Hiram King "
Hank"
Williams, (
;
September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer-songwriter
and musician.
Regarded as one of the most significant and influential
American singers and songwriters of the 20th century,
[2][3] Williams recorded 35 singles (five released posthumously) that would place in the Top 10 of the
Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that ranked number one (three posthumously).
Born in Mount Olive,
Butler County, Alabama, Williams moved to
Georgiana, where he met
Rufus Payne,
a black street performer who gave him guitar lessons in exchange for
meals or money.
Payne had a major influence on Williams' later musical
style, along with
Roy Acuff and
Ernest Tubb.
During this time, Williams informally changed his name to Hank,
believing it to be a better name for country music.
He moved to
Montgomery and his music career began there in 1937, when
WSFA radio station producers hired him to perform and host a 15-minute program.
He formed as backup the
Drifting Cowboys band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career.
When several of his band members were
conscripted into military service during
World War II, Williams had trouble with their replacements and was dismissed by WSFA due to his
alcoholism.
Williams eventually married
Audrey Sheppard, who managed him for nearly a decade.
After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with
Sterling Records, he signed a contract with
MGM Records.
In 1948 he released "
Move It on Over", which became a hit, and also joined the
Louisiana Hayride radio program.
One year later, he released a cover of "
Lovesick Blues", which carried him into the mainstream of music.
After an initial rejection, Williams joined the
Grand Ole Opry. He was unable to read or
notate music to any significant degree. Among the hits he wrote were "
Your Cheatin' Heart", "
Hey, Good Lookin'", and "
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".
Several years of back pain, alcoholism, and prescription
drug abuse
severely damaged Williams' health; he divorced Sheppard and was
dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry, which cited unreliability and frequent
intoxication.
Williams died in the early morning hours of January 1,
1953, at the age of 29, from
heart failure
exacerbated by pills and alcohol.
Despite his short life, Williams has
had a major influence on 20th century popular music, especially
country music.
The songs he wrote and recorded have been covered by numerous artists,
and have been hits in various genres.
He has been inducted into multiple
music halls of fame, such as the
Country Music Hall of Fame (1961), the
Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970), and the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987).
| Hank Williams |
|---|
Williams in 1951.
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Hiram King Williams |
| Also known as |
- Luke the Drifter
- The Hillbilly Shakespeare
- The Singing Kid
|
| Born |
September 17, 1923
Butler County, Alabama, United States |
| Died |
January 1, 1953 (aged 29)
Oak Hill, West Virginia, United States |
| Genres |
|
| Occupation(s) |
|
| Instruments |
|
| Years active |
1937–1953 |
| Labels |
|
| Associated acts |
|
| Website |
www.hankwilliams.com
Williams' signature |
Life and career
Early life
Williams was born in
Butler County, Alabama, the son of Jessie Lillybelle "Lillie" (
née Skipper 1898–1955) and Elonzo Huble "Lon" Williams.
His parents married on November 12, 1916. Hank Williams was of
English-American ancestry.
[4][5][6][7]
Elonzo Williams worked as an
engineer for the railroads of the W.T. Smith lumber company.
He was drafted during
World War I, serving from July 1918 until June 1919.
He was severely injured after falling from a truck, breaking his
collarbone and suffering a severe blow to the head.
After his return,
the family's first child, Irene, was born on August 8, 1922. Another son
of theirs died shortly after birth.
Their third child, Hiram, was born
on September 17, 1923, in Mount Olive.
Since Elonzo Williams was a
Mason, and his wife was a member of
Order of the Eastern Star the child was named after
Hiram I of Tyre
(one of the three founders of the Masons, according to Masonic legend),
but his name was misspelled as "Hiriam" on his birth certificate.
As a child, he was nicknamed "Harm" by his family and "Herky" or "Poots" by his friends.
He was born with
spina bifida occulta, a disorder of the
spinal column, which gave him lifelong pain – a factor in his later abuse of
alcohol and
drugs.
Williams' father was frequently relocated by the lumber company railway
for which he worked, and the family lived in many southern Alabama
towns.
In 1930, when Williams was seven years old, his father began
suffering from facial
paralysis. At a
Veterans Affairs (VA) clinic in
Pensacola, Florida, doctors determined that the cause was a
brain aneurysm, and Elonzo was sent to the VA Medical Center in
Alexandria, Louisiana.
He remained hospitalized for eight years, rendering him mostly absent throughout Hiram's childhood.
