in the evenings, he played at churches, meetings,
and schools. Late in 1949, after working some time on a
gospel music program on KTBS radio in Shreveport, Pierce
approached Logan about appearing on the Hayride. At
first Logan turned him down because there was a rule
that anyone working for a competing radio station was
not allowed to perform. Pierce was adamant and insisted
that his job at KTBS meant little compared to having a
regular spot on the Hayride.16 Pierce’s first
big song was “Drifting Texas Sand.” Some of his others
include “Slowly,” “There Stands the Glass,” “That Heart
Belongs to Me,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” and “It’s Been
So Long.” He was responsible for introducing Floyd
Cramer to the Hayride as his
piano player. Jimmy Day, a
master steel guitarist, also worked as a sideman. When
Pierce went off to the Grand Ole Opry, Cramer and Day
stayed behind on the staff band.17
piano player. Jimmy Day, a
master steel guitarist, also worked as a sideman. When
Pierce went off to the Grand Ole Opry, Cramer and Day
stayed behind on the staff band.17
Pierce also discovered Faron Young, a native of
Shreveport who became part of the cast in October of
1950. Shortly after his first few appearances, Young
went off to Nashville on the wings of the songs “Hello,
Walls” and “I Miss Her Already.” He was also known for
his song “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young.”18
It was these three men who gave the Hayride a solid cast
that supported the show.19
SUPPLYING THE GRAND OLE OPRY
In its heyday, the Louisiana Hayride rivaled the Grand
Ole Opry.20 But when Hank Williams left the
Hayride for the Grand Ole Opry, he set a pattern for
later Hayride stars. In the late 1940’s and early
1950’s, the Hayride supplied Nashville, Tennessee with a
number of stars.21 Some of the performers
went from playing the Hayride to being well-known
performers nationwide. The Wilburn Brothers were among
the first of the show’s regulars, starting to play in
1948. After the Korean War, two of the brothers signed a
contract with Decca Records and produced hit after hit.
Another group, The Browns, was a sibling act, who first
appeared on the show in May of 1954. Their song, “I Was
Looking Back to See,” was recorded in the KWKH studios
with Jim Reeves on rhythm guitar and the staff band. The
song became a national hit, followed later by “The Three
Bells.”22
RADIO
By 1950 twenty-seven radio stations in four states were
carrying the Hayride as part of their programming.23
In December of 1952 the CBS Radio Network picked up the
Hayride, and in January of 1953 CBS began their weekly
series Saturday Night – Country Style, which
included six country music shows throughout the nation.
The Hayride had thirty minutes every third Saturday of
the month. In early 1953 the Little Rock, Arkansas
station KTHS broadcasted the Hayride in its entirety.
With this newfound national publicity, the Hayride
earned the nickname “Cradle of the Stars.” It also gave
some of the later Hayride stars a reason to stay in
Shreveport longer than previous performers had.24
Women performers weren’t seen often on the Hayride until
Kitty Wells became the
first female country music star. She was a background
vocalist for the group, Johnny and Jack,
which became
part of the Hayride,
performing on the first show and again as regulars for several later shows. When
Johnny and Jack had success with their RCA labeled
record “Poison Love,” they packed up for Nashville, but
left Wells behind. Since she wanted to stay on with the
Hayride, Logan, being interested in diversity, hired
her. Before the song was released on a record, the
audiences of the Hayride heard “It Wasn’t God Who Made
Honky-Tonk Angels.” When she recorded it, Johnny and
Jack were her musicians, and from then on, they worked
for her. It wasn’t long before she left the Hayride for
Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.25
JIM REEVES
Jim Reeves’s first appearance on the Hayride came when
he was a stand-in for Hank Williams when Williams was
unable to perform. He then performed as a stand-in
several more times over the next couple of months, and
although his performances went over well, they weren’t
enough to catapult him into instant success. Reeves
developed his sound as he worked as an announcer on the
show, and eventually he found a song called, “Mexican
Joe,” which he first recorded in the KWKH studio with
the Hayride staff band. Some of his later hits include
"Four Walls," "Touch of Velvet," "Guilty," "I Could
Cry," "I'll Follow You," and "He'll Have to Go."26
JOHNNY CASH
It was December 10, 1955 when Johnny Cash and his
Tennessee Two appeared on the Louisiana Hayride. When he
left the stage after his performance that night, Logan
immediately offered him a spot on the cast as a regular,
and he accepted. He signed his contract in January of
1956. The nation kept its eyes on the Hayride as Johnny
Cash’s career took off. In April of 1956 he recorded “I
Walk the Line,” and the success of that single, which
was still holding the number three position at the end
of 1956, pulled Cash away from Shreveport. By late 1958
Cash had moved on to the Opry.27
JOHNNY HORTON
Johnny Horton made his first appearance on the Hayride
in May of 1952, and soon became a favorite with the
audience. From that point on, he lived in Shreveport
until his death. 28 (As a side note, Horton
loved to fish, and often he and Logan went fishing
together on Cross Lake or
Caddo Lake. Sometimes Johnny
Cash would tag along.29
In January of 1956 he recorded “I’m a One-Woman Man” and
“Honky Tonk Man” for Columbia records and by May of that
year “Honky Tonk Man” put him on the charts. In 1959
Horton had a song that spent ten weeks on top of the
country and pop music charts, sold about 2.5 million
copies, and had practically everyone in the nation
humming it. “The Battle of New Orleans” got him an
appearance on the Dick Clark and the Ed Sullivan Shows,
and he bought a home in the Shreve Island area of
Shreveport.30
Johnny Horton got invitations to the Opry, but declined. He continued on with the Hayride.31 Horton was killed in a car accident and is buried at Hillcrest Memorial Park on US Highway 80 East near Louisiana Downs. 32
Johnny Horton got invitations to the Opry, but declined. He continued on with the Hayride.31 Horton was killed in a car accident and is buried at Hillcrest Memorial Park on US Highway 80 East near Louisiana Downs. 32
ELVIS PRESLEY
Elvis Presley had been shunned by the Grand Ole Opry
early on in his career for his style of music, and if
the audience at the Hayride had treated him in the same
way, he may have given up his performing career. Elvis
performed on October 16 and 23, 1954 and a couple of
weeks after his debut, Elvis and his parents signed a
contract for him to become a regular on the Hayride for
eighteen months. A younger generation, his main
audience, learned that he would be performing and began
to arrive at the Municipal Auditorium from different
states.33
END OF AN ERA
Elvis had revitalized the Hayride when he took the
stage, but when he left Shreveport, he took most of the
new-found fans with him.34 When the Louisiana
Hayride ended in November of 1958, it had aired for over
550 consecutive Saturday nights.35
http://www.caddohistory.com/louisiana_hayride.html
---------------
One of country music's most
famous duet teams. Hank and Audrey Williams are forever linked in hillbilly
music history. Much has been written about Hank and his songwriting often
reflecting the status of his marriage to Miss Audrey. The duo also recorded sevearl
tunes together on the MGM record label. And several radio show transcriptions
survive that allow us to hear their duet efforts.
