HANK WILLIAMS
G'day folks,
Hiram King "Hank" Williams, was an American singer-songwriter and
musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential
American singers and songwriters of the 20th century. Hank
Williams became one of America's first country music superstars, with hits like
"Your Cheatin' Heart," before his early death at 29.
“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
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.
Widely
considered country music's first superstar, Hiriam "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.
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 1953, he took his seat in the back of his 1952 powder blue Cadillac.
As his driver, college student Charles Carr, barreled toward a concert venue in
Canton, Ohio, 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. His life
and career was the subject of I Saw the Light, a 2015 biopic starring Tom Hiddleston as Williams and Elizabeth Oleson as his
first wife Audrey.
Daughter Jett Williams
As if
straight out of a country song, it was revealed decades later that Hank
Williams had fathered a daughter, Jett, who was born shortly after his death.
The identity of her famous father remained a mystery to her until her early
twenties. Jett, whose legal name is Cathy Deupree Adkinson, was raised by
Williams' mother for two years until she died. Jett was then legally adopted.
Since the revelation of her famous father, she initiated legal claims to his
estate and battled her half-brother who refused to acknowledge her for a long
time.
In 1989,
the Alabama State Supreme Court ultimately ruled in her favor and found her to
be an equal heir, after an old document was recovered that showed Williams and
Jett's mother had signed a shared custody agreement.
About her
half-brother and where they stand today, Jett said: “As far
as having a personal relationship, we don’t have like a brother-sister
relationship, but we do get along; we do business and I think the world
does realize that both of us have our dad’s best interest at heart.”
Clancy's comment: Wow. So many famous people died early. Hank Williams at 29!!
I'm ...
No comments:
Post a Comment