Hank Williams

by Colin Escott

  Further trouble did ensue. Until 1980, Cathy made only desultory efforts to uncover the truth about her parentage. She found Marie Glenn (by then Marie Harvell), who was overjoyed to see her again but remained guarded on several big issues, and she found Bobbie’s surviving children in California. Then, in September 1984, Cathy went to see an investigative attorney, Keith Adkinson, who was sufficiently intrigued by her case to take it on. Adkinson discovered the October 1952 agreement between Hank and Bobbie, and, in July 1985, Cathy went public with her allegation that fraud had been committed. Over Hank Jr.’s strenuous objections, the Alabama Supreme Court eventually recognized her claim, reopened Hank’s estate, and awarded her a proportionate share together with some of his effects. By then, she’d married Keith Adkinson and become Jett Williams.

  Marie’s son, Butch, saw all that his former playmate went through in order to establish her share of the estate, and wondered if it was a price he was willing to pay. Marie died on January 17, 1991, without ever quite telling him who his father was, but there had been enough gossip for him to see a lawyer. Depositions were taken, although Butch is guarded about the advice he was given as a result. At some point, though, he decided that he would take it no further. His wide, thin-lipped mouth is much as Hank’s was, and he has the same dark, deep-set Indian eyes. He also began losing hair in his twenties, just as Hank had. He lives in a poor area of Montgomery, and his protestations that he needs no more than he has do not ring entirely true, but he understands the financial and emotional cost of challenging for a share of the estate. “I don’t see the sense of fighting a battle, to lose it all even if I was to win,” he says.

  Hank Williams Jr., meanwhile, became a star in his own right. For all the hits, now numbering around one hundred, perhaps his greatest achievement is that he at least partly escaped his father’s long shadow. While the offspring of other country stars such as Marty Robbins, Conway Twitty, and Buck Owens were unable to sustain music careers, “Junior” went from strength to strength.

  Audrey planned Junior’s career as a tribute to his father, thereby stoking the legend upon which her livelihood depended. Signed to his father’s record label, MGM, in December 1963, Junior’s first public appearance as a recording artist was, as noted, in Canton. Before he was out of his teens, Junior was touring with his father’s band members, singing his father’s songs for his father’s label, adding music to some of the lyrics Bamford and Lilly had grabbed from Hank’s bedroom, and recording some faked-up father-son duets. He even recorded narrations as Luke the Drifter Jr. As an act of fealty, it worked, but as music for the late ’60s, it did not. Turnout at the shows was good; record sales were generally poor. There were just two top five country hits during Junior’s first four years as a recording artist; the first was his father’s “Long Gone Lonesome Blues” and the other was a self-deprecatory tribute, “Standing in the Shadows” ("I know that I’m not great / Some folks say I imitate").

  “At first,” Junior told interviewer John Eskow, “I thought it was the greatest thing in the world — a ghost of this man that everyone loved. They think I’m daddy. Mother’s smilin’, money’s rolling in, seemed ideal.” By 1970, it seemed less so, and Junior’s distress only mounted as MGM edged him away from the tribute act toward country-pop. His first number one hit, “All for the Love of Sunshine,” was every bit as vacuous as its title. “Pain,” wrote Junior in his autobiography, Living Proof, “is walking out on stage two nights out of three, with your insides knotted all into a ball, and singing songs to a crowd who didn’t appreciate if you lived or died.”

  As the outlaw movement coalesced around Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Junior bought into its anti-Nashville stance and rock ’n’ roll attitude. He became the outlaw with the private income. Although bracketed with Waylon ’n’ Willie, he felt a closer spiritual kinship with southern rock bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band, and, in a series of albums culminating with Hank Williams, Jr. & Friends, declared his independence. He wrested himself free of his mother, free of Nashville, and free of MGM and all that it entailed.