---------
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Hiram "Hank" Williams was born in Mt. Olive, Alabama, the
son of Elonzo (Lon) H. and Lilly Williams. His parents were in Georgiana for
a while until they moved up to Mt. Olive in 1923. By then, they had a year
old baby girl, Irene. Hank learned to play the guitar legend has it from a black street singer by the name of Rufe Payne or Tee Tot as everyone called him. Ole Tee Tot would come to town a couple times a week as the story goes and would play songs for the folks anywhere they'd let him and collect a few coins for his efforts. He also had a bunch of little boys around him to that would follow him around. One of them was Hank, where he probably got his influence from the blues guitar and lonesome sounds played by this street singer. Along the way, Hank's interest in music kept growing. He got a new guitar one Christmas after trading in an old $3.50 guitar his mom had given him. Then, along came amateur night at the Montgomery Empire Theater. Hank was said not to have been to a movie theatre to even see a movie, let alone perform at one. But, by that time he had written his first tune, "WPA Blues".
"I got
a home in Montgomery
A place I like to stay. But I have to work for the WPA And I'm dissatisfied—I'm dissatisfied.  Early on, Hank formed his band and it was called the Drifting Cowboys.
Over the years when he was at his peak, that band would become the sound of
legends along with Hank and the tunes they did. He continued to write his songs. Some of those first efforts included, "Never Again (Will I Knock on Your Door)" - (the flip side of Hank's "Lovesick Blues" record eventually), "I Don't Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)" and "Six More Miles". Early in his songwriting career it goes that Hank sold a song called "I'm Praying For The Day That Peace Will Come" to another legend in the business, Pee Wee King. They said Hank was down on his luck a bit at the time when he sold the song when he had met up with Pee Wee King and Minnie Pearl who were in Dothan, Alabama to do a show. Hank eventually went to Nashville and was signed up by Fred Rose at Acuff-Rose. Hank had met Roy Acuff several times when Roy would be performing down in Alabama. One of the legendary stories about Hank's ability to write songs was when he first met Fred Rose and more or less wanted to test him after he sang him a few songs after showing up at their offices unannounced. Fred said he didn't know that Hank actually wrote them, so he gave Hank a situation where a gal married a rich boy instead of the poor boy who lived in the cabin. Hank went to another room and composed his song. It took him a half hour to write "A Mansion On The Hill". And the legend grows. Later on, after being signed by Acuff-Rose, Hank got a spot on the WSM Grand Ole Opry. Another legend has it that when he made that first appearance and did Lovesick Blues, he brought the house down. And got the unheard of response of six encores. And the legend grows...  Hank first was signed by the Sterling Record label. Hank did two
sessions with Sterling, being paid a flat fee for them instead of getting
royalties. But Fred Rose was impressed enough with what he had heard and
wanted to negotiate a contract with a larger label. Fred knew Frank Walker
who had previously been president of the Columbia and RCA Victor labels. At
the time, he was in the midst of starting a new label for
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. And so, Hank was signed by MGM as one of their first
artists. Throughout his career it is well documented that the songs he wrote often mirrored what was going on his life. His marriage to Audrey Williams is well documented in several of the biographies about Hank's life. She also wanted to be a singer herself. Though at times that may have caused some tension at her insistence on being a performer, too, Hank and Audrey recorded several duets together along the way. Hank and Audrey had a child, Hank Williams, Jr. or Little Bocephus as he was nicknamed and who later on in his life, would become a famous entertainer himself. But the happiness in their marriage didn't last. And eventually, the day would come they were divorced. Hank always fought a battle with his drinking. He could go months without it, but then when he would drink, it seems it got the best of him many times. He also had back problems that he had to deal with, seeing doctors, getting medication, etc. It all came to a point where the Opry decided they had to deal with it by letting Hank Williams go. Everyone knew he was sick at the time and needed to recuperate. But fate never allowed that to happen it seemed. He went back home to Alabama. And later on, hooked up with the Louisiana Hayride who were willing to give Hank a chance to restart his career. Everyone knew he could still sing. Towards the end of his life, Hank met up with a gal by the name of Billie Jean Jones Eshlimar and they were to marry on October 18, 1952. But it wasn't to be any ordinary wedding. It was a very public ceremony, combined with a performance on the Louisiana Hayride.  Then, late in 1952, there was to be a new tour for Hank to show
everyone he was on the way back. A performance in Canton had been scheduled
for New Year's Eve in Canton, Ohio. Hank had arranged with Don Helms to have
a few of the Drifting Cowboys meet him up there, using the old limousine they
toured in. Hank was originally supposed to fly up there and meet them. But
when the day came around, snow had started to fall and flying was out of the
question. So, Hank hired a driver, a fellow by the name of Charles Carr, to
drive him to Canton. Along the way, Carr got pulled over in Knoxville,
Tennessee for speeding. The officer had asked about the fellow in the back
seat that wasn't moving it seems, but the driver mentioned that he had taken
a sedative and was just sleeping it off. Into the night they drove and about
when he got to Oak Hill, West Virginia, he decided to check up on Hank after
pulling into a Pure Oil station. But he couldn't wake Hank and drove him to
the Oak Hill Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. On January 1, 1953, the legend of Hank Williams' life came to an end. But the legend of his musical legacy lives on today. In the music played by his original band the Drifting Cowboys, in the careers by his son, Hank Williams, Jr., his grandson, Hank Williams III and a daughter born after he had died, Jett Williams. And his music also lives on as there is hardly a country band that won't play a tune by Hank Williams at one time or another. His music stands the test of time, simple as it was, but in that simplicity lies its greatness and ability to touch folks that listen to it and play it. They've written many tribute songs about Hank after his death. They've written many an article about his life and music. They've written many a book, too. Even made movies and plays about the man and his music. But perhaps the best way to know Hank, is to listen to the music. It says it better than anything else.
Timeline
and Trivia Notes
Band Members:
Suggested
Further Reading
More
information on the above books can be found in our "Library"
section.
Related
Web Links
|
--------------
Lovesick Blues
by Hank Williams
Hank Williams (Hiram King Williams, Mount Olive West, Alabama, September 17, 1923 – Oak Hill, West Virginia, January 1, 1953), was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most important country music artists of all time.
In the short period from 1947 until his death, at 29, on the first day of 1953, Williams recorded 35 singles (five of which were released posthumously) that would place in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including eleven that ranked number one.
His father, Elonzo Williams, worked for the railway and was transferred often, so the family lived in several towns in southern Alabama. When Elonzo was hospitalized for eight years, the family was left to fend for themselves. Young Williams, whose own health was diminished owing to spina bifida, helped provide for his mother and sister. While the family was living in Georgiana, Alabama, Williams met Rufus Payne (nicknamed Tee-Tot), a black street performer who gave Williams guitar lessons in exchange for meals. Payne had a major influence on Williams's later musical style. During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank, believing it to be a better name for country music.
While the family was living in Montgomery, Alabama, a teenaged Williams used to sing and play guitar on the sidewalk in front of the WSFA radio studios. He caught the attention of WSFA producers and started working there in 1937, singing and hosting a 15-minute program. He formed as backup the Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote all of his time to his career.
In 1941, when the U.S. went into World War II, several members of the band were drafted. Williams, who was not taken because of his spina bifida, had trouble with their replacements. This, along with a burgeoning problem with alcohol as self-medication for his health problem, caused WSFA to fire him. In 1943, Williams married Audrey Sheppard who, besides singing duets with him in his act, became his manager. After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. In 1948, he released "Move it on Over," which became a hit. The same year, he joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. In 1949, he released "Lovesick Blues," which carried him into the mainstream of music. After an initial rejection, Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry. He had 11 number one songs between 1948 and 1953, though he was unable to read or write music to any significant degree. His hits include "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey Good Lookin'," and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."
