As a boy he befriended a black street musician, who taught him about music, and to play guitar, and he began to dream of working in that field. It was one of the few ways out of poverty for a country boy, of that era. He changed his name to Hank -feeling that it better fitted his image as a would-be country musician. In 1937 he started his career by performing on radio, and hosting a 15-minute program. His backup band was the Drifting Cowboys, and his mother assisted by managing the band. He was very close to his Mother. His father had been injured in World War One and became an invalid, so his mother had had to work and provide the family with an income. In the bleak 1930s she worked keeping a boarding house, in factories and as a nurse.
Hank dropped out of school, to work full time at his music, never having been very academic. He had no interest in learning...
He was unable to read music very well, but he had a talent for performing and writing. However he had serious health problems, which made him turn to pain killing medication and alcohol, and these became addictions...
When America entered World War Two, Hank was classified as 4F but his band members were drafted and he had to find replacements. His increasingly serious alcohol addiction made him hard to work with. He was fired from the radio show and spent time working in a shipbuilding company -but he continued to sing to soldiers. In 1943 he met Audrey Shepard who was separated from her soldier husband. She wanted to divorce him and marry Hank. Their relationship was to prove a very stormy one, due to Hank’s drinking and Audrey’s strong willful personality.
Their marriage was illegal at first because Audrey had not secured a legal divorce form her husband, but she and Hank remained together and their marriage was regularized. In 1949 their only son, Randall Hank Williams – now famous as Hank Williams II and “Bocephus”, was born.
Hank took care of Audrey’s daughter from her first marriage, but he and Audrey were often unhappy... Their up and down relationship however fuelled many of the songs he wrote which have become country classics.
Audrey was seen
as overly ambitious and wanting to take too great a part in Hank’s career, but
she had to put up with a lot of pain from his alcohol and drug problems. He was immensely popular but an unreliable
and often drunken performer. His songs about
poverty and loneliness and cheating, appealed to working people, who saw in
them something of their own hard lives and problems. His great works including “Your Cheating
Heart”, “Jambalaya”, “I’ll never get out of this world Alive”, "I Saw the Light", “Setting the Woods
on Fire”, and “Cold Cold Heart” are still performed and loved.
He had initially received
6 encores at his first appearance at the Opry in 1949 and he took part in one of
their post war European Tours, playing at Military bases in Germany, England
etc. But he was often drunk and spent time in sanitaria, trying to find a cure
for his addictions. As time went on, his health, always poor, was declining and
the strains of his marriage exhausted him still more. An accident on a hunting
trip, in 1951 left him with severe back pain, and after an operation, he began
to consume more painkillers, including morphine. His musical career was
successful, in spite of his problems. However his marriage was failing and eventually Audrey was worn out and sued for divorce in 1952. Hank had a relationship with a young woman which resulted in the birth of a daughter now known as Jett Williams…
But he then married Billie Jean Jones Eshliman, a young “Girl singer” of 19, who had been introduced to him by her then boyfriend, singer Faron Young.
But Hank’s time was running out. He had been working at the Louisiana Hayride and touring, and his dependency on pills was continuing. He was attended by an unqualified doctor who prescribed medication for him- and on New Year’s Day 1953, he died. He had been drinking during the car ride to his last gig, and on the journey he was in the back of his car, probably semi-conscious. At Oak Hill, West Virginia, his driver stopped for gas and realized that he was dead.
His death was tragic, he was only 29…but his body was worn out. Still, in his short life and career he wrote so many great songs and brought his music to thousands of people. He was one of the first Kings of Country Music. His songs are still famous and he drew from his real life for his inspiration and he spoke to the people of America…. and other countries. Country is said to be the White Man’s Blues and Hank, like other country singers, learned some his music from an old black man….
His marriage to Audrey produced his son Hank II, who initially started by singing his father’s songs, but broke away and turned to his own genre of Southern Rock… and he has been as famous as his father. His son Shelton Hank, known as Hank III has also moved between genres, doing country, “hellbilly”, and punk and metal…
No comments:
Post a Comment