  But then, on August 8, 1975, just as…and Friends was being readied for release, Junior fell down a mountainside in Montana while on a hunting trip. The injuries were horrific; parts of his face were literally scraped away. There was a long layoff and his appearance was forever transformed. When he reemerged, it was on Warner Bros., then Elektra Records, but by this point he was confident in his new direction. Ironically, though, his first major hit in more than five years came with yet another examination of his legacy, “Family Tradition.” The follow-up, “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound,” began to establish the Hank Williams Jr. persona. He’d stared down death on the mountainside, and now he was going to live each day as if it were his last. His music was swaggering, unapologetically sexist, hugely self-referential — and very successful. Of his thirty hits during the ’80s, seven of them peaked at number one. “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” was adopted as the theme of ABC-TV’s Monday Night Football.

  Junior’s musicality came to the fore on a chart-topping revival of Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and on occasional album cuts, but it was the defiant bubba-ness of songs like “Good Friends, Good Whiskey, Good Lovin’” (his last top ten country hit to date) or “Naked Women and Beer” (his duet with rap rocker Kid Rock) that his audience wanted.

  “Hey,” he said, “we don’t all live in New York or Los Angeles.”

  The copyrights on Hank’s songs, which had come up for their first twenty-eight-year renewal starting in 1974, came up again beginning in 2002. By this point, the business interests representing Hank’s legacy had undergone some changes. Wesley Rose began suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in the early 1980s, and sold Acuff-Rose to Gaylord Broadcasting in 1985. Two years earlier, Gaylord had bought the Grand Ole Opry and WSM, but by August 2002 Gaylord was hemorrhaging money, and it offloaded Acuff-Rose, by then one of the few profitable parts of its business, to the Sony corporation for $157 million. Hank Jr. reclaimed his share of the publishing from Sony/Acuff-Rose, but left the administration of songs with them. Shortly before the sale to Sony, Acuff-Rose also made a deal with Billie Jean to purchase her share outright for an undisclosed amount.

  Hank’s records no longer appeared on MGM because MGM Records no longer existed. In April 1972, the German record company Polydor had bought the MGM record catalog without rights to the logo, so Hank’s records began appearing first on Polydor, then on Mercury. In May 1998, Polydor was gobbled up by the Universal Music Group. Universal was the descendant of Decca Records, the label that had tried and failed to acquire Hank in 1947.

  Even Hank’s old house has gone. In 1984, part of it was moved to Music Row, although there were rumors to the effect that very little of it was actually moved. In May the following year, the house or a replica of it became a poorly stocked museum hosted by Audrey’s daughter, Lycrecia. The museum closed in 1988, and the house changed hands several times before Reba McEntire’s company, Starstruck Entertainment, bought the property in May 1998 and brought in a backhoe. Hank’s old farm in Williamson County was eventually acquired by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, who applied to have the antebellum farmhouse torn down.

  Hank Williams’ story deserved to end with a ringing, plangent E chord, and perhaps a flash of lonesome blue falsetto, but instead it continues to the drone of lawyers fighting their little fights. The lawsuits will continue as long as Hank’s posthumous income makes it worthwhile for anyone to pay two hundred dollars or more an hour — in other words, into the foreseeable future. His songs now accompany television commercials and have been reinterpreted across the musical spectrum, from the British punk acts to jazz divas like Cassandra Wilson and Norah Jones. Hank’s songs, in fact, are almost everywhere. As the records grow smaller, Hank Williams grows bigger.

  Anyone who dies as young as Hank invites endless “what if” speculation. It has been an item of faith in country music circles that Ha
nk would have had a rosy future if only he had lived. The reality might have been a little different. It’s doubtful that he could have saved himself even if he had rested up in Shreveport or Montgomery, concentrated on songwriting, and just made the short tours that he once intended. Too many of his self-destructive behaviors were hardwired. The spinal pain was irremediable, and the physical damage already done to his heart and perhaps his liver and other organs was irreversible. “He didn’t have a chance,” concluded Oscar Davis, who had seen the contrast between the Hank Williams of early 1949 and the Hank Williams of late 1952. “[but] I think he died happy [because] he proved to the world he was somebody.” It is far from certain whether that was as much a consolation to Hank at the last as Davis thought.