From that time on, Lillie Williams assumed responsibility for the family.
In the fall of 1934 the Williams family moved to
Greenville, Alabama, where Lillie opened a boarding house next to the
Butler County courthouse.
In 1935 the Williams family settled in Garland, Alabama, where Lillie Williams opened a new
boarding house.
After a while they moved with his cousin Opal McNeil to
Georgiana, Alabama where Lillie managed to find several side jobs to support her children, despite the bleak economic climate of the
Great Depression.
She worked in a
cannery and served as a night-shift nurse in the local hospital.
Their first house burned and the family lost its possessions. They
moved to a new house on the other side of town on Rose Street, which
Williams' mother soon turned into a boarding house.
The house had a
small garden, on which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his
sister Irene sold around Georgiana.
At a chance meeting in Georgiana, Hank Williams met U.S. Representative
J. Lister Hill
while he was campaigning across Alabama.
Williams told Hill that his
mother was interested to talk with him about his problems and her need
to collect Elonzo Williams'
disability pension. With Hill's help, the family began collecting the money.
Despite his medical condition, the family managed fairly well financially throughout the Great Depression.
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The popular song "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" became a hit for Hank Williams in 1949.
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There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar.
His
mother stated that she bought it with money from selling peanuts, but
many other prominent residents of the town claimed to have been the one
who purchased the guitar for him.
While living in Georgiana, Williams
met
Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne, a street performer. Payne gave Williams guitar lessons in exchange for meals prepared by Lillie Williams or money.
Payne's base musical style was blues. He taught Williams chords, chord
progressions, bass turns, and the musical style of accompaniment that he
would use in most of his future songwriting.
Later on, Williams
recorded one of the songs that Payne taught him, "
My Bucket's Got a Hole in It".
Williams musical style contained influences from Payne along with
several other country influences, among them "the Singing Brakeman"
Jimmie Rodgers,
Moon Mullican, and
Roy Acuff.
In 1937 Williams got into a fight with his
physical education
coach about exercises the coach wanted him to do.
His mother
subsequently demanded that the school board terminate the coach; when
they refused, the family moved to
Montgomery, Alabama.
Payne and Williams lost touch, though eventually, Payne also moved to
Montgomery, where he died in poverty in 1939. Williams later credited
him as his only teacher.
[24]
Early career
Hank Williams playing guitar in Montgomery, Alabama in 1938
In July 1937, the Williams and McNeil families opened a
boarding house
on South Perry Street in downtown Montgomery.
It was at this time that
Williams decided to change his name informally from Hiram to Hank, a
name he said was better suited to his desired career in country music.
During the same year he participated in a talent show at the Empire
Theater.
He won the first prize of $15, singing his first original song
"WPA Blues". Williams wrote the lyrics and used the tune of
Riley Puckett's "Dissatisfied".
He never learned to read music and, for the rest of his career, based his compositions in storytelling.
[26]
After school and on weekends Williams sang and played his
Silvertone guitar on the sidewalk in front of the
WSFA radio studios.
His recent win at the Empire Theater and the street performances caught
the attention of WSFA producers who occasionally invited him to perform
on air.
So many listeners contacted the radio station asking for more of "the
singing kid" that the producers hired him to host his own 15-minute show
twice a week for a weekly salary of US$15 (equivalent to US$246.90 in
2016).
[29]
In August 1938, Elonzo Williams was temporarily released from the
hospital.
He showed up unannounced at the family's home in Montgomery.
Lillie was unwilling to let him reclaim his position at the head of the
household, so he stayed only long enough to celebrate Williams' birthday
in September before he returned to the medical center in Louisiana.
Williams' successful radio show fueled his entry into a music career.
His salary was enough for him to start his own band, which he dubbed
the
Drifting Cowboys.
The original members were guitarist Braxton Schuffert, fiddler Freddie
Beach, and comedian Smith "Hezzy" Adair. James E. (Jimmy) Porter was the
youngest, being only 13 when he started playing
steel guitar for Williams.
Arthur Whiting was also a guitarist for The Drifting Cowboys.
The band traveled throughout central and southern Alabama performing in
clubs and at private parties. James Ellis Garner later played fiddle
for him. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager.
Williams
dropped out of school in October 1939 so that the Drifting Cowboys could
work full-time.
