Hank Williams

• Born: September 17, 1923
• Birthplace: Georgiana, Alabama
• Died: January 1, 1953
• Place of death: Oak Hill, West Virginia

American county singer, guitarist, and songwriter

A mesmerizing performer and skilled musician, Willams had awe-inspiring songwriting abilities, and with them he defined modern country music.

Member of The Drifting Cowboys

The Life

Hiram King Williams was the second surviving child of the union of Lonnie and Lilly Williams, a marriage that later ended in divorce. The Williams family lived in a shack in rural Alabama, and the prospect of their son achieving any degree of fame or financial success was remote at best. His father left the family when Williams was young, and the two had little contact. His mother struggled mightily to support Williams, a beloved but sickly child, and Irene, his sister.

A skilled singer and guitarist, Williams eventually secured a radio program to promote his career, and he then signed contracts to record for Sterling Records and MGM Records. He met Audrey Shepherd Erskine at a concert in 1942, and they married in 1944. Ultimately ending in divorce, the marriage did produce Randall Hank Williams, who became known as Hank Williams, Jr. After being fired from the Grand Ole Opry (a weekly radio show and live performance of country music in Nashville, Tennessee) because of his drinking, Williams married Billie Jean Jones shortly before his death on New Year’s Day, 1953.

The Music

His aunt taught Williams to play the guitar, but his primary musical influence was a local street musician named Rufus Payne, known as Tec Tot. Williams put together a backing group called the Drifting Cowboys, and by 1946 he had begun a recording career that lasted a short seven years.

Early Works. Williams’s first big hit was “Move It on Over,” a novelty song he wrote about an errant husband being forced to sleep in the doghouse. This song had a faster tempo than most of his later recordings, and some music observers claim it was a harbinger of rock and roll. The song that established him as a recording giant and budding country-music superstar was “Lovesick Blues,” one of the few he did not write and which first had been recorded in the early 1920’s. Williams remodeled the song almost beyond recognition, adding a fiddle and a steel guitar and inserting yodeling interludes. It was country in sound and feel, and it was a tremendous number-one hit for Williams. His next three number-one smashes all dated from 1950 (“Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” “Why Don’t You Love Me?,” and “Moanin” the Blues”), and all of them told the story of a man suffering from an ongoing tempestuous relationship with a woman.

“Cold Cold Heart.” His next huge hit revolutionized the music industry. Producer and arranger Mitch Miller had heard Williams’s music and believed it would appeal to markets that generally would not hear country music, so he persuaded singer Tony Bennett to record a version of the song, and it became a huge hit on the pop charts, too. From that time, Williams’s compositions have been widely covered with great success by a variety of musical stylists.

“Hey Good Lookin’.” His next number-one hit was “Hey Good Lookin’.” This upbeat and bouncy song told the story of a man asking a woman for a date, with the usual emotions associated with that situation.

“Jambalaya (On the Bayou).” “Jambalaya” did not conform to Williams’s previous musical formula. It had more than one instrumental break, and it featured Williams singing some Cajun French words and some words he apparently made up for the song. The name Yvonne is mentioned in the lyrics several times, apparently in reference to an infant. When this song was recorded, Williams’s girlfriend Bobbie Jett was pregnant with a little girl they intended to call Yvonne. The baby was born after her father’s death.

“I’ll Never Get out of This World Alive.” This song proved tragically prophetic when Williams died only two months later. Some observers point to this song and other circumstantial evidence as proof that he foresaw his death.

“Kaw-Liga.” “Kaw-Liga” was a novelty song about a wooden cigar-store Indian falling in love with an Indian maid also carved from wood. The premise was original, and this is the only known Williams record to feature a drum (an underappreciated instrument in country music at that time) and to end in a fade-out (rare then, although common now).

“Your Cheatin’ Heart.” The song most closely associated with Williams in the years since his death is “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” one he almost certainly did not have the opportunity to perform live before an audience. In all likelihood the song was written about his former wife, Audrey. His final number-one song was “Take These Chains from My Heart,” an upbeat tune thought to be about his relationship with Audrey.

Musical Legacy

Williams suffered from a variety of physical ailments, all made worse by his chronic drug abuse and alcoholism, and his death at twenty-nine helped create the mystique of the tortured artistic genius. His compositions were recorded by a variety of artists representing many different genres, thus universalizing the appeal of country music and solidifying his place as a giant in the field of popular music.

Bibliography

Escott, Colin, with George Merritt and William MacEwen. Hank Williams, the Biography. Boston: Little, Brown, 1994. Well researched and thorough, this is an excellent resource on the singer’s life. Covering Williams from cradle to grave, the work also includes interesting supplementary material, such as a complete history of all his recording sessions.

Flippo, Chet. Your Cheatin’ Heart: A Biography of Hank Williams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981. This work provides interesting information about Williams’s personal life, especially his tortured relationships with his mother and first wife.

Jones, Tim, with Harold McAlindon and Richard Courtney. The Essential Hank Williams. Nashville, Tenn.: Eggman, 1996. This work is largely a pictorial history of Williams combined with facts and related memories.

Rivers, Jerry. Hank Williams: From Life to Legend. Denver, Colo.: Heather Enterprises, 1967. Rivers, a fiddler in the Drifting Cowboys, knew Williams intimately. A good resource, this book consists of Rivers’s direct experiences with and observations of the troubled entertainer.

Williams, Jett, with Pamela Thomas. Ain’t Nothing as Sweet as My Baby. San Diego, Calif.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. Williams’s illegitimate daughter describes her decades-long struggle to be recognized as one of his heirs. This work contains information about Williams provided to the author by her father’s relatives and associates.

Principal Recordings

albums (with the Drifting Cowboys): Hank Williams Sings, 1952; Hank Williams as Luke the Drifter, 1955.

singles (with the Drifting Cowboys): “Move It on Over,” 1947; “I’m a Long Gone Daddy,” 1948; “Lovesick Blues,” 1949; “Mind Your Own Business,” 1949; “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” 1949; “You’re Gonna Change, or I’m Gonna Leave,” 1949; “Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” 1950; “Moanin’ the Blues,” 1950; “Why Don’t You Love Me?,” 1950; “Cold Cold Heart,” 1951; “Hey Good Lookin’,” 1951; “Half as Much,” 1952; “I’ll Never Get out of This World Alive,” 1952; “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” 1952; “I Won’t be Home No More,” 1953; “Kaw-Liga,” 1953; “Take These Chains from My Heart,” 1953.