  The circumstances that combined to make Hank the most powerfully iconic figure in country music will never come again. No one will cut three or four classics in an afternoon session again; no one will redefine the vocabulary of the music in the way that he did. No one will be allowed to mess up in the way that he did, either. The stakes are too high, and professional help would have been foisted upon him. The specialness in Hank Williams would then have ebbed away because the compelling nature of his records stemmed in great measure from the fact that he held too much inside. Just how much was bottled up in Hank Williams is made clear by the vocal-guitar demos, most of which were probably recorded on home disc cutters or primitive tape decks. Hank probably thought that no more than two or three people would ever hear them, yet he sang as if his entire life and career hung upon his performance.

  If Hank had started his career a few years earlier, he would have lived and died in almost total obscurity because the social and market conditions that brought about the wider acceptance of hillbilly music weren’t in place, and the country was mired deep in the Depression. If he had lived a few years longer, he would have become an embarassment to the changing face of country music — too hillbilly by half. But, in arriving when he did and dying when and how he did, he became a prophet with honor.

  The final paradox is that Hank Williams left no journals, almost no letters, and no extended interviews, and the people who knew him best have to admit that on some level they didn’t know him at all. Yet, for all the ambiguity and unknowableness, Hank Williams appears almost desperately real to us through his music. He escaped the shame of seeing his drunks and dalliances splashed over the tabloids, but left a life diarized in verses sung with such riveting conviction that we feel as though we know him well. At his best, he froze a moment or a feeling in terms simple enough to register instantly yet meaningful enough to listen to forever. No one in any field of popular music can hope to do more.

  It’s impossible not to feel that Hank Williams’ “heart” songs, with their sense of unshakable solitariness, define his music and, in all likelihood, the man himself. He had his triumphs — many, many of them. He could grin his shiteating grin, slap the table, shout “Hot damn!” when someone who once hadn’t given him the time of day, or had once called him a damn drunk to his face, was almost coerced into recording one of his songs or booking him, but the moment of victory inevitably passed and he was left with Hiram Williams. Sometimes Hiram was good company, but too often he was not. There’s a romantic notion that the writer or poet calms his troubled soul by reducing it to rhyme, but as Hank Williams pulled off his boots and eased himself gingerly onto his bed, the little verses he had scratched out in his untutored spidery handwriting almost certainly offered him no relief at all.

  Hank and Irene as infants. (COURTESY OF LEILA GRIFFIN)

  Lon Williams, gentleman farmer. (COURTESY OF LEILA GRIFFIN)

  The Skippers and McNeils, circa 1925. Lilly is on the far left, with her hands on Hank, next to her brother-in-law, Walter McNeil. In the front row, Hank’s cousin J. C. McNeil is fifth from the right; his sister, Irene, is third from the right; his cousin Bernice McNeil is second from the right; and his cousin Marie McNeil is at the far right. (COURTESY OF THE CITY OF GEORGIANA)

  Hank, Lilly, Irene, and J. C. McNeil in front of the W. T. Smith log train. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

  Georgiana, Alabama. (COURTESY OF THE CITY OF GEORGIANA)

  Hank in Montgomery, circa 1940. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

  Hank and Pee Wee Moultrie. (COURTESY OF PEE WEE MOULTRIE)

  Hank and Audrey with Lilly and her third husband, J. C. Bozard. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

  Hank’s cousin Marie. (COURTESY OF LEWIS FITZGERALD)

  Hank with Lewis “Butch” Fitzgerald. (COURTESY OF LEWIS FITZGERALD)

  Stars of WSFA. Left to right top: Sammy Pruett, Hank, unknown, Audrey, Jimmy Webster. Bottom: Lum York. (COURTESY OF LUM YORK)

  Fred Rose and Roy Acuff. (GRAND OLE OPRY ARCHIVE)

  The trade advertisement for Hank’s first record. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Hank with Henry Clay, manager of KWKH, Shreveport. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Audrey shortly after giving birth to Hank Jr. (MENASCO)

  Friends and nemeses. From left: Jimmie Davis, cowriter of “Lonesome Whistle”; Hank’s first manager, Oscar Davis; his first hero, Roy Acuff; West Coast promoter Foreman Phillips. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Hank with Frank Walker, president of MGM Records. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Hank and Lilly at the Montgomery Homecoming. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Hank’s Montgomery Homecoming. (COURTESY OF JETT WILLIAMS)

