Hank Williams
Hiram "Hank" Williams was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. An early pioneer of country music, he is regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of the 20th century. Williams recorded 55 singles that reached the top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, 5 of which were released posthumously, and 12 of which reached No.1.
Born and raised in Alabama, Williams learned guitar from African-American blues musician Rufus Payne. Both Payne and Roy Acuff significantly influenced his musical style. After winning an amateur talent contest, Williams began his professional career in Montgomery in the late 1930s playing on local radio stations and at area venues such as school houses, movie theaters, and bars. He formed the Drifting Cowboys backup band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career. Because his alcoholism made him unreliable, he was fired and rehired several times by radio station WSFA. Williams also had trouble replacing several of his band members who were drafted during World War II.
In 1944, Williams married Audrey Sheppard, who competed with his mother to control his career. After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin' with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. He released the hit single "Move It On Over" in 1947 and joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. The next year he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues", which quickly reached number one on Billboard Top Country & Western singles chart and propelled him to stardom on the Grand Ole Opry. Although unable to read or notate music to any significant degree, he wrote such iconic hits as "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin', and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". During his final years, he struggled with back pain and substance abuse, exacerbating his relationships with Audrey and the Grand Ole Opry.
Williams died on New Year's Day 1953 at the age of 29, his heart failing in the back seat of a car near Oak Hill, West Virginia, en route to a concert in Canton, Ohio. Despite his relatively brief career, he is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century, especially in country music. Many artists have covered his songs and he has influenced Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones, among others. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1999, and gained a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2010, he was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for 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." His life and career were dramatized in the 2015 biopic I Saw the Light.
Early life
Hiram Williams was born on September 17, 1923, in the rural community of Mount Olive in Butler County, Alabama. He was the third child of Jessie Lillybelle "Lillie" and Elonzo Huble "Lon" Williams. Williams was of English and Welsh ancestry. Elonzo's family came from south and central Alabama, and his father fought during the American Civil War, first on the Confederate side, and then with the Union after he was captured. Elonzo was a railroad engineer for the W. T. Smith lumber company and was drafted during World War I, serving from July 1918 to June 1919. He suffered severe injuries after falling from a truck, breaking his collarbone, and receiving a severe blow to the head.The Williams' first child, Ernest Huble Williams, died two days after his birth on July 5, 1921. A daughter, Irene, was born a year later. His name was misspelled as "Hiriam" on his birth certificate, which was prepared and signed when he was 10 years old. Williams was born with spina bifida occulta, a birth defect of the spinal column that caused him lifelong pain and became a major factor in his later alcohol and drug abuse. At the age of three, Williams sat with his mother as she played the organ at the Mount Olive Baptist Church. Lillie also joined singing the hymns that influenced the singer's later compositions. Williams received his first musical instrument, a harmonica, at the age of six. As a child, he was nicknamed "Harm" by his family and "Herky" or "Skeets" by his friends.
Williams's father frequently relocated for work, and as a result the family lived in several southern Alabama towns. In 1930, when Williams was seven years old, Elonzo began experiencing facial paralysis. After being evaluated at a Veterans' Administration clinic in Pensacola, Florida, doctors determined that he had a brain aneurysm, and Elonzo was sent to the VA Medical Center in Alexandria, Louisiana. He remained hospitalized for eight years and was mostly absent throughout Williams's childhood. From that point on, Lillie assumed responsibility for the family.
In the fall of 1933, Williams was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, Walter and Alice McNeil, in Fountain, Alabama. Their daughter, Opal, went in exchange to live with Lillie to attend school in Georgiana, Alabama. Williams learned to play basic guitar chords from his aunt and listened to music that was played at dances and in area churches. The following year, the Williams family moved to Greenville, Alabama, where Lillie opened a boarding house next to the local cotton gin. The family later returned with Opal McNeil to Georgiana, where Lillie took several side jobs to support the family 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 down, and the family lost their possessions. They moved to Rose Street on the other side of town, into a house which Williams's mother soon turned into another boarding house. The house had a small garden in which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his sister Irene sold around Georgiana. At a chance meeting in Georgiana, Williams's sister Irene met U.S. Representative J. Lister Hill while Hill was campaigning across Alabama. She told Hill that her mother was interested in talking to him about her problems. With Hill's help, the family began collecting Elonzo's disability pension. Despite his medical condition, the family managed fairly well financially throughout the Great Depression.
There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar. While several prominent Georgiana residents later claimed to have bought it for him, his mother said she bought it for him and that she arranged for his first lessons. Williams told Ralph Gleason, who at the time was writing a weekly music column in the San Francisco Chronicle, "When I was about eight years old, I got my first git-tar. A second-hand $3.50 git-tar my mother bought me." Gawky and shy, Williams attached himself to an old Black man, Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne, a street performer whom Williams followed around town. Payne gave Williams guitar lessons in exchange for money or meals prepared by Lillie. Payne's basic musical style was blues; he repeatedly stressed the importance of maintaining good rhythm and time, and he added the showmanship of stoops, bows, laughs and cries to his performances. Later on, Williams recorded "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", one of the songs Payne had taught him. Williams was also influenced by country acts such as Roy Acuff. In 1937, Williams got into a fight with his physical education teacher 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 Payne also eventually moved to Montgomery, where he died in poverty in 1939. Williams later credited him as the provider of the only musical training he ever had.
Career
1930s
In July 1937, the Williams and McNeils 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. During the same year, he participated in a talent show at the Empire Theater and won the first prize of US$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; instead he based his compositions in storytelling and personal experience.
After school and on weekends, Williams sang and played his Silvertone guitar on the sidewalk in front of the WSFA radio studio. 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 with Dad Crysel's band.
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 as the head of the household. Elonzo stayed to celebrate his son's birthday in September before he returned to the medical center in Louisiana.
Williams's successful radio appearances fueled his entry into a music career, and he started his own band for show dates, the Drifting Cowboys. The original members were guitarist Braxton Schuffert, fiddler Freddie Beach, and upright bass player and comedian Smith "Hezzy" Adair. Originally billed as "Hank and Hezzy and the Drifting Cowboys", they frequently appeared as fill-ins at the local dancehall, Thigpen's Log Cabin, just out of Georgiana. The band traveled throughout central and southern Alabama performing in clubs and at private gatherings. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager. Williams dropped out of school in October 1939 so that he and 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 deference to Williams's schooling, the band could tour as far away as western Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. The band started playing in theaters before the screening of films and later they played in honky-tonks. Williams's alcohol use started to become a problem during the tours; on occasion he spent a large part of the show revenues on alcohol. Meanwhile, between tour schedules, Williams returned to Montgomery to host his radio show.