In 1952, Williams's consumption of alcohol, morphine and other painkillers to ease the pain resulting from his back condition caused problems in his personal and professional life. He divorced his wife and was fired by the Grand Ole Opry due to frequent drunkenness.On January 1, 1953, on the way to a concert, he had a doctor inject him with a combination of vitamin B12 and morphine, which, added to the alcohol and chloral hydrate that Williams had consumed earlier, caused him to have a fatal heart attack. He was only 29. Despite his short life, Hank Williams has had a major influence on country music.
His songs have been recorded by numerous artists, many of whom have also had hits with the tunes, in a range of pop, gospel, blues and rock styles. Williams has been covered by performers such as Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Cake, Kenny Rankin, Beck Hansen, Johnny Cash, Tony Bennett, The Residents, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, and Tom Waits. He has received numerous honors and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
On a warm night in June, 1949, with his first number one record spilling out of radios across the country, a frail young man walked onto the stage of Nashville's Ryman Auditorium for his Grand Ole Opry debut. Behind him lay nearly a decade of struggle and rejection in pursuit of this goal; ahead, a little more than five years in the limelight.
By 1953, literally worn out at twenty-nine, Hank Williams was gone. But he had given country music much of its standard repertoire, a new definition of stardom and a legend so enduring that he is still the model for countless singers and songwriters.
Born in Mount Olive West, Alabama (near Georgiana) on September 17th, 1923, Hiriam was the second child of Lon and Lillie Williams. Lon, a WWI veteran, was hospitalized during most of Hank's early life, leaving the boy's upbringing to his strong-willed mother. Small and fragile from the beginning (and afflicted with spina bifida), Hank may well have gravitated toward music as an alternative to sports. While living in Georgiana, he befriended Rufus Payne, a black street musician known as "Tee-Tot".
Years later, Hank would say that Payne had given him "all the music training I ever had", and most biographers consider Payne the source of the noticeable blues thread running through Hank's music. Hear a sample of "Long Gone Lonesome Blues"
At sixteen, living in Montgomery, Williams quit school and began his music career in earnest. He had made his first radio appearance on WSFA in late 1936 or early 1937, and would soon become one of the station's most popular performers. He also worked beer joints and regional shows with his band, already named the Drifting Cowboys. Lillie drove the group to venues in her station wagon and collected gate money. By the early 40s, Hank was one of the biggest draws in the region, and had come to the attention of several Nashville artists and music business luminaries. But his reputation as a singer was already matched by the one he'd built for drinking and unreliability. Most considered him an unsafe bet.
In 1943 Hank met Audrey Mae Sheppard, an Alabama country girl with a two-year old daughter, Lycrecia, from a previous marriage. Audrey learned to play stand-up bass (well enough, anyway, to play in the band) and began acting as manager.
They were married in December, 1944. She desperately craved a singing career, pushing for inclusion in the show at every chance. Her ambition, however, far exceeded her talent. Audrey would vie with Lillie for Hank's attention throughout the relationship. In 1946, she accompanied her husband to Nashville to meet publisher Fred Rose.
Rose, in partnership with Roy Acuff, ran a successful "hillbilly" publishing concern (Acuff-Rose, later a giant in the industry) and at first was interested in Williams only as a writer. (Hank had begun writing songs shortly after he started singing and playing guitar, and sold songbooks at his club appearances.) Within the year, however, Rose had made Hank's singing career a pet project, and arranged for him to record four songs for the Sterling label. In March 1947, in a deal engineered by Rose, Hank signed with MGM.
"Move It On Over" was his first MGM release and his first "Billboard" chart entry. He charted again in April, 1948 with "Honky Tonkin". Back home in Montgomery, Hank seemed poised for stardom; his regional popularity was higher than ever, bolstered now by his recording success. But he had entered the low arc of a repeating cycle that would haunt him for the rest of his days. More often than not, he showed up drunk (if at all) for live appearances, and was increasingly difficult for even his best friends to be around. Many, including Rose, gave up in frustration. Audrey filed for divorce in late April. With the big-time nearly in his grasp, Hank Williams was bottoming out.
Hank's story could easily have ended there, but the Williamses reconciled, the relationship with Rose was mended, and Rose set about finding an avenue for greater exposure. Decision makers at the Opry were still wary, but KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana was interested in the emerging star for their Saturday night jamboree, the Louisiana Hayride, and Hank joined the show in August. "A Long Gone Daddy" had recently reached number six, but his next four releases failed to chart, and a fifth, "Mansion On The Hill," stopped short of the top ten. KWKH's fifty-thousand watts were putting Williams in living rooms all across the eastern US every Saturday night, but his records were falling flat.
Had he peaked? Was he, after all, only middling-star material?
Nearly fifty years later, in a world where today's icon is tomorrows inconsequential, it is difficult to imagine a song so igniting radio listeners that it holds the top spot on the charts for sixteen weeks. No one in Hank's circle wanted him to waste time or tape on "Lovesick Blues". The song was a throwaway, they said; a piece of fluff that was more likely to damage his career than to enhance it. Hank was insistent, though, and the song was given two quick passes at the end of a session. Released in February, 1949, it was number one -and more- by early May. "Lovesick Blues" was an "event"; popular beyond precedent, imagination or belief. And, suddenly, Hank Williams was big. Big enough, at last, for the Opry.
With success came increased creative freedom. Hank's "mainstream" songwriting and recording efforts continued to do extremely well, but he also delved into remorseful gospel themes and a series of recitations under the transparent pseudonym "Luke The Drifter". Hank the writer often seemed preoccupied with mortality and the futility of human relationships- his marriage to Audrey was now in steady decline, and those who knew him could easily see the real-life parallels in songs like "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave), "Why Don't You Love Me" and "Cold, Cold Heart". Clearly, here was a man displaying his demons for all to see. Hank didn't have to "interpret" sad songs; he had only to sing from his heart.
For a time, fame and fortune staved off the consequences of his self-destructive lifestyle. By mid 1952, however, his life was coming apart at the seams. Audrey had filed for divorce again, this time for good. Wracked with back pain, he was dependent on alcohol and, it is believed, morphine. Often missing or too drunk to perform at curtain time, he was fired by the Opry, and headed back to the Hayride in Shreveport. In his final weeks, Hank spun hopelessly out of control. Even his marriage to pretty young Billie Jean Jones couldn't slow his headlong plunge. Sometime after midnight on New Year's Day, 1953, sleeping in the back seat of his Cadillac en route to a show, Hank Williams fulfilled the prophecy of his own "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive".
Three of Hank's recordings reached the top of the charts in the year following his death. By 1954, his earthly voice silenced, the fragile young man from Alabama was only a legend. But in his last few torrid years, he had changed country music forever and his musical legacy remains its cornerstone.
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Available is a new book on country music legend Hank Williams. Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams is nearly 200 pages long, filled with many related photographs. It is well put together along with a glossy front and back covers. The foreword is written by Robert Gentry. The book is a collection of many short stories, most about previously unknown topics relating to Hank Williams. There are a total of 51 separate stories.
Stories included are about: Hank’s brother Ernest Huble Williams who died as an infant; Hank’s first home; the lady who helped deliver Hank; the story of his delayed birth certificate; a short college stint; a lenghty 32-page article on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry Eurpoean Tour (co-written with Manfred Reinhard); Hank’s 1951 Montgomery Homecoming; his 1952 Greenville Homecoming; his Nashville farm; his Nashville home he shared with Ray Price; several stories concerning Hank’s songs; story of locations Hank played and many others.
This book is a must for every Hank Williams or Country Music fan and collector. The author will sign any book ordered.