  Hank and Audrey’s Corral. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Hank on the Grand Ole Opry. (TSLA/ESCOTT)

  Mother’s Best li’l ol’ boys. From left: Cedric Rainwater, emcee Cousin Louie Buck, Sammy Pruett, Hank, Jerry Rivers, Don Helms. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Shake ’n’ howdy in Dallas with young fan Darwin Dunn. (COURTESY OF DAVID DENNARD)

  Backstage at the Opry. (GRAND OLE OPRY ARCHIVES)

  Whistlin’ dixie. From left at rear: Hank, Jerry Rivers, Sammy Pruett, Cedric Rainwater, Don Helms. Front: Minnie Pearl. (GRAND OLE OPRY ARCHIVES)

  Staged arrest in Texas. (ESTATE OF HONEY WILDS)

  With Opry costars Jamup and Honey. (ESTATE OF HONEY WILDS)

  Greenville Homecoming. Hank is in the front seat with Butch Fitzgerald; Lilly is in the backseat. Lon Williams and Hank’s uncle Robert are standing beside the car, in which Hank would die some twenty-one weeks later. (GREENVILLE ADVOCATE)

  On the West Coast with songwriter Johnny Pusateri, April 1952. (ADAH)

  The drinks are on me. Hank with promoter Dub Allbritten, standing. (GLENN SUTTON)

  Billie Jean. (ADAH)

  “A picture from the past came slowly stealing….” Billie Jean. (COLIN ESCOTT)

  Hank marries Billie Jean, New Orleans, October 19, 1952. (MENASCO)

  Toby Marshall. (DAILY OKLAHOMAN)

  The last prescription (DAILY OKLAHOMAN)

  Billie Jean bids farewell. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

  Charles Carr, the driver from Hank’s last ride, comforts Marie at the funeral. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

  Irene and Lilly in Hank’s former bedroom. (ADAH)

  Lilly, Audrey, and Hank Jr. look over the letters of condolence. (ADAH)

  Audrey on the town with Jerry Lee and Linda Gail Lewis. (AUTHOR’S COLLECTION)

  Appendix 1

  DISSOLVE TO BLACK — HANK IN HOLLYWOOD

  A movie based on the life of Hank Williams was, and is, such a logical idea that it’s surprising it has only been done once, and done badly. The arc of Hank’s career lends itself naturally to a movie treatment, even if the unhappy ending doesn’t. His life played out over a short time frame, and the songs are plentiful and well known.

  The movie of Hank’s life was in discussion almost from the moment of his death, and the ties between MGM Records and MGM Pictures meant that Hank’s original recordings could be used for the soundtrack if MGM Pictures was prepared to forgive and forget. Shortly after the estate paid off Billie Jean, Audrey asked A. V. Bamford to go to Hollywood on her behalf and shop for a deal. In a letter to Lilly’s attorney, Robert Stewart, on September 24, 1953, Bamford explained why h
e was hawking a proposal around Hollywood without consulting anyone in Montgomery. It was Bamford’s opinion, “based on many years in show business… that this picture should be released not later than the end of 1954.” Like nearly everyone else, Bamford believed that Hank would be forgotten within a year, at best two years.

  On November 19, Bamford returned to Hollywood, this time with Audrey. He’d lined up an appointment with Kenneth MacKenna at MGM Pictures. MacKenna, born Leo Mielziner, had been a bit actor in the 1920s and 1930s before moving into production. He later returned to acting, starring in Judgment at Nuremberg before his death in 1962. Talking to MacKenna, Bamford tried to squeeze a percentage of the profits from MGM, but the company held firm in offering twenty thousand dollars for the rights to Hank’s life and another twenty thousand for the rights to the music. Bamford went around to Universal, Gene Autry Productions, and Republic Pictures, all of whom expressed an interest in making the movie. Returning to Nashville, he told everyone that he was in favor of holding out for fifty thousand up front and a percentage of the gross, but he was bluffing. MGM Records, which controlled Hank’s voice, and Acuff-Rose, which controlled most of the songs, would decide who made the movie. Bamford was irrelevant.