Hank Williams

by Colin Escott

  The dope in Hank’s system was probably heavy-duty prescription painkillers taken in nonprescription doses. Hank had become increasingly reliant upon painkillers as his back pain worsened through 1951. He would go to see several doctors, obtain multiple prescriptions, then take more than the prescribed dose. “It says, ‘Take one every four hours,’” he would say. “Maybe I ought to take four every hour; that’s four times as good, ain’t it?” It would have been sixteen times as good if the logic held water, but overmedication only raised Hank’s tolerance of painkillers so that he needed increasingly large doses, all the while increasing the chance of an overdose.

  At some point in January 1952, Hank moved into a house that Ray Price rented at 2718 Westwood Avenue in Nashville. Hank took the downstairs, and Price moved upstairs. Price had come to Nashville from Dallas during the early fall of 1951, and had met Hank backstage at the Opry ‘s Friday Night Frolics show. They liked each other at once, and Hank took Price to a show date in Evansville, Indiana, right after the Saturday night Opry. On the way, they wrote a song, “Weary Blues from Waitin’,” that Hank would copyright as his and Ray would record in October. It was one of the most affecting songs that Hank had a hand in writing.

  Through tears I watch young lovers as they go strolling by

  For all the things that might have been, I hang my head and cry.

  “Hank called me about two weeks later and wanted to know if he could do it,” said Price. “I was trying to get started, and I said, ‘Hank, I need it real bad.’ He said, ‘Well, you go on and use it then. If you don’t, I want to do it.’”

  On January 10, Audrey initiated divorce proceedings. Her Bill of Complaint was filed that day, but its list of grudges went back to the early days in Montgomery. She alleged that Hank’s conduct toward her there had embarrassed and humiliated her to the extent that she insisted that they relocate, explaining how they came to move to Shreveport. They weren’t completely happy in Shreveport, she said, because of what she termed Hank’s “continued misconduct,” but she conceded that they did enjoy “some degree of happiness” there. It wasn’t until the spring of 1951, though, that Hank’s conduct became what Audrey called “intolerable.” “While he had been inconsiderate, and even cruel at times,” she alleged, “he then became most abusive, cursing [me] without provocation, and striking [me] on numerous occasions.” Audrey then gave her version of the events surrounding New Year’s, concluded that “cohabitation was unsafe and improper,” and demanded that Hank disclose all of his income, then provide separate maintenance for her as well as child support for Hank Jr.

  Gradually, statements came through from Acuff-Rose and MGM concerning Hank’s income. It seems that on top of the thirty-two thousand dollars Acuff-Rose had paid Hank in 1951, another twenty-two thousand was awaiting payment. Acuff-Rose noted, though, that some of the money might have to go to Dixie Music after the resolution of the lawsuit over “Cold, Cold Heart.” Acuff-Rose had paid Hank on the understanding that they could reclaim the funds if the judgment went against them. From that point, though, “Cold, Cold Heart” funds remained frozen until 1955; by then another thirty-two thousand dollars (equivalent to two million records) had accumulated in escrow. The result of the suit wasn’t made public, but on January 3, 1955, Dixie Music was paid just twenty-five hundred dollars in damages and, ten days later, was awarded court costs of five thousand dollars. With that, the case was closed.

  MGM stated that between September 1, 1951, and December 31, 1951, Hank had earned $10,754 in domestic royalties and roughly $1,900 in overseas royalties, and that additional royalties covering the period from year-end to February 28, 1952, had yet to be calculated. MGM’s deposition also confirmed Hank’s contractual obligation to make movies, something the company denied after his death.

  Predictably, WSM stated that Hank was in the hole to the station to the tune of five hundred dollars, largely because of unpaid commissions on shows that had used the Opry name.

  Hank told a New York reporter that he played to around fifteen thousand people a night in 1951, but that was probably a maximum attendance rather than an average attendance. Even so, there’s no doubt that he was stuffing several thousand dollars into his valise every night. With radio sponsorship money added in, together with back-pocket money from selling songbooks and photos, Hank had clearly exceeded his declared 1950 income of $92,000, and had almost certainly grossed well over $100,000 in 1951, perhaps as much as the $150,000 he told the Wall Street Journal he would earn that year.

