This year marks the 70th anniversary of the death of one the greatest musical talents in American history, Hank Williams. Singled out by the Pulitzer Prize committee for “his pivotal role in transforming country music into a major and cultural force in American life, Williams” died in January 1953 at age 29.
In a public career that effectively lasted just six years from 1946-52, Hank Williams took country music to new heights of popularity. Country music, usually derogatively called "hillbilly," was regarded as the music of the southern "poor white trash" and ridiculed as corny and unsophisticated. Williams began the process that changed all that.
Country music had produced a handful of popular artists -- Jimmy Rodgers, Roy Acuff, and Ernest Tubb -- but none of them broke through to the general public the way that Williams did. Combining traditional country themes, white gospel music, Southern Black blues (he credited a Black street musician, Tee Tot with teaching him some of the basics of good guitar work) Williams created a type of country and western music that dominated the format until the genre's decline over the last decade or so. Billboard, the top music magazine, credited Williams for singing "in true backwoods fashion, with a tear in his voice.”
Many of his songs dealt with country themes like booze and unrequited love, and reflected his relationship with his first wife, Audrey, with whom he had a stormy relationship. He found it difficult to live with her or without her and wrote several songs about their strained relationship. “I Can’t Help It (if I’m Still in Love with You),” “I Love You a Thousand Ways,” and in true country style, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”
Between 1946-52 Williams recorded over 120 songs including some that became hits in the years after his death. "Your Cheatin’ Heart," "You Win Again," and "Cold, Cold Heart" were crossover successes in the popular realm. Williams appeared on the pinnacle of country music stardom, the Grand Ole Opry 36 times. He also was banned from its stage for drunkenness, a problem that would plague him for the rest of his life.
Williams was a crossover artist
Williams was the first country singer and composer to consistently cross over to the popular music realm. His songs were recorded or "covered" as the music world describes it by some of the biggest names in pop music in the 1950s: Tony Bennett, Joanie James, Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Laine, and even Black entertainers such as Tommy Edwards and Ray Charles. Edwards’ version of “You Win Again” sold more copies and was a bigger hit for him than Williams’ version. Charles included Williams’ “Your Cheatin Heart” on his hugely popular album.
"Modern Songs in Country and Western Music," Bennett’s version of “Cold, Cold Heart” became one of his standards in the 1950s although he initially didn’t want to perform what he called a hillbilly song. Rosemary Clooney had a big hit with Williams’ “Half as Much.” Artists as different as Gram Parsons, John Fogerty, and George Thorogood have recorded Williams’ songs with success.
Some idea of Williams’ impact can be gauged by the fact that he sold as many records in 1998 as he did in the year of his death. His remarkable durability can be found in the fact that he won a Grammy Award in 1998, 45 years after his death.
What was it about Williams that made him so popular for so long unlike many other country icons: Eddie Arnold, Roy Acuff, even someone like Johnny Cash all of whose popularity faded eventually after their deaths? The only country singer to come close to matching Williams in both popularity and legendary status would be George Jones, nicknamed "No Show Jones" who shared Williams habit for missing his performances and hard drinking and living.
Williams also a great composer
First and foremost, Williams was a superb creative composer. His music was either lively or sad, but always memorable even when he was reworking the traditional themes of country music: lonesome trains, drinking, a mother’s love (“I dreamed about mama last night”) but especially unrequited love. Many of his songs were connected to his relationship with his first wife, always referred to as "Miss Audrey." To say they had a rocky relationship would be an understatement. But he always seemed to be singing about her. “Cold, Cold Heart” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” had her in mind. “Please Don’t Let Me Love You” was his plaintive cry about their relationship.
Williams also had gift for writing deceptively simple yet evocative lyrics. Consider: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” not only has an evocative melody but its lyrics come close to pure poetry: “The silence of a fallen star/Lights up a purple sky/But as I wonder where you are/ I’m so lonesome I could cry.” It was a song another country boy, Elvis Presley loved to sing.
Second, like all great country singers Williams exuded sincerity. His voice had a unique nasal twang that was pure country and much imitated. When he sang a song, whether it was sad or happy, it sounded like no one else before or since.
Part of Williams’ appeal to the post-Dylan generation lies in the fact that his songs were about many of the same themes the rock-and-roll generation cherished: drugs, booze, family values, and women.
Live hard and die young
Finally, Hank Williams defined the public image of the country singer for generations: live hard and die young. He was kicked off The Grand Old Opry for being drunk and was notorious for failing to make scheduled performances in the last months of his life. Country music has featured some bad imitations of his lifestyle, including his talented son Hank Williams, Jr., who for a time seemed to be imitating his father’s lifestyle. As he said in one of hit songs after all “It’s a family tradition.”
Williams also followed the Southern country tradition of writing spiritual ballads. Songs like “At the Cross,” “I’m Going Home,” and "Jesus Won’t You Come By Here,” testified to his search for some kind of religious longing. His most popular, “I Saw the Light,” became the title of a film that dramatized his life in 2015.
On the night of Jan. 1, 1953, in the backseat of his Cadillac somewhere in West Virginia, Hiram King “Hank” Williams died of a heart attack brought on by a combination of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse. He was 29.
For the next 70 years, country music has been looking for the next Hank Williams. It has come close but has yet to find him
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