From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Tue Sep 17, 2002  1:17 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Hank Williams
 
HANK WILLIAMS (By Shaun Mather)

Born Hiram King Williams, 17 September 1923, Mount Olive, Alabama
Died 1 January 1953, Oak Hill, West Virginia

Hank Williams is the honky daddy of them all. As a songwrier he is
unsurpassed, he wrote his songs in the country idiom but they moved
effortlessly from their country origins to become pop and rock 'n' roll
standards. He lived a legendary bad boy life, which may have hindered
him at the time, but now holds him in high esteem, we all love the tales
of his hell-raising. His love-hate affair with his first wife Miss Audrey was
documented in his songs and proved the catalyst for many of his anguished
classics.

He was a street performer from an early age, performing around the Georgiana
and Greenville areas of Alabama before the family moved to Montgomery in 1937.
Hank formed the Drifting Cowboys and started playing on local radio station,
WSFA, in 1941. A couple of years later while he was playing a medicine show,
fate dealt him a bad/good hand when he met Audrey Mae Sheppard, a farmgirl
from Banks, AL. She became his manager and maintained a constant drive and
ambition that Hank himself lacked. She talked/ordered Hank into going to
Nashville to audition for Fred Rose who was sufficiently impressed to get
Hank a two singles deal with Sterling Records. Both "Never Again" in
December, 1946 and "Honky Tonkin'" in February, 1947 proved successful and
Hank was signed by MGM Records early in 1947. Rose became his manager,
record producer and writing mentor. He also became his steady rock as can be
seen in some of the personal letters that were recently brought to light in
the Snapshots From The Lost Highway book.

Hank's first single for MGM was "Move It On Over," and was country Top Five
hit. By the summer of 1948, he had joined the Louisiana Hayride, and scored
further (though smaller) hits with "Honky Tonkin'" and "I'm a Long Gone
Daddy." It was his cover of the old Tin Pan Alley song "Lovesick Blues" that
truly launched him to another level, staying at number one for 16 weeks and
crossing over into the pop Top 25. When he performed it on the Grand Ole
Opry, he had to perform an unprecedented six encores.

Hits followed like "Wedding Bells," "Mind Your Own Business," "You're Gonna
Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)," "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", "Long Gone
Lonesome Blues," "Why Don't You Love Me," "Moanin' the Blues," "I Just Don't
Like This Kind of Livin'," "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy," "They'll Never
Take Her Love from Me," "Why Should We Try," and "Nobody's Lonesome for
Me.", "Dear John", "Cold, Cold Heart,", "Hey, Good Lookin'", "Howlin' at the
Moon," "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You)," "Crazy Heart,"
"Lonesome Whistle," and "Baby, We're Really in Love,".

He started recording a series of spiritual/narrated records under the name
Luke the Drifter but beneath the image his personal life was beginning to go
pear-shaped, with both his marriage and his scotch on the rocks and he was
beginning to miss shows with alarming regularity. When he fell on a hunting
trip on his Tennessee farm he brought an old back injury to life. He was
soon addicted to the morphine and other pain killers and in the beginning of
1952, Hank and Audrey separated, with Hank heading back to Montgomery
to live with his mother. He was still charting with "Honky Tonk Blues", "Half
As Much," "Jambalaya," "Settin' the Woods on Fire," and "You Win Again"
but it was scant consolation for a life which was now beyond salvation. A move
back to Nashville to shack up with Ray Price was just what the doctor didn't
order and in August the Grand Ole Opry fired Hank. It was the final string
and although he rejoined the Louisiana Hayride he was now performing with
local bands for a fraction of his usual fees. He met Billie Jean Jones
Eshlimar, a gorgeous 19-year old fireball who he married in October - once
before a paying crowd in New Orleans.

Hank's next no-show was the big one - he was scheduled to play in Canton,
OH, on New Year's Day 1953 and was being chaffeur driven to the show when
he died in the back seat. That episode and the funeral were stories in
themselves. Amazingly the single that was currently doing the rounds for him
was "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive".

Nashville has been quick to forgive and forget, but whether that would have
been the case had he survived is another matter. Hank Williams is the most
influential artist in Nashville history and his star looks likely to shine
bright
forever.

Recommended reading:
Colin Escott, Hank Williams : the biography. Boston : Little, Brown, 1994.
Colin Escott & Kira Florita, Hank Williams : snapshots from the lost highway.
New York : Da Capo Press, 2001. (Paperback edition due October 9).
Lyrics : Hank Williams Complete. Milwaukee : Hal Leonard, 2000.
Official website: http://www.hankwilliams.com

"The Complete Hank Williams" was issued by Mercury (314 536 077-2)
as a 10 CD-set (with a superb 120-page book) in 1999.