***REVIEWS***
American Roots Review November 30, 2007
When researching to write a book a writer has to look into every aspect of the subjects’ life, including places they went, people they knew. Many times these stories don’t get told completely or are used only to inform the writer of their subjects’ surroundings.
While researching the last days of Hank Williams, Brian Turpen has run down many leads and collected several stories having to do with Hank’s life. Turpen, a policeman by day, became interested in Hank’s life after reading Colin Escott’s seminal Hank biography (Turpen even appeared in Escott’s Honky-Tonk Blues documentary). His interest and his experience in police work lead Turpen to delve deep into the last days of Hank. In the midst of that research Turpen also wrote occasional articles on various aspects of Hanks’ life for fan newsletters.
The subtitle of the book is Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams, and Turpen has brought together information on nearly aspect of Hank’s life. Turpen has put many years of research into stories on things like Hank’s birth certificate (it was filed ten and a half years after Hank’s birth), several of the places Hank played, his radio days, his songwriting and his love of baseball.
One of the best stories is the detailed recounting of the 1949 Grand Ole Opry tour of Europe. The tour required the permission and the cooperation of many government officials and the artists, which included Red Foley, Little Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl and other, played for our troops who were still stationed throughout the continent.
If you are a fan of Hank Williams or of country music history you will enjoy this book and the perspective it lends to the life of one of the greatest songwriters in music history.
C. Eric Banister
About the author: Eric's work has been published in Bluegrass Unlimited, Country Standard Time, Blue Suede News and Maverick. He is currently working on a biography of steel guitarist Bud Isaacs.
Books Corner Review October 2007
Western Mail # 10
Attention Hank Williams Country Music Fans
As we all know, many good books have been written about the Life and Music of Hank Williams. But I would like to draw your attention to a new book that has just been published a short while ago (actually Klaus says a few days ago), and that is so different from all the books that have appeared so far.
“Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams” – authored by Brian Turpen (USA), a Police Officer by profession and well versed in investigations and research, has created an impressive book. He received support from the Manfred A. Reinhardt. On over 200 pages the reader will find 51 stories with many photos. They offer insight into events and episodes of the great singer’s/songwriter’s life that remained unpublished up to now. In a chapter covering 32 pages Turpen and German national Manfred A. Reinhardt narrates the Grand Ole Opry Tour to Germany in 1949, with the participation of Hank Williams, Red Foley, Roy Accuff, Little Jimmie Dickens and others to perform in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich and Vienna (Austria). This book is a “must” for every country music fan as well as an asset in each Hank Williams collection – and perhaps the ideal gift for Christmas.
Klaus Koch
Rockin’ Fifties magazine October 2007
Book Recommendation
WOW, what a book!
There are many ways to fill the pages of a book. Some writers collect raw and often poorly researched information, thus getting their pages together. There are authors who consider it a waste of time in doing their own research, and rather copy most of the story from existing publications. But there are other authors, who are dedicated to high standards of ethics and professionalism, doing nothing less than meticulously researching facts. At the very top of such a fine group of writers deserving the highest marks for factual reporting, stands Brian Turpen. With the title Ramblin’ Man, Turpen now presents a book for advanced readers of the Hank Williams Bibliography. This book puts other highly applauded publications dealing with Hank in the shade, making them look like articles from the Boulevard Press.
While, for example, renowned chronics mention with a few words only the possible existence of a brother to Hank, Brian Turpen presents and evaluates the official death certificate of a certain Earnest Hubble Williams, who indeed was Hank’s elder brother.
Turpen neither speculates nor fills gaps just by logic or probability. He rather examines details from the life of Hank Williams that appear insignificant, to their very depth. Where others stop with their research, Turpen even starts to dig further.
He is not another biographer of Hank Williams. He picks out events that had an impact on Hank’s life and creates a full story out of some rudimentary information.
This book is structured into 51 independent chapters making it a masterpiece for undivided reading pleasure.
A few of those stories have been used in the past to be circulated among experts. The major part of material is, however, introduced to the public for the very first time. Brian Turpen is regarded as one of the leading Hank Williams experts worldwide. When experts of such calibre flock together, one can’t be missed out. A sprawling piece on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry European Tour was co-written with Manfred Reinhardt from Germany. Manfred is well known to this magazine for his accuracy and profound knowledge of Hank Williams and his time. While other authors briefly mention the meanwhile legendary European tour in a few sentences at most, Turpen and Reinhardt captivates and fascinates the reader with an abundance of facts showing the human side of that trip.
Although not all of the 51 stories might appeal to everybody just the same or awake their curiosity, still this book will fascinate the reader from its first to the last page. It belongs to the collection of each and every Hank Williams enthusiast.
It is from my own personal conviction THE Publication for years.
Sven Bergmann
For US orders, send $15.00 (that’s postage included)
For orders outside the US, the cost of the book is $12.00 plus shipping.
Canada rate is $4.00 / All others would be International Priority shipping of $8.00
Check or money order accepted / Paypal is also available for $1.00 additional
Make inquiry for bulk orders, multiple orders, priority shipping or Paypal
Send orders to:
Brian Turpen
303 Heltonville Road West
Bedford, IN 47421
http://hpcisp.com/~turp/ramblinman.html
-------------------------
------------
CANADA FIRST NATONS- HANK WILLIAMS MOVIE
Hank William's First Nation (2003)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hank_williams_first_nation/
-----------------------
Hank Williams Ramblinman
Available is a new book on country music legend Hank Williams. Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams is nearly 200 pages long, filled with many related photographs. It is well put together along with a glossy front and back covers. The foreword is written by Robert Gentry. The book is a collection of many short stories, most about previously unknown topics relating to Hank Williams. There are a total of 51 separate stories.
Stories included are about: Hank’s brother Ernest Huble Williams who died as an infant; Hank’s first home; the lady who helped deliver Hank; the story of his delayed birth certificate; a short college stint; a lenghty 32-page article on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry Eurpoean Tour (co-written with Manfred Reinhard); Hank’s 1951 Montgomery Homecoming; his 1952 Greenville Homecoming; his Nashville farm; his Nashville home he shared with Ray Price; several stories concerning Hank’s songs; story of locations Hank played and many others.
This book is a must for every Hank Williams or Country Music fan and collector. The author will sign any book ordered.
***REVIEWS***
American Roots Review November 30, 2007
When researching to write a book a writer has to look into every aspect of the subjects’ life, including places they went, people they knew. Many times these stories don’t get told completely or are used only to inform the writer of their subjects’ surroundings.
While researching the last days of Hank Williams, Brian Turpen has run down many leads and collected several stories having to do with Hank’s life. Turpen, a policeman by day, became interested in Hank’s life after reading Colin Escott’s seminal Hank biography (Turpen even appeared in Escott’s Honky-Tonk Blues documentary). His interest and his experience in police work lead Turpen to delve deep into the last days of Hank. In the midst of that research Turpen also wrote occasional articles on various aspects of Hanks’ life for fan newsletters.
The subtitle of the book is Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams, and Turpen has brought together information on nearly aspect of Hank’s life. Turpen has put many years of research into stories on things like Hank’s birth certificate (it was filed ten and a half years after Hank’s birth), several of the places Hank played, his radio days, his songwriting and his love of baseball.
One of the best stories is the detailed recounting of the 1949 Grand Ole Opry tour of Europe. The tour required the permission and the cooperation of many government officials and the artists, which included Red Foley, Little Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl and other, played for our troops who were still stationed throughout the continent.