  After the depositions came Hank’s cross-complaint against Audrey. He tried to hold himself up as a model of financial probity while contending that Audrey had indulged in “every extravagance she could possibly stretch his income to cover.” He complained of her “insatiable hunger for clothes, jewelry, automobiles, and luxuries far beyond their economic status in life.” His cross-complaint was, in essence, a Hank Williams song rendered in a voice that was an incongruous blend of his own and his lawyer’s.

  The first shot across Audrey’s bow was a predictable one:

  The first years of…married life were troublesome, because of the inattention of [Audrey] to her home and husband…. [She] refused to appreciate the obligations of married life, denying her attentions and affections to her home and husband, insisting that she too was an entertainer and singer of ability, continuously insisting that the defendant include her on his programs…despite the fact that she had neither voice nor musical ability.

  Hank went on to say that he had lost many jobs during his early years in the business because Audrey had insisted upon being included in the act. She had, he said, been evicted from studios and other places of entertainment because of her fits of rage when her ambitions were denied.

  Next, Hank accused Audrey of “extravagant living and carousing…such as to keep [his] nose to the grindstone continuously to keep the bills paid.” She had, he said, “no interest or disposition to [stay] at home…but has always insisted upon traveling about, acting independent and free of all marital restraint, seeking and having everything she wanted, and a good time all the time.” Audrey hadn’t spent one full day with Hank Jr. since his birth, contended Hank, unless she couldn’t get someone to stay with him. “As a matter of fact,” he added, “[our] only child refers to its nurse as ‘Mama.’” In return for all Hank’s efforts to provide for Audrey, he said that she continually referred to him as a “ ‘son of a bitch’…and many other names too vile and vulgar to [mention here].”

  Then came the parting shots. First, Hank claimed to have evidence of Audrey’s adultery with a highway patrolman while he was on the Hadacol Caravan, and he went on to claim that she’d had an affair with a car salesman. Next, Hank went into detail about Audrey’s detestation of Lilly. She had “condemned and castigated him for showing any love or affection for her,” he said, adding that Audrey had ordered Lilly out of Vanderbilt on the day after the spinal operation. Finally, Hank con- firmed that Audrey had become pregnant around September 1950 but had had an abortion performed at home that had led to an infection, which in turn required treatment at St. Thomas’ Hospital. In the cross-complaint Hank spoke of his humiliation and grief when he heard what Audrey had done. Hank’s cross-complaint was a document that was, by turns, sad and bitter. Unrealistically, his cross-complaint concluded with a request for custody of Hank Jr.

  Both sides of the action speak of a dead weight of hurt. It’s hard to tell if Hank still loved Audrey, but it’s clear that she no longer loved him. The divorce proceedings acquired their own momentum, and Audrey seemed set upon her course this time. She would have found it difficult to stop, even if she had been inclined to do so. Hank knew that he had failed and, according to those close to him, still hoped from time to time for a reconciliation. Audrey claimed that she was divorcing Hank for the good of the children. “I had these two children,” she told Dorothy Horstman in 1973, “and I said, ‘These children have to have a mother.’ I could see they wasn’t going to have a father. H
e was so far gone that they just got nervous when he walked in the door.” Lycrecia later remembered that she’d only seen Hank drunk a couple of times, but the tension in the house when Hank was there must have been unbearable for most of 1951. There’s a haunting photograph that has appeared in several television documentaries in which Hank and Audrey are standing outside their house, turning away from each other. Audrey is covering her eyes as if in tears, while Hank looks down and away. Knowing the state of their relationship during this late stage, it seems as though someone has captured one of their arguments. It’s just as likely, though, that Hank Jr. and Lycrecia were playing hide-and-seek, and that Hank and Audrey were covering their eyes or averting their gaze while the kids scuttled off to hide.

  When he signed his cross-complaint on March 5, Hank claimed not to have worked since the operation, which was almost true. He’d taken the Drifting Cowboys off salary, telling them that he would call them for dates and hope that they were available. Sammy Pruett was the first to take full-time employment elsewhere, when he joined Carl Smith’s Tune-smiths. Almost since joining Hank, Pruett had felt stymied keeping the tic-toc rhythm, with so few opportunities for soloing. Don Helms, Jerry Rivers, and Howard Watts tried to keep themselves available for Hank, but Pruett didn’t work a day with him after his operation. The other Drifting Cowboys worked with Ray Price more than anyone else. They wanted to be on call for Hank, but knew that it limited their chances of employment elsewhere because no one wanted to hire band members who were likely to disappear as soon as Hank Williams decided he was ready to put the Cowboys back together.