Lillie Williams began booking show dates, negotiating prices and
driving them to some of their shows. Now free to travel without
Williams' schooling taking precedence, the band could tour as far away
as western Georgia and the
Florida Panhandle.
The band started to play in theaters before the start of the movies and later in
honky-tonks.
Williams' alcohol problem started during the tours, on occasion
spending an important part of the show revenues.
Meanwhile, between tour
schedules, Williams returned to Montgomery to host his radio show.
1940s
The American entry into
World War II in 1941 marked the beginning of hard times for Williams.
All his band members were
drafted to serve in the military, while he got a
4-F deferment
from the military draft after falling from a bull during a rodeo in
Texas.
Many of their replacements refused to continue playing in the
band because of Williams' worsening alcoholism.
He continued to show up for his radio show intoxicated, so in August
1942 WSFA fired him for "habitual drunkenness".
During one of his
concerts Williams met backstage his idol,
Grand Ole Opry star
Roy Acuff, who later warned him of the dangers of alcohol, saying: "You've got a million-dollar talent, son, but a ten-cent brain".
He worked for the rest of the war in a shipbuilding company in
Mobile, Alabama, as well as singing in bars for soldiers. In 1943 Williams met
Audrey Sheppard on a
medicine show in
Banks, Alabama.
Williams and Sheppard lived and worked together in Mobile,
Sheppard later told Williams that she wanted to move to Montgomery with
him and start a band together and help him regain his radio show.
The
couple were married in 1944 in a Texaco Station in
Andalusia, Alabama,
by a justice of the peace.
The marriage was declared illegal, since
Sheppard's divorce from her previous husband did not comply with the
legally required sixty-day trial reconciliation.
Hank Williams, Audrey Sheppard Williams and the Drifting Cowboys band
In 1945, when he was back in Montgomery, Williams started to perform
again for WSFA. He wrote songs weekly to perform during the shows.
As a result of the new variety of his repertoire, Williams published his first song book,
Original Songs of Hank Williams.
[39]
The book only listed lyrics, since its main purpose was to attract more
audience. It included ten songs: "Mother Is Gone", "Won't You Please
Come Back", "My Darling Baby Girl" (with Audrey Sheppard), "Grandad's
Musket", "I Just Wish I Could Forget", "
Let's Turn Back the Years", "Honkey-Tonkey", "I Loved No One But You", "A Tramp On The Street", and "You'll Love Me Again".
Williams became recognized as a songwriter, Sheppard became his manager and occasionally accompanied him on duets in some of his live concerts.
On September 14, 1946, Williams auditioned for Nashville's
Grand Ole Opry
but was rejected. After the failure of his audition, Williams and
Audrey Sheppard tried to interest the recently formed music publishing
firm
Acuff-Rose Music.
Williams and his wife approached
Fred Rose,
the president of the company, during one of his habitual ping-pong
games at WSM radio studios.
Audrey Williams asked Rose if her husband
could sing a song for him on that moment, Rose agreed, and he liked Williams' musical style.
Rose signed Williams to a six song contract, and leveraged this deal to sign Williams with
Sterling Records.
On December 11, 1946, in his first recording session, he recorded "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul", "Calling You", "
Never Again (Will I Knock on Your Door)", and "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels".
[39]
The recordings "Never Again" and "
Honky Tonkin'" became successful, and earned Williams the attention of MGM Records.
Williams signed with
MGM Records in 1947 and released "
Move It on Over", which became a massive country hit. In 1948 he moved to
Shreveport, Louisiana, and he joined the
Louisiana Hayride,
a radio show broadcast that propelled him into living rooms all over
the southeast appearing on weekend shows.
Williams eventually started to
host a show on
KWKH and started touring across western Louisiana and eastern Texas, always returning on Saturdays for the weekly broadcast of the
Hayride.
After a few more moderate hits, in 1949 he released his version of the 1922
Cliff Friend &
Irving Mills song "
Lovesick Blues",
[46] made popular by
Rex Griffin.
Williams' version became a huge country hit; the song stayed at number
one on the Billboard charts over four consecutive months,
[47] crossing over to
mainstream audiences and gaining Williams a place in the Grand Ole Opry.
On June 11, 1949, Williams made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, where he became the first performer to receive six
encores.
[49]
He brought together Bob McNett (guitar),
Hillous Butrum (
bass),
Jerry Rivers (
fiddle) and
Don Helms (
steel guitar)
to form the most famous version of the Drifting Cowboys, earning an
estimated US$1,000 per show (equivalent to US$9,945.5 in 2016).