If you are a fan of Hank Williams or of country music history you will enjoy this book and the perspective it lends to the life of one of the greatest songwriters in music history.
C. Eric Banister
About the author: Eric's work has been published in Bluegrass Unlimited, Country Standard Time, Blue Suede News and Maverick. He is currently working on a biography of steel guitarist Bud Isaacs.
Books Corner Review October 2007
Western Mail # 10
Attention Hank Williams Country Music Fans
As we all know, many good books have been written about the Life and Music of Hank Williams. But I would like to draw your attention to a new book that has just been published a short while ago (actually Klaus says a few days ago), and that is so different from all the books that have appeared so far.
“Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams” – authored by Brian Turpen (USA), a Police Officer by profession and well versed in investigations and research, has created an impressive book. He received support from the Manfred A. Reinhardt. On over 200 pages the reader will find 51 stories with many photos. They offer insight into events and episodes of the great singer’s/songwriter’s life that remained unpublished up to now. In a chapter covering 32 pages Turpen and German national Manfred A. Reinhardt narrates the Grand Ole Opry Tour to Germany in 1949, with the participation of Hank Williams, Red Foley, Roy Accuff, Little Jimmie Dickens and others to perform in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich and Vienna (Austria). This book is a “must” for every country music fan as well as an asset in each Hank Williams collection – and perhaps the ideal gift for Christmas.
Klaus Koch
Rockin’ Fifties magazine October 2007
Book Recommendation
WOW, what a book!
There are many ways to fill the pages of a book. Some writers collect raw and often poorly researched information, thus getting their pages together. There are authors who consider it a waste of time in doing their own research, and rather copy most of the story from existing publications. But there are other authors, who are dedicated to high standards of ethics and professionalism, doing nothing less than meticulously researching facts. At the very top of such a fine group of writers deserving the highest marks for factual reporting, stands Brian Turpen. With the title Ramblin’ Man, Turpen now presents a book for advanced readers of the Hank Williams Bibliography. This book puts other highly applauded publications dealing with Hank in the shade, making them look like articles from the Boulevard Press.
While, for example, renowned chronics mention with a few words only the possible existence of a brother to Hank, Brian Turpen presents and evaluates the official death certificate of a certain Earnest Hubble Williams, who indeed was Hank’s elder brother.
Turpen neither speculates nor fills gaps just by logic or probability. He rather examines details from the life of Hank Williams that appear insignificant, to their very depth. Where others stop with their research, Turpen even starts to dig further.
He is not another biographer of Hank Williams. He picks out events that had an impact on Hank’s life and creates a full story out of some rudimentary information.
This book is structured into 51 independent chapters making it a masterpiece for undivided reading pleasure.
A few of those stories have been used in the past to be circulated among experts. The major part of material is, however, introduced to the public for the very first time. Brian Turpen is regarded as one of the leading Hank Williams experts worldwide. When experts of such calibre flock together, one can’t be missed out. A sprawling piece on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry European Tour was co-written with Manfred Reinhardt from Germany. Manfred is well known to this magazine for his accuracy and profound knowledge of Hank Williams and his time. While other authors briefly mention the meanwhile legendary European tour in a few sentences at most, Turpen and Reinhardt captivates and fascinates the reader with an abundance of facts showing the human side of that trip.
Although not all of the 51 stories might appeal to everybody just the same or awake their curiosity, still this book will fascinate the reader from its first to the last page. It belongs to the collection of each and every Hank Williams enthusiast.
It is from my own personal conviction THE Publication for years.
Sven Bergmann
For US orders, send $15.00 (that’s postage included)
For orders outside the US, the cost of the book is $12.00 plus shipping.
Canada rate is $4.00 / All others would be International Priority shipping of $8.00
Check or money order accepted / Paypal is also available for $1.00 additional
Make inquiry for bulk orders, multiple orders, priority shipping or Paypal
Send orders to:
Brian Turpen
303 Heltonville Road West
Bedford, IN 47421
http://hpcisp.com/~turp/ramblinman.html
----------------------
--------------
THE CONVERSATION- #HankWilliamsJr and #WaylonJennings - Hank Jr. dressed like a Confederate Soldier and Waylong dressed as a Yankee Soldier cause that's how it is in country.......Hank Jr. and Waylon Jennings...
Lovesick Blues
by Hank Williams
Hank Williams (Hiram King Williams, Mount Olive West, Alabama, September 17, 1923 – Oak Hill, West Virginia, January 1, 1953), was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most important country music artists of all time.
In the short period from 1947 until his death, at 29, on the first day of 1953, Williams recorded 35 singles (five of which were released posthumously) that would place in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including eleven that ranked number one.
His father, Elonzo Williams, worked for the railway and was transferred often, so the family lived in several towns in southern Alabama. When Elonzo was hospitalized for eight years, the family was left to fend for themselves. Young Williams, whose own health was diminished owing to spina bifida, helped provide for his mother and sister. While the family was living in Georgiana, Alabama, Williams met Rufus Payne (nicknamed Tee-Tot), a black street performer who gave Williams guitar lessons in exchange for meals. Payne had a major influence on Williams's later musical style. During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank, believing it to be a better name for country music.
While the family was living in Montgomery, Alabama, a teenaged Williams used to sing and play guitar on the sidewalk in front of the WSFA radio studios. He caught the attention of WSFA producers and started working there in 1937, singing and hosting a 15-minute program. He formed as backup the Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote all of his time to his career.
In 1941, when the U.S. went into World War II, several members of the band were drafted. Williams, who was not taken because of his spina bifida, had trouble with their replacements. This, along with a burgeoning problem with alcohol as self-medication for his health problem, caused WSFA to fire him. In 1943, Williams married Audrey Sheppard who, besides singing duets with him in his act, became his manager. After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. In 1948, he released "Move it on Over," which became a hit. The same year, he joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. In 1949, he released "Lovesick Blues," which carried him into the mainstream of music. After an initial rejection, Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry. He had 11 number one songs between 1948 and 1953, though he was unable to read or write music to any significant degree. His hits include "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey Good Lookin'," and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."
In 1952, Williams's consumption of alcohol, morphine and other painkillers to ease the pain resulting from his back condition caused problems in his personal and professional life. He divorced his wife and was fired by the Grand Ole Opry due to frequent drunkenness.On January 1, 1953, on the way to a concert, he had a doctor inject him with a combination of vitamin B12 and morphine, which, added to the alcohol and chloral hydrate that Williams had consumed earlier, caused him to have a fatal heart attack. He was only 29. Despite his short life, Hank Williams has had a major influence on country music.
His songs have been recorded by numerous artists, many of whom have also had hits with the tunes, in a range of pop, gospel, blues and rock styles. Williams has been covered by performers such as Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Cake, Kenny Rankin, Beck Hansen, Johnny Cash, Tony Bennett, The Residents, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, Louis Armstrong, and Tom Waits. He has received numerous honors and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
On a warm night in June, 1949, with his first number one record spilling out of radios across the country, a frail young man walked onto the stage of Nashville's Ryman Auditorium for his Grand Ole Opry debut. Behind him lay nearly a decade of struggle and rejection in pursuit of this goal; ahead, a little more than five years in the limelight.
By 1953, literally worn out at twenty-nine, Hank Williams was gone. But he had given country music much of its standard repertoire, a new definition of stardom and a legend so enduring that he is still the model for countless singers and songwriters.