  Hank’s first road trip after his hospitalization was in late January and it was a disaster. He missed a show in Norfolk, Virginia, but was brought into Richmond, Virginia, on January 29 for a two-night stand. Only Don Helms and Howard Watts were available, and local pickers were recruited to round out the band. Ray Price and Johnnie and Jack were also on the show. The troupe was booked into a hotel, and Hank had a minder assigned to him. With the low cunning that he summoned up when he was desperate, he called down to room service for tomato juice. When that was delivered, he told the waiter that his legs were hurting and he needed some rubbing alcohol. Room service brought it up. Hank mixed the rubbing alcohol with the tomato juice, drank it, then began vomiting violently. Just before showtime he was allowed a beer to settle his stomach, but he was still in no shape to perform.

  In a review for the Richmond Times-Despatch the following day Edith Lindeman’s headline read: “Hank Williams Hillbilly Show Is Different: Star Makes Impression of Unexpected Kind.” She went on to describe how Ray Price opened the show, then brought on a clearly inebriated Hank Williams. According to Price, Hank was sitting in the wings, motioning him to do one song after another. Price didn’t have that many songs in his repertoire, but he wanted to give Hank time to straighten up. Price recalled,

  This went on for about thirty minutes. Finally, I said, “Folks, now, Hank’s had a serious back operation and he’s really not feeling too well so you’ll all have to forgive him, and here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Hank Williams.” And Hank come moping out there, and the newspaper said his legs certainly wasn’t holding him erect. He had problems remembering his first song and staying in key, and quit after one song.

  The emcee said that anyone who wanted a refund would get one, but the promoter, who was reported to be “ill at home,” had already had the proceeds brought to him, and there was nothing left for refunds.

  During the intermission, Hank’s minder walked him around out in the frigid night air, forcing a sandwich and some coffee down him. Then Hank went back out to face the crowd. “I wish I was in as good a shape as you are,” he said. “Hank Williams is a lot of things, but he ain’t a liar. If they’s a doctor in the house I’ll show him I’ve been in the hospital for eight weeks…and if you ain’t nice to me, I’ll turn around and walk right off.” Ray Price, seeing that Hank was about to drop his pants onstage, came running out, and grabbed the microphone. “We all love you, Hank, don’t we, folks?” he said, and tried to hustle Hank offstage. Hank headed for his limo. No autographs. No shake ’n’ howdy. There had been other nights like that, but this time there was a newspaper reporter on hand. The following night, Hank was hungover and vengeful. He dedicated a song to a “gracious lady writer” and swung right into “Mind Your Own Business.” It was a moment to savor: shame followed by swift redemption in song. If only all the large and small humiliations could have been reversed so deftly.

  The following day, they were in Charleston, South Carolina. Price had to sub for Hank there. The next night, they worked a show date in Macon, Georgia, and then Hank disappeared. “God only knows where he went,” said Price.

  I think he went to the coast. Some banker called Jim Denny and said, “We have a man down here that says he’s Hank Williams and wants to cash a check.” Jim said, “What does he look like?’"And he told him. And Jim said, “Well, that’s Hank all right.” Hank’s driver was with him. We called him Brains. Jim spoke to him. He was real mad. He said, “You get that check cashed, and when you get to the ocean, don’t stop, just drive on out in the damn ocean.”

  By now word was spreading that getting to see Hank Williams was a hit-or-miss affair. Johnnie Wright reckons that Hank’s average had slipped from its best — around .850 — to .500. Sober, no one had more respect for his fans than Hank, but when he was drunk, yet still believing he was able to perform, he was obtuse and would respond rudely to hecklers. “Someone git a shovel and cover that up,” he would say, or “Hey, pal, we got a surprise for you. After the show, we gonna git yore momma and yore poppa up here, and git ’em married.” Mostly, though, if Hank was drinking, he was too drunk to stand, much less play, but even then he attracted his apologists, much as George Jones later would. If someone said Hank was drunk, someone else would say, “Hell, he had a right to be.”