[29]
That year Audrey Williams gave birth to Randall Hank Williams (
Hank Williams, Jr.).
[50]
During 1949, he joined the first European tour of the Grand Ole Opry, performing in military bases in England, Germany and
Azores.
Williams released seven hit songs after "Lovesick Blues", including "Wedding Bells",
[46] "Mind Your Own Business", "You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)", and "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It".
1950s
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One characteristic of Williams' recordings as Luke the Drifter is the use of narration rather than singing.
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In 1950, Williams began recording as "Luke the Drifter" for his
religious-themed recordings, many of which are recitations rather than
singing.
Fearful that disc jockeys and jukebox operators would hesitate
to accept these unusual recordings, Williams used this alias to avoid
hurting the marketability of his name.
Although the real identity of Luke the Drifter was supposed to be
anonymous, Williams often performed part of the material of the
recordings on stage.
Most of the material was written by Williams, in
cases with the help of Fred Rose and his son Wesley.
The songs depicted Luke the Drifter traveling around from place to
place, narrating stories from different characters and philosophizing
about life.
Some of the compositions were accompanied by a
pipe organ.
Hank Williams in concert in 1951
Around this time Williams released more hit songs, such as "
My Son Calls Another Man Daddy", "
They'll Never Take Her Love from Me", "
Why Should We Try Anymore", "
Nobody's Lonesome for Me", "
Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "
Why Don't You Love Me", "
Moanin' the Blues", and "
I Just Don't Like This Kind of Living".
[57]
In 1951 "
Dear John" became a hit, but it was the
flip side, "
Cold, Cold Heart", that became one of his most-recognized songs.
A pop cover version by
Tony Bennett released the same year stayed on the charts for 27 weeks, peaking at number one.
Hank's career reached a peak in August–September 1951 with his Hadacol tour of the U.S. with actor
Bob Hope
and other luminaries.
During the tour, Hank was photographed signing a
motion picture deal with MGM.
In October Hank recorded a demo, "There's a
Tear in My Beer" for a friend, "
Big Bill Lister",
who recorded it in the studio.
On November 14, 1951 Hank flew to New
York with his steel guitar player Don Helms where he appeared on
television for the first time on "The Perry Como Show."
There he and
Perry sang "Hey Good Lookin'." Photos but no existing footage remain of his appearance.
In November 1951 Hank suffered a fall during a hunting trip with his
fiddler Jerry Rivers in Franklin, Tennessee.
The fall reactivated his
old back pains.
He later started to consume painkillers, including
morphine, and alcohol to ease the pain.
[50]
On May 21, he had been admitted to North Louisiana Sanitarium for the treatment of his alcoholism, leaving on May 24.
On December 13, 1951 he had a spinal fusion at the
Vanderbilt University Hospital, being released on December 24.
He lived during his recovery with his mother in Montgomery, and later moved to Nashville with
Ray Price.
During March and April 1952 Hank flew to New York with steel
guitarist Don Helms, where he made two appearances with other Grand Ole
Opry members on "The Kate Smith Show."
He sang "Cold, Cold Heart," "Hey
Good Lookin'," "Glory Bound Train" with other cast members, and a duet,
"I Can't Help It if I'm Still in Love with You" with
Anita Carter.
Footage remains of this appearance.
That spring he had a brief affair
with dancer Bobbi Jett, with whom he fathered a daughter,
Jett Williams (born January 6, 1953, two days after his interment).
In June, 1952, he recorded "Jambalaya," "Window Shopping," "Settin'
the Woods on Fire," and "I'll Never Get out of this World Alive."
In
early July, Audrey Williams divorced Hank. The next day he recorded "You
Win Again" and "I Won't be Home No More."
About this time he met
Billie Jean Jones, a girlfriend of country singer
Faron Young,
at the Grand Ole Opry.
As a girl, Billy had lived down the street from
Hank when he was with the Louisiana Hayride, and now Hank began to visit
her frequently in Shreveport, causing him to miss many Grand Ole Opry
appearances.
On August 11, 1952, Williams was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry
for habitual drunkenness and missing shows.
He returned to Shreveport,
Louisiana to perform in
KWKH and
WBAM
shows and in the Louisiana Hayride, for which he toured again.
