I missed the recent movie about Hank Williams Senior, (I saw the
Light). But I’ve seen the original
biopic “Cheating Heart “ and I’ve seen “Living Proof” which is about Hank Junior
(also known as Bocephus). Although it is a TV movie, I really like it. Richard Thomas (alias John Boy Walton) plays
young Hank Junior and is surprisingly good.
He doesn’t look much like him, but he’s a good actor and makes up for
the physical differences (Hank being 6 foot 4 and sturdily built) and the
limitations of its being made for TV.
The book is based on Hank’s autobiographical book of the same name and
covers his early years, his time when he was singing his father’s songs and
dominated by his mother “Miss Audrey”. It also covers his increasing
unhappiness with not being able to do his “own” kind of music, and then his
terrible fall in 1975, when climbing on a mountain in Montana. The fall caused serious injuries to his face
and skull and he almost died. However,
with typical tenacity, he fought his way back to life... having numerous surgeries
to reconstruct his face, and learning to talk again. It took a long time, over
2 years, for him to get back to some kind of normality… and he then started to
wear shades, a hat and a beard, to hide the scars.
Hank junior has enormous talent. In some ways, as a singer, he’s got a better
voice than his father. He has more power
and vigour.
He is also a very talented instrumentalist, playing 8 instruments, very
well. As a boy, he met all the great country
singers, who were friends and fans of his father, but he also loved rock music
and wanted to do both country and “southern rock.”
One of the visitors in his childhood was Jerry Lee Lewis, who
encouraged him to play rock and who didn’t see any conflict between loving country
music and also rock and roll.
In the 1970s and 80s, Hank worked with Waylon