Born in Mount Olive West, Alabama (near Georgiana) on September 17th, 1923, Hiriam was the second child of Lon and Lillie Williams. Lon, a WWI veteran, was hospitalized during most of Hank's early life, leaving the boy's upbringing to his strong-willed mother. Small and fragile from the beginning (and afflicted with spina bifida), Hank may well have gravitated toward music as an alternative to sports. While living in Georgiana, he befriended Rufus Payne, a black street musician known as "Tee-Tot".
Years later, Hank would say that Payne had given him "all the music training I ever had", and most biographers consider Payne the source of the noticeable blues thread running through Hank's music. Hear a sample of "Long Gone Lonesome Blues"
At sixteen, living in Montgomery, Williams quit school and began his music career in earnest. He had made his first radio appearance on WSFA in late 1936 or early 1937, and would soon become one of the station's most popular performers. He also worked beer joints and regional shows with his band, already named the Drifting Cowboys. Lillie drove the group to venues in her station wagon and collected gate money. By the early 40s, Hank was one of the biggest draws in the region, and had come to the attention of several Nashville artists and music business luminaries. But his reputation as a singer was already matched by the one he'd built for drinking and unreliability. Most considered him an unsafe bet.
In 1943 Hank met Audrey Mae Sheppard, an Alabama country girl with a two-year old daughter, Lycrecia, from a previous marriage. Audrey learned to play stand-up bass (well enough, anyway, to play in the band) and began acting as manager.
They were married in December, 1944. She desperately craved a singing career, pushing for inclusion in the show at every chance. Her ambition, however, far exceeded her talent. Audrey would vie with Lillie for Hank's attention throughout the relationship. In 1946, she accompanied her husband to Nashville to meet publisher Fred Rose.
Rose, in partnership with Roy Acuff, ran a successful "hillbilly" publishing concern (Acuff-Rose, later a giant in the industry) and at first was interested in Williams only as a writer. (Hank had begun writing songs shortly after he started singing and playing guitar, and sold songbooks at his club appearances.) Within the year, however, Rose had made Hank's singing career a pet project, and arranged for him to record four songs for the Sterling label. In March 1947, in a deal engineered by Rose, Hank signed with MGM.
"Move It On Over" was his first MGM release and his first "Billboard" chart entry. He charted again in April, 1948 with "Honky Tonkin". Back home in Montgomery, Hank seemed poised for stardom; his regional popularity was higher than ever, bolstered now by his recording success. But he had entered the low arc of a repeating cycle that would haunt him for the rest of his days. More often than not, he showed up drunk (if at all) for live appearances, and was increasingly difficult for even his best friends to be around. Many, including Rose, gave up in frustration. Audrey filed for divorce in late April. With the big-time nearly in his grasp, Hank Williams was bottoming out.
Hank's story could easily have ended there, but the Williamses reconciled, the relationship with Rose was mended, and Rose set about finding an avenue for greater exposure. Decision makers at the Opry were still wary, but KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana was interested in the emerging star for their Saturday night jamboree, the Louisiana Hayride, and Hank joined the show in August. "A Long Gone Daddy" had recently reached number six, but his next four releases failed to chart, and a fifth, "Mansion On The Hill," stopped short of the top ten. KWKH's fifty-thousand watts were putting Williams in living rooms all across the eastern US every Saturday night, but his records were falling flat.
Had he peaked? Was he, after all, only middling-star material?
Nearly fifty years later, in a world where today's icon is tomorrows inconsequential, it is difficult to imagine a song so igniting radio listeners that it holds the top spot on the charts for sixteen weeks. No one in Hank's circle wanted him to waste time or tape on "Lovesick Blues". The song was a throwaway, they said; a piece of fluff that was more likely to damage his career than to enhance it. Hank was insistent, though, and the song was given two quick passes at the end of a session. Released in February, 1949, it was number one -and more- by early May. "Lovesick Blues" was an "event"; popular beyond precedent, imagination or belief. And, suddenly, Hank Williams was big. Big enough, at last, for the Opry.
With success came increased creative freedom. Hank's "mainstream" songwriting and recording efforts continued to do extremely well, but he also delved into remorseful gospel themes and a series of recitations under the transparent pseudonym "Luke The Drifter". Hank the writer often seemed preoccupied with mortality and the futility of human relationships- his marriage to Audrey was now in steady decline, and those who knew him could easily see the real-life parallels in songs like "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave), "Why Don't You Love Me" and "Cold, Cold Heart". Clearly, here was a man displaying his demons for all to see. Hank didn't have to "interpret" sad songs; he had only to sing from his heart.
For a time, fame and fortune staved off the consequences of his self-destructive lifestyle. By mid 1952, however, his life was coming apart at the seams. Audrey had filed for divorce again, this time for good. Wracked with back pain, he was dependent on alcohol and, it is believed, morphine. Often missing or too drunk to perform at curtain time, he was fired by the Opry, and headed back to the Hayride in Shreveport. In his final weeks, Hank spun hopelessly out of control. Even his marriage to pretty young Billie Jean Jones couldn't slow his headlong plunge. Sometime after midnight on New Year's Day, 1953, sleeping in the back seat of his Cadillac en route to a show, Hank Williams fulfilled the prophecy of his own "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive".
Three of Hank's recordings reached the top of the charts in the year following his death. By 1954, his earthly voice silenced, the fragile young man from Alabama was only a legend. But in his last few torrid years, he had changed country music forever and his musical legacy remains its cornerstone.
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Available is a new book on country music legend Hank Williams. Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams is nearly 200 pages long, filled with many related photographs. It is well put together along with a glossy front and back covers. The foreword is written by Robert Gentry. The book is a collection of many short stories, most about previously unknown topics relating to Hank Williams. There are a total of 51 separate stories.
Stories included are about: Hank’s brother Ernest Huble Williams who died as an infant; Hank’s first home; the lady who helped deliver Hank; the story of his delayed birth certificate; a short college stint; a lenghty 32-page article on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry Eurpoean Tour (co-written with Manfred Reinhard); Hank’s 1951 Montgomery Homecoming; his 1952 Greenville Homecoming; his Nashville farm; his Nashville home he shared with Ray Price; several stories concerning Hank’s songs; story of locations Hank played and many others.
This book is a must for every Hank Williams or Country Music fan and collector. The author will sign any book ordered.
***REVIEWS***
American Roots Review November 30, 2007
When researching to write a book a writer has to look into every aspect of the subjects’ life, including places they went, people they knew. Many times these stories don’t get told completely or are used only to inform the writer of their subjects’ surroundings.
While researching the last days of Hank Williams, Brian Turpen has run down many leads and collected several stories having to do with Hank’s life. Turpen, a policeman by day, became interested in Hank’s life after reading Colin Escott’s seminal Hank biography (Turpen even appeared in Escott’s Honky-Tonk Blues documentary). His interest and his experience in police work lead Turpen to delve deep into the last days of Hank. In the midst of that research Turpen also wrote occasional articles on various aspects of Hanks’ life for fan newsletters.
The subtitle of the book is Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams, and Turpen has brought together information on nearly aspect of Hank’s life. Turpen has put many years of research into stories on things like Hank’s birth certificate (it was filed ten and a half years after Hank’s birth), several of the places Hank played, his radio days, his songwriting and his love of baseball.
One of the best stories is the detailed recounting of the 1949 Grand Ole Opry tour of Europe. The tour required the permission and the cooperation of many government officials and the artists, which included Red Foley, Little Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl and other, played for our troops who were still stationed throughout the continent.