His
performances were acclaimed when he was sober, but despite the efforts
of his work associates to get him to shows sober, his abuse of alcohol
resulted in occasions when he did not appear or his performances were
poor.
In October 1952 he married Billie Jean Jones.
During his last recording session on September 23, 1952, Williams recorded "
Kaw-Liga," along with "
Your Cheatin' Heart," "
Take These Chains from My Heart,"
and "I Could Never be Ashamed of You."
Due to Williams' excesses, Fred
Rose stopped working with him. By the end of 1952, Williams had started
to suffer heart problems.
[50]
He met Horace "Toby" Marshall in
Oklahoma City, who said that he was a doctor. Marshall had been previously convicted for forgery, and had been paroled and released from the
Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1951.
Among other fake titles he said that he was a
Doctor of Science.
He purchased the DSC title for $35 from the
Chicago School of Applied Science,
in the diploma, he requested that the DSC be spelled out as "Doctor of
Science and Psychology".
Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed
Williams with
amphetamines,
Seconal,
chloral hydrate, and
morphine.
Death
Entrance marker of the Oakwood Annex Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama
Williams was scheduled to perform at the
Municipal Auditorium in
Charleston, West Virginia
on Wednesday December 31, 1952.
Advance ticket sales totaled US$3,500.
That day, because of an ice storm in the Nashville area, Williams could
not fly, so he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to
the concerts.
Carr called the Charleston auditorium from Knoxville to
say that Williams would not arrive on time owing to the ice storm and
was ordered to drive Williams to
Canton, Ohio, for the New Year's Day concert there.
[64]
They arrived at the
Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Carr requested a doctor for Williams, as he was feeling the combination of the
chloral hydrate and alcohol he had drunk on the way from Montgomery to Knoxville.
Dr. P.H. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of
vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain of
morphine.
Carr and Williams checked out of the hotel; the porters had to carry Williams to the car, as he was coughing and hiccuping.
At around midnight on Thursday January 1, 1953, when they crossed the Tennessee state line and arrived in
Bristol, Virginia,
Carr stopped at a small all-night restaurant and asked Williams if he
wanted to eat.
Williams said he did not, and those are believed to be
his last words.
Carr later drove on until he stopped for fuel at a gas station in
Oak Hill, West Virginia, where he realized that Williams was dead.
The filling station's owner called the chief of the local police.
In Williams' Cadillac the police found some empty beer cans and unfinished handwritten lyrics.
Dr. Ivan Malinin performed the
autopsy
at the Tyree Funeral House.
Malinin found hemorrhages in the heart and
neck and pronounced the cause of death as "insufficiency of the right
ventricle of the heart".
That evening, when the announcer at Canton announced Williams' death to
the gathered crowd, they started laughing, thinking that it was just
another excuse.
After
Hawkshaw Hawkins and other performers started singing "
I Saw the Light" as a tribute to Williams, the crowd, now realizing that he was indeed dead, sang along.
[71]
Dr. Malinin also wrote that Williams had been severely beaten and
kicked in the groin recently. Also local magistrate Virgil F. Lyons
ordered an inquest into Williams' death concerning the welt that was
visible on his head.
His body was transported to Montgomery, Alabama, on Friday January 2
and placed in a silver coffin that was first shown at his mother's
boarding house for two days.
His funeral took place on Sunday January 4
at the Montgomery Auditorium, with his coffin placed on the
flower-covered stage.
An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver coffin, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners.
His funeral was said to have been far larger than any ever held for any
other citizen of Alabama and the largest event ever held in Montgomery.
[76]
Williams' remains are interred at the Oakwood Annex in Montgomery.
The president of
MGM told
Billboard
magazine that the company got only about five requests for pictures of
Williams during the weeks before his death, but over three hundred
afterwards.
The local record shops sold out of all of their records, and
customers were asking for all records ever released by Williams.
His final single, released in November 1952 while he was still alive, was titled "
I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive".
"Your Cheatin' Heart" was written and recorded in September 1952 but
released in late January 1953 after Williams' death.
The song, backed by
"Kaw-Liga," was number one on the country charts for six weeks. It
provided the title for the
1964 biographical film of the same name, which starred
George Hamilton.
[77]
"Take these Chains from My Heart" was released in April 1953 and went
to #1 on the country charts.
"I Won't be Home No More," released in
July, went to #3, and an overdubbed demo, "Weary Blues from Waitin,'"
written with Ray Price, went to #7.