  On April 3, Hank and Audrey’s lawyers arrived at a tentative property settlement and arrangements for the custody of Hank Jr. In the preamble, buried among the “whereas’s” and “hereto’s,” was a sentence noting that the parties couldn’t agree upon a divorce, intimating that Hank was still opposed to it and that Audrey would have to go to court to obtain it. Ray Price remembers that in one set of discussions with the lawyer, Hank more or less agreed to Audrey’s terms, despite the fact that his lawyer considered them punitive. This, according to Price, was because Hank wanted to show his continued love for Audrey and his regret over what had happened. Perhaps in acceding to her demands he would achieve that. Price also remembers that Hank would call Audrey almost every day, and that she would hang up on him.

  Predictably, the care of Hank Jr. was entrusted to Audrey, with the provision that Hank could have Hank Jr. reside with him for three months during the summer of 1953. Audrey got the house on Franklin Road, including all the fixtures, as well as her 1951 Cadillac convertible and one thousand dollars in cash. Hank also agreed to pay her attorney’s fees. According to court documents, $13,559 was still owing on the house, and Audrey assumed that debt, together with a $706 note on the Cadillac. But she got one-half of all Hank’s future royalties with a binding obligation upon MGM and Acuff-Rose to remit them directly to her. If Audrey ever remarried, her claim upon the royalties would end and Hank’s only obligation would be a maintenance payment of $300 a month for Hank Jr. until he was twenty-one. Hank got Hank and Audrey’s Corral, a marginal business at the best of times, and the farm in Williamson County with its derelict house and $45,000 mortgage. Hank would keep all of his road income, presumably because Audrey knew most of the ways he could hide it from her.

  In retrospect, it was a fabulous settlement for Audrey, but at the time, she was so skeptical that she built in a provision for Hank to remit extra funds to her if her earnings from half of his royalties dropped below certain thresholds. Audrey would never remarry — not, as she was fond of saying, because no love could ever match what she and Hank had shared, but because she couldn’t bear for
her half of the oil well to gush in someone else’s backyard. She didn’t retire to a life of quiet contemplation, but all suitors knew her ground rule on marriage.

  If Hank was indeed still besotted with Audrey, it didn’t stop him from taking a new girlfriend, Bobbie Jett. Ray Price remembers Bobbie accompanying Hank on the disastrous January tour, and some claim that she was with him in Montgomery earlier in the month, so it is very likely that Hank knew her before he separated from Audrey. Bobbie had lived a life every bit as troubled as Hank’s. She came from a prominent Nashville family, but her mother had lit out for California shortly after Bobbie was born, leaving Bobbie in the care of her grandmother. Born on October 5, 1922, Bobbie was slightly less than a year older than Hank. After the war she too had gone to California, where she later claimed to have married movie star Monte Hale. Married or not (likely not), she returned to Nashville with a child, Jo, in 1949, and was working as a secretary when Hank met her. Hank was not alone in fancying Bobbie; Decca Records’ Paul Cohen was beguiled by her, as were several others.

  By the time the blossoms began appearing along Natchez Trace, Hank was starting to think about work again. On March 22, 1952, he was on the Grand Ole Opry, quite possibly for the first time that year. Immediately after the show, Hank and an Opry troupe flew to New York for a March 26 appearance on the Kate Smith Evening Hour. The following weekend, he was back on the Opry and working on shows for WSM. In early April, he left for a tour of California that probably started in Fresno on April 9.

  On April 13, Hank was interviewed by jazz journalist Ralph J. Gleason, who later cofounded Rolling Stone but was writing for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. Gleason caught up with Hank at the Leamington Hotel in Oakland. Gleason was surprised by the number of pills Hank had about his person, and by the fact that the pills constituted most of his breakfast. Hank talked about his background and about “folk” music in much the same terms as he had in Charleston earlier that year. He professed to like the petulant, melodramatic style of Johnnie Ray, and he told Gleason that he could never sing songs like “Mairzy Doats” or “Rag Mop” because he couldn’t relate to the lyrics. Harping on one of his favorite themes, he said, “A song ain’t nuthin’ in the world but a story with music to it…. I’ve been offered some of the biggest songs to sing and turned ’em down. There ain’t nobody can pick songs.”