If you are a fan of Hank Williams or of country music history you will enjoy this book and the perspective it lends to the life of one of the greatest songwriters in music history.
C. Eric Banister
About the author: Eric's work has been published in Bluegrass Unlimited, Country Standard Time, Blue Suede News and Maverick. He is currently working on a biography of steel guitarist Bud Isaacs.
Books Corner Review October 2007
Western Mail # 10
Attention Hank Williams Country Music Fans
As we all know, many good books have been written about the Life and Music of Hank Williams. But I would like to draw your attention to a new book that has just been published a short while ago (actually Klaus says a few days ago), and that is so different from all the books that have appeared so far.
“Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams” – authored by Brian Turpen (USA), a Police Officer by profession and well versed in investigations and research, has created an impressive book. He received support from the Manfred A. Reinhardt. On over 200 pages the reader will find 51 stories with many photos. They offer insight into events and episodes of the great singer’s/songwriter’s life that remained unpublished up to now. In a chapter covering 32 pages Turpen and German national Manfred A. Reinhardt narrates the Grand Ole Opry Tour to Germany in 1949, with the participation of Hank Williams, Red Foley, Roy Accuff, Little Jimmie Dickens and others to perform in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich and Vienna (Austria). This book is a “must” for every country music fan as well as an asset in each Hank Williams collection – and perhaps the ideal gift for Christmas.
Klaus Koch
Rockin’ Fifties magazine October 2007
Book Recommendation
WOW, what a book!
There are many ways to fill the pages of a book. Some writers collect raw and often poorly researched information, thus getting their pages together. There are authors who consider it a waste of time in doing their own research, and rather copy most of the story from existing publications. But there are other authors, who are dedicated to high standards of ethics and professionalism, doing nothing less than meticulously researching facts. At the very top of such a fine group of writers deserving the highest marks for factual reporting, stands Brian Turpen. With the title Ramblin’ Man, Turpen now presents a book for advanced readers of the Hank Williams Bibliography. This book puts other highly applauded publications dealing with Hank in the shade, making them look like articles from the Boulevard Press.
While, for example, renowned chronics mention with a few words only the possible existence of a brother to Hank, Brian Turpen presents and evaluates the official death certificate of a certain Earnest Hubble Williams, who indeed was Hank’s elder brother.
Turpen neither speculates nor fills gaps just by logic or probability. He rather examines details from the life of Hank Williams that appear insignificant, to their very depth. Where others stop with their research, Turpen even starts to dig further.
He is not another biographer of Hank Williams. He picks out events that had an impact on Hank’s life and creates a full story out of some rudimentary information.
This book is structured into 51 independent chapters making it a masterpiece for undivided reading pleasure.
A few of those stories have been used in the past to be circulated among experts. The major part of material is, however, introduced to the public for the very first time. Brian Turpen is regarded as one of the leading Hank Williams experts worldwide. When experts of such calibre flock together, one can’t be missed out. A sprawling piece on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry European Tour was co-written with Manfred Reinhardt from Germany. Manfred is well known to this magazine for his accuracy and profound knowledge of Hank Williams and his time. While other authors briefly mention the meanwhile legendary European tour in a few sentences at most, Turpen and Reinhardt captivates and fascinates the reader with an abundance of facts showing the human side of that trip.
Although not all of the 51 stories might appeal to everybody just the same or awake their curiosity, still this book will fascinate the reader from its first to the last page. It belongs to the collection of each and every Hank Williams enthusiast.
It is from my own personal conviction THE Publication for years.
Sven Bergmann
For US orders, send $15.00 (that’s postage included)
For orders outside the US, the cost of the book is $12.00 plus shipping.
Canada rate is $4.00 / All others would be International Priority shipping of $8.00
Check or money order accepted / Paypal is also available for $1.00 additional
Make inquiry for bulk orders, multiple orders, priority shipping or Paypal
Send orders to:
Brian Turpen
303 Heltonville Road West
Bedford, IN 47421
http://hpcisp.com/~turp/ramblinman.html
-------------------------
There's plenty cookin'
'The
Unreleased Recordings' shows off Hank Williams' vocals and his playful side.
October 28, 2008|Robert Hilburn
More than a half century after his death, Hank Williams
remains so revered as a songwriter that his gifts as a singer are often
underappreciated. But one of the strengths of "The Unreleased
Recordings," a remarkable new CD boxed set released today, is the way it
showcases the brilliance of his vocal skills.
Besides his singing prowess, the three-disc package, which
features 54 radio show performances, also underscores Williams' musical
influences, including his affinity for gospel songs and his playful
personality.
Williams was the hottest artist in country music in 1951
when he agreed to host a 15-minute radio show for WSM, the Nashville station
that broadcast the Grand Ole Opry. Because he toured so much, Williams taped
the shows in advance with his Drifting Cowboys band at the WSM studio. The
shows were then aired at 7:15 a.m. weekdays.
Listening to the set, it's clear that Williams could have
been an influential figure in country music even if he had never written a
song. His phrasing in this relaxed setting sometimes exhibits a stronger and
more personal edge than he showed during his more formal recording sessions.
Although many boxed sets are so filled with hits and misses
that they deserve to be called little more than record industry
"product," this set is so rich and revealing it deserves to be
labeled "historic."
Hank Williams
"The Unreleased Recordings"
(Time Life)
he back story: Lots of country music performers in the
1940s and 1950s hosted local radio shows, and Williams was just 27 when he
signed on to WSM. He already had such No. 1 country singles as "Lovesick
Blues," and "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" behind him. In 1951, he
added two more No. 1 country singles to his string: "Cold, Cold
Heart," which became a pop smash after Tony Bennett recorded it, and
"Hey, Good Lookin'," a playful tune with an opening line that went,
"Hey, hey, good lookin', whatcha got cookin'?/ How's about cookin'
somethin' up with me?"
His early time slot might not sound impressive, but it was
a prized one, especially in rural areas reached by the powerful station. In the
set, Williams' daughter, Jett, writes about his early morning listeners.
"Imagine that it's 7:15 a.m. in January, 1951,"
she writes. "People are cooking biscuits, milking cows, driving to work or
doing whatever they did on a daily basis, and they're treated to a 15-minute
radio show starring Hank Williams." She continues, "He talked about
his favorite songs, where he'd been and where he was going. Whatever came into
his head. It was kinda like having him join you at your breakfast table for a
good visit."
It's that casual format that helps makes these recordings
so engaging. We get a glimpse of Williams' humor on the first disc when he
introduces "Hey, Good Lookin' " by slipping in his sponsor's name,
"If you've got anything cookin', just be sure you're cookin' it with
Mother's Best flour." He then adds, "Well, I ain't good lookin', but
I'm gonna to start cookin'," before starting the song.
Later he tells his band members that his grandmother taught
him a version of "On Top of Old Smokey" that was a lot different from
the Weavers' singalong rendition that topped the pop hit parade early in 1951.
"Remember that thing?" he asks someone in the
studio. "I'm going to get the boys and see if we can do it like the old,
old-timers used to do." His version is much slower and more deliberate
than the Weavers' treatment.
The music: Although Williams sang a few of his songs,
including "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You)," he
mostly performed material on the show by other writers, including such country
standards as Fred Rose's "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," which Willie
Nelson redid so successfully in 1975, and Scotty Wiseman's "Have I Told
You Lately That I Love You," which had been a hit for both Gene Autry and
Tex Ritter.