Personal life
On December 15, 1944, Williams married Audrey Sheppard. It was her
second marriage and his first.
Their son, Randall Hank Williams, who
would achieve fame in his own right as
Hank Williams, Jr.,
was born on May 26, 1949.
The marriage, always turbulent, rapidly
disintegrated, and Williams developed a serious problem with alcohol,
morphine, and other painkillers prescribed for him to ease the severe
back pain caused by his spina bifida.
The couple divorced on May 29, 1952.
In June 1952, Williams moved in with his mother, even as he released numerous hit songs, such as "
Half as Much" in April, "
Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" in July, "Settin' the Woods on Fire"/"
You Win Again"
in September, and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" in November.
His drug problems continued to spiral out of control as he moved to
Nashville and officially divorced his wife.
A relationship with a woman named Bobbie Jett during this period resulted in a daughter,
Jett Williams,
who was born five days after Williams' death.
His mother adopted Jett,
who was made a ward of the state and then adopted by another couple
after her grandmother died.
Jett Williams did not learn that she was
Hank Williams' daughter until the early 1980s.
On October 18, 1952, Williams and
Billie Jean Jones Eshlimar were married in
Minden, Louisiana by a justice of the peace.
[71]
It was the second marriage for both (both being divorced with children). The next day two public ceremonies were also held at the New Orleans Civic Auditorium, where 14,000 seats were sold for each.
[71]
After Williams' death, a judge ruled that the wedding was not legal
because Jones Eshlimar's divorce had not become final until eleven days
after she married Williams.
Williams' first wife, Audrey, and his
mother, Lillie Williams, were the driving forces behind having the
marriage declared invalid and pursued the matter for years.
Williams
also married Audrey Sheppard before her divorce was final, on the tenth
day of a required sixty-day reconciliation period.
Williams was a lifelong
Republican and was a vocal supporter of
Dwight D. Eisenhower.
According to singer
Jo Stafford, he sent Eisenhower a telegram on his birthday prior to the
1952 presidential election
informing him that Williams considered it a personal honor to endorse a
military figure to lead the nation in its coming future.
[82]
Legacy
Alabama governor
Gordon Persons
officially proclaimed September 21 "Hank Williams Day".
The first
celebration, in 1954 featured the unveiling of a monument at the
Cramton Bowl, that was later placed in the grave site of Williams.
The ceremony featured
Ferlin Husky interpreting "I Saw the Light".
Williams had 11 number one hits in his career ("
Lovesick Blues", "
Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "
Why Don't You Love Me", "Moanin' the Blues", "
Cold, Cold Heart", "
Hey, Good Lookin'", "
Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "
I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive", "
Kaw-Liga", "
Your Cheatin' Heart", and "
Take These Chains from My Heart"), as well as many other top ten hits.
Hank Williams III, his grandson is also a musician
On February 8, 1960, Williams' star was placed at 6400 Hollywood Boulevard on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame.
[85]
He was inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame[86] in 1961 and into the
Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985.
[87]
When Downbeat magazine took a poll the year after Hank's death, he was
voted the most popular country and Western performer of all time—ahead
of such giants as Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, Red Foley, and Ernest Tubb.
In 1977, a national organization of CB truck drivers voted "Your Cheatin' Heart" as their favorite record of all time.
[89]
In 1987, he was inducted in the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame under the category Early Influence.
[90]
He was ranked second in
CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003, behind only
Johnny Cash. His son, Hank Jr., was ranked on the same list.
[91]
In 2004
Rolling Stone ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
[92]
The website Acclaimedmusic, which collates recommendations of albums
and recording artists, has a year-by-year recommendation for top
artists.
Hank Williams is ranked first for the decade 1940–1949 for his
song "
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".
Many artists of the 1950s and 1960s, including
Elvis Presley,
[93] Bob Dylan,
Jerry Lee Lewis,
Merle Haggard,
[94] Gene Vincent,
[95] Carl Perkins,
[96] Ricky Nelson,
[97] Jack Scott,
[98] and
Conway Twitty[99] recorded Williams songs during their careers.
In 2011 Williams' 1949 MGM number one hit, "Lovesick Blues", was inducted into the Recording Academy Grammy Hall of Fame.
[100]
The same year
Hank Williams: The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings….Plus! was honored with a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album.
[101]
In 1999, Williams was inducted into the
Native American Music Hall of Fame.
[102]
On April 12, 2010, the
Pulitzer Prize
Board awarded Williams a posthumous special citation that paid tribute
to his "craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings
with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming
country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life".
[103]
Keeping his legacy, Williams' son, Hank Williams, Jr., daughter
Jett Williams, grandson
Hank Williams III, and granddaughters Hilary Williams and
Holly Williams are also country musicians.
[104]
In 2006, a janitor of
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
found in a dumpster the unfinished lyrics written by Williams that had
been found in his car the night he died.
The worker claimed that she
sold Williams' notes to a representative of the Honky-Tonk Hall of Fame
and the Rock-N-Roll Roadshow.
The janitor was accused of theft, but the
charges were later dropped when a judge determined that her version of
events was true.
The unfinished lyrics were later returned to Sony/ATV,
which handed them to
Bob Dylan in 2008 to complete the songs for a new album.
Ultimately, the completion of the album included recordings by
Alan Jackson,
Norah Jones,
Jack White,
Lucinda Williams,
Vince Gill,
Rodney Crowell,
Patty Loveless,
Levon Helm,
Jakob Dylan,
Sheryl Crow and
Merle Haggard.
The album, named
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams was released on October 4, 2011.
[105][106]
Material recorded by Williams, originally intended for radio
broadcasts to be played when he was on tour, or for its distribution to
radio stations nationwide resurfaced throughout time.
In 1993, a double-disc set of recordings of Williams for the
Health & Happiness Show was released.
[108]
Broadcast in 1949, the shows were recorded for the promotion of
Hadacol.
The set was re-released on
Hank Williams: The Legend Begins in 2011.
The album included unreleased songs. "Fan It" and "
Alexander's Ragtime Band", recorded by Williams at age fifteen; the homemade recordings of him singing "Freight Train Blues", "
New San Antonio Rose", "
St. Louis Blues" and "Greenback Dollar" at age eighteen; and a recording for the 1951
March of Dimes.
[109]
In May 2014, further radio recordings by Williams were released.
The Garden Spot Programs, 1950,
a series of publicity segments for plant nursery Naughton Farms
originally aired in 1950.
The recordings were found by collector George
Gimarc at radio station
KSIB in
Creston, Iowa.
[110]
Gimarc contacted Williams' daughter Jett, and Colin Escott, writer of a
biography book on Williams.
The material was restored and remastered by
Michael Graves and released by
Omnivore Recordings.
[111][112]
In June 2014 it was announced that British actor
Tom Hiddleston would portray Williams in the upcoming biopic
I Saw the Light, based on Colin Escott's 1994 book
Hank Williams: The Biography.
Marc Abraham is directing the film. Filming took place in October through December 2014 and the film is set to release sometime in 2015.
[113]
Lawsuits over the estate
After Williams' death, Audrey Williams filed a suit in Nashville against MGM Records and
Acuff-Rose.
The suit demanded that both of the publishing companies continue to pay
her half of the royalties from Hank Williams' records.
Williams had an
agreement giving his first wife half of the royalties, but allegedly
there was no clarification that the deal was valid after his death.
Because Williams may have left no will, the disposition of the other
fifty percent was considered uncertain; those involved included the
second Mrs. Williams and her daughter and Hank Williams' mother and
sister.
[114]
On October 22, 1975, a federal judge in
Atlanta, Georgia, finally ruled Jones Eshlimar's marriage was valid and that half of Williams' future royalties belonged to her.
WSM's Mother's Best Flour
In 1951, Williams hosted a fifteen-minute show for
Mother's Best flour in WSM radio. Due to Williams' tour schedules some of the shows were previously recorded to be played in his absence.
[116]
The original acetates were in possession of Jett Williams, while
existing duplicates were found and intended to be published by a third
party.
In February 2005, the
Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating that Williams' heirs—son,
Hank Williams Jr., and daughter,
Jett Williams—have the sole rights to sell his recordings made for a Nashville radio station in 1951.
The court rejected claims made by
Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the
Mother's Best Flour Show.
The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include
live versions of Williams' hits and his cover version of other songs.
Polygram contended that Williams' contract with MGM Records, which
Polygram now owns, gave them rights to release the radio recordings.
A
3-CD selection of the tracks, restored by Joe Palmaccio, was released by
Time-Life in October 2008 titled
The Unreleased Recordings.
[117]
Source: Wikipedia.org
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