Hank Williams
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He was known around his adopted city of Montgomery, Alabama as the “Hillbilly Shakespeare.” Hank Williams was thus tagged after winning an amateur contest, singing “WPA Blues,” a song he wrote himself. All this at the tender age of fourteen.
Actually, there probably never really was a “tender” age for young Hank. He was born to humble beginnings in Mt. Olive, near Georgiana, Alabama on September 17, 1923. His parents didn’t have much. Lon, his pap, was a logger and worked the family farm and his mother, Jessie, played the organ at the Mr. Olive Baptist Church. Sitting at her side as she played in church was young Hiram’s first musical exposure as well as building the basis for the many songs of faith that he turned out over the years -- perhaps the most notable of these being, “I Saw The Light.”
Though he may have seen the light, he didn’t seem to stand too close to it. He seemed to naturally gravitate toward the back streets, the honky tonks and the seemy side of town Although building a reputation as a singer and entertainer, he also was well known around Montgomery as a problem drinker as early as age fourteen. It was in the streets that he met his boyhood mentor, Rufus Payne, or Tee Tot, as he was called. Rufus was a street singer and guitar player who really knew how to draw and work a crowd. It wasn’t easy to pull any change out of people during the depression years but Tee Tot had the knack. Obviously, Hank must have been paying close attention for he developed the ability to put a crowd of people in the palm of his hand like few people have ever been able to do. This ability was certainly a large part of his tremendous success. Another part was the way he sang a song. Whether it was his song or had been written by someone else, you felt as if you were in the experience with him as he unwound the tale. And, of course, the tales he spun in his own songs were also a huge part of his appeal. His songs struck a chord with people from a wide diversity of backgrounds. They were profound yet easily understood. Many years later, someone hung the tag, “Poet of the Common Man” on Merle Haggard. That’s a very appropriate title for the Hag but if someone would have thought of it in Hank’s day, Merle would never have gotten to use it. Many a modern day “poet” has felt the influence of Hank Williams -- Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Alan Jackson and on and on. In fact, Hank Williams has unquestionably had some influence, either directly or indirectly, on more artists in more fields of music than any other artist or songwriter who has ever lived -- even the “Bard” himself.
Hank had been playing off and on at radio station WSFA-AM (Montgomery) for quite some time but decided it was time to widen his horizons. He signed on with a traveling medicine show and went on the road. It was here he met Audrey Sheppard and in December of 1944, he and Miss Audrey were married at a filling station in Andalusia, Alabama.
Many argue, and probably rightfully so, that without Audrey, Hank would never have achieved any real success. She gave him direction and some sense of purpose in life. It was at her urging that he went, in 1946, to see Fred Rose in Nashville. Fred, half of the already successful Acuff-Rose Publishing Company, had a sharp ear for music and a keen nose for business. He smelled success and signed Hank on. They quickly set up a recording session and released four songs. Once the records began playing on the radio, he was an “overnight success” and thought the next logical stop for him would be the Opry stage. Unfortunately, the powers that be at the Opry had heard of his wild ways and wanted no part of him. The Opry was, in those days, as it is now, a family show and they were what many now would consider very “up-tight” about who got to stand on that stage and most certainly about the subject matter of the songs they performed. Hank just didn’t fit the Opry image.
The next best place to the Opry at the time, was the Louisiana Hayride. In August, 1948, he began singing on the Hayride and was an instant hit. In December of that year, he recorded what was to be a milestone song, “The Lovesick Blues.” It shot to the top of the charts and was selling by the millions of copies. The Opry took a look at the business side of things and decided to rethink their position on Hank Williams. By the time Hank made his momentous debut on the Opry on June 11, 1949, “Lovesick” had sold three million and, that night, it got him several standing ovations and six encores -- something that had never happened before and hasn’t since. That must have been one of the best times in Hank’s short life. His son, Randall Hank Williams, who we now know as Hank Williams Jr. had just been born on the 29th of May and that was a great source of joy. He would later nickname him “Bocephus” after the ventriloquist dummy that Ron Brasfield used on the Opry. The name sticks to this day.
But, as the crest of a wave always seems to break, so did the high-riding happiness surrounding Hank Williams. Things were not going well at all with Audrey and, on May 29, 1952, they were divorced. Just prior to that, he had fathered a child with Bobbie Jett of Nashville. She was born 5 days after Hank died and was taken in by Hank’s mother. But after her death, the little girl we now know as Jett Williams was pushed aside and grew up not even knowing who she was. But that’s another story entirely. The downhill slide was well on its way by this time and in August of the same year, the Opry had had enough. Hank was fired. It is said that, from this point on, Hank never drew a sober breath. Probably so.
He did return briefly to the Louisiana Hayride and, in October, he married his second wife, Billie Jean Jones Eshliman. But, by this time, the downward spiral was spinning out of control. He missed shows, forgot lyrics, fell off stages and was generally making a fool of himself. His mother persuaded him to come home to dry out and she apparently was having some success until someone called saying they wanted him for a New Year’s Day show in Canto, Ohio. He hired a young man by the name of Charles Carr to drive him, in his ‘52 Cadillac, from Alabama to Canton for the show. He never made it. Sometime during that night, probably in the wee hours of January 1st, 1953, Hank died in the back seat of his Cadillac clutching a piece of paper in his hand. On the scrap of paper he had written, “We met, we lived and dear we loved, then comes that fatal day, the love that felt so dear fades far away.” The autopsy showed that he had died of a heart attack. It is speculated that this was brought on by his chronic use of alcohol and the pain killers he used to ease the back pain that was a result of untreated Spina Bififda. In my analysis, Hank died the way he lived, with a broken heart, but he left us a musical legacy that is unmatched.
Cal Adams
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