Williams devoted a lot of time to gospel music, including
Thomas A. Dorsey's classic "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and Will
Thompson's "Softly and Tenderly," which was later recorded by Elvis
Presley and Johnny Cash.
Whatever the material, Williams sang with such passion and
care that he made any composition feel like it was his own. The most remarkable
moment in the set is probably his version of "Cool Water," the Bob
Nolan tale of isolation and faith. Unlike the jaunty treatment the song often
gets, Williams sang it with such a dark sense of loneliness that his version
becomes unforgettable.
--
Backtracking is a monthly column focusing on CD reissues
and other pop items of historical interest.
------------
CANADA FIRST NATONS- HANK WILLIAMS MOVIE
Hank William's First Nation (2003)
Movie Info
An elderly Cree man decides that before he dies he must travel via Greyhound from his remote Indian Reservation in Northern Canada, into the southern United States to visit the grave of Hank Williams. Along the way he and his travelling companion, a 17 yr old nephew, are picked up as a regional human-interest story in the US press. News of their growing celebrity causes a stir back home among an eclectic cast of locals; including a chief running desperately for re-election, a young girl trying … More
| Rating: | PG |
| Genre: | Drama, Comedy |
| Directed By: | Aaron James Sorensen |
| Runtime: |
-----------------------
Hank Williams Ramblinman
Stories included are about: Hank’s brother Ernest Huble Williams who died as an infant; Hank’s first home; the lady who helped deliver Hank; the story of his delayed birth certificate; a short college stint; a lenghty 32-page article on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry Eurpoean Tour (co-written with Manfred Reinhard); Hank’s 1951 Montgomery Homecoming; his 1952 Greenville Homecoming; his Nashville farm; his Nashville home he shared with Ray Price; several stories concerning Hank’s songs; story of locations Hank played and many others.
This book is a must for every Hank Williams or Country Music fan and collector. The author will sign any book ordered.
***REVIEWS***
American Roots Review November 30, 2007
When researching to write a book a writer has to look into every aspect of the subjects’ life, including places they went, people they knew. Many times these stories don’t get told completely or are used only to inform the writer of their subjects’ surroundings.
While researching the last days of Hank Williams, Brian Turpen has run down many leads and collected several stories having to do with Hank’s life. Turpen, a policeman by day, became interested in Hank’s life after reading Colin Escott’s seminal Hank biography (Turpen even appeared in Escott’s Honky-Tonk Blues documentary). His interest and his experience in police work lead Turpen to delve deep into the last days of Hank. In the midst of that research Turpen also wrote occasional articles on various aspects of Hanks’ life for fan newsletters.
The subtitle of the book is Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams, and Turpen has brought together information on nearly aspect of Hank’s life. Turpen has put many years of research into stories on things like Hank’s birth certificate (it was filed ten and a half years after Hank’s birth), several of the places Hank played, his radio days, his songwriting and his love of baseball.
One of the best stories is the detailed recounting of the 1949 Grand Ole Opry tour of Europe. The tour required the permission and the cooperation of many government officials and the artists, which included Red Foley, Little Jimmy Dickens, Minnie Pearl and other, played for our troops who were still stationed throughout the continent.
If you are a fan of Hank Williams or of country music history you will enjoy this book and the perspective it lends to the life of one of the greatest songwriters in music history.
C. Eric Banister
About the author: Eric's work has been published in Bluegrass Unlimited, Country Standard Time, Blue Suede News and Maverick. He is currently working on a biography of steel guitarist Bud Isaacs.
Books Corner Review October 2007
Western Mail # 10
Attention Hank Williams Country Music Fans
As we all know, many good books have been written about the Life and Music of Hank Williams. But I would like to draw your attention to a new book that has just been published a short while ago (actually Klaus says a few days ago), and that is so different from all the books that have appeared so far.
“Ramblin’ Man – Short Stories from the Life of Hank Williams” – authored by Brian Turpen (USA), a Police Officer by profession and well versed in investigations and research, has created an impressive book. He received support from the Manfred A. Reinhardt. On over 200 pages the reader will find 51 stories with many photos. They offer insight into events and episodes of the great singer’s/songwriter’s life that remained unpublished up to now. In a chapter covering 32 pages Turpen and German national Manfred A. Reinhardt narrates the Grand Ole Opry Tour to Germany in 1949, with the participation of Hank Williams, Red Foley, Roy Accuff, Little Jimmie Dickens and others to perform in Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich and Vienna (Austria). This book is a “must” for every country music fan as well as an asset in each Hank Williams collection – and perhaps the ideal gift for Christmas.
Klaus Koch
Rockin’ Fifties magazine October 2007
Book Recommendation
WOW, what a book!
There are many ways to fill the pages of a book. Some writers collect raw and often poorly researched information, thus getting their pages together. There are authors who consider it a waste of time in doing their own research, and rather copy most of the story from existing publications. But there are other authors, who are dedicated to high standards of ethics and professionalism, doing nothing less than meticulously researching facts. At the very top of such a fine group of writers deserving the highest marks for factual reporting, stands Brian Turpen. With the title Ramblin’ Man, Turpen now presents a book for advanced readers of the Hank Williams Bibliography. This book puts other highly applauded publications dealing with Hank in the shade, making them look like articles from the Boulevard Press.
While, for example, renowned chronics mention with a few words only the possible existence of a brother to Hank, Brian Turpen presents and evaluates the official death certificate of a certain Earnest Hubble Williams, who indeed was Hank’s elder brother.
Turpen neither speculates nor fills gaps just by logic or probability. He rather examines details from the life of Hank Williams that appear insignificant, to their very depth. Where others stop with their research, Turpen even starts to dig further.
He is not another biographer of Hank Williams. He picks out events that had an impact on Hank’s life and creates a full story out of some rudimentary information.
This book is structured into 51 independent chapters making it a masterpiece for undivided reading pleasure.
A few of those stories have been used in the past to be circulated among experts. The major part of material is, however, introduced to the public for the very first time. Brian Turpen is regarded as one of the leading Hank Williams experts worldwide. When experts of such calibre flock together, one can’t be missed out. A sprawling piece on the 1949 Grand Ole Opry European Tour was co-written with Manfred Reinhardt from Germany. Manfred is well known to this magazine for his accuracy and profound knowledge of Hank Williams and his time. While other authors briefly mention the meanwhile legendary European tour in a few sentences at most, Turpen and Reinhardt captivates and fascinates the reader with an abundance of facts showing the human side of that trip.
Although not all of the 51 stories might appeal to everybody just the same or awake their curiosity, still this book will fascinate the reader from its first to the last page. It belongs to the collection of each and every Hank Williams enthusiast.
It is from my own personal conviction THE Publication for years.
Sven Bergmann
For US orders, send $15.00 (that’s postage included)
For orders outside the US, the cost of the book is $12.00 plus shipping.
Canada rate is $4.00 / All others would be International Priority shipping of $8.00
Check or money order accepted / Paypal is also available for $1.00 additional
Make inquiry for bulk orders, multiple orders, priority shipping or Paypal
Send orders to:
Brian Turpen
303 Heltonville Road West
Bedford, IN 47421
http://hpcisp.com/~turp/ramblinman.html
----------------------
Tribute to Hank Williams Jr ((CMT Giants))
--------------
THE CONVERSATION- #HankWilliamsJr and #WaylonJennings - Hank Jr. dressed like a Confederate Soldier and Waylong dressed as a Yankee Soldier cause that's how it is in country.......Hank Jr. and Waylon Jennings...
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