The centennial of Hank Williams' birth was in September and the memory of his earthly existence belongs to a precious few survivors now. Like most history, a lot has been sanitized and one only need try and watch the Hollywood movies made of Williams life from the first attempt starring George Hamilton as Hank in 'Your Cheatin' Heart' to the disappointing 'I Saw The Light' where Tom Hiddleston does a credible job of imitating the legendary country icon, at least on stage. But the devil in the details of his private torment has been largely left to the written page where books starting with Chet Flippo's 1981 partly fictionalized biography started to really reveal the evils surrounding and consuming Hank and every book since has had to look at his problematic personal life without a lot of filtering. The American Masters documentary from 2004 on Hank is unflinching in telling the tale through author Colin Escott and aged survivors including Hank's second wife Billie Jean (When I tell you he was tied up with some bitches, he was tied up with bitches!). Music journalist Ralph J. Gleason who helped start Rolling Stone magazine in the late 60's, attempted to interview Hank in 1952, but was scared off because he was surrounded by 'whiskey drinkers'. The jailhouse photo Greil refers to is scarifying and those witnesses who saw Hank's autopsy a few months later were shocked at his ghastly physical appearance. Some have suggested that Bob Dylan was on his own death trip before his infamous motorcycle crash in July '66, but the last photos of Dylan in Woodstock that summer show a handsome photogenic young man and by comparison, he seems angelic looking whereas Hank's later days were hellish. The litany of rock music casualties while long and sad, was largely the result of opulent and self-indulgent lifestyles. Hank Williams, while being the most successful songwriter and performer in country music history, died a miserable death freezing in the back of a car on way to another nowhere gig. His resulting death might have been the best break 'ol Hank ever got for as he intoned in his Men With Broken Hearts recitation courtesy of his Luke The Drifter persona Life sometimes can be so cruel/That a heart will pray for death. Given that his death took place in the dark hours between midnight and dawn, between the old year and the new, is almost too cinematic to be true. But that's how it happened and as a fan of the music, I think about Hank every New Year's Eve, as that specter of time and life past and what mortality has in store for us all.
The centennial of Hank Williams' birth was in September and the memory of his earthly existence belongs to a precious few survivors now. Like most history, a lot has been sanitized and one only need try and watch the Hollywood movies made of Williams life from the first attempt starring George Hamilton as Hank in 'Your Cheatin' Heart' to the disappointing 'I Saw The Light' where Tom Hiddleston does a credible job of imitating the legendary country icon, at least on stage. But the devil in the details of his private torment has been largely left to the written page where books starting with Chet Flippo's 1981 partly fictionalized biography started to really reveal the evils surrounding and consuming Hank and every book since has had to look at his problematic personal life without a lot of filtering. The American Masters documentary from 2004 on Hank is unflinching in telling the tale through author Colin Escott and aged survivors including Hank's second wife Billie Jean (When I tell you he was tied up with some bitches, he was tied up with bitches!). Music journalist Ralph J. Gleason who helped start Rolling Stone magazine in the late 60's, attempted to interview Hank in 1952, but was scared off because he was surrounded by 'whiskey drinkers'. The jailhouse photo Greil refers to is scarifying and those witnesses who saw Hank's autopsy a few months later were shocked at his ghastly physical appearance. Some have suggested that Bob Dylan was on his own death trip before his infamous motorcycle crash in July '66, but the last photos of Dylan in Woodstock that summer show a handsome photogenic young man and by comparison, he seems angelic looking whereas Hank's later days were hellish. The litany of rock music casualties while long and sad, was largely the result of opulent and self-indulgent lifestyles. Hank Williams, while being the most successful songwriter and performer in country music history, died a miserable death freezing in the back of a car on way to another nowhere gig. His resulting death might have been the best break 'ol Hank ever got for as he intoned in his Men With Broken Hearts recitation courtesy of his Luke The Drifter persona Life sometimes can be so cruel/That a heart will pray for death. Given that his death took place in the dark hours between midnight and dawn, between the old year and the new, is almost too cinematic to be true. But that's how it happened and as a fan of the music, I think about Hank every New Year's Eve, as that specter of time and life past and what mortality has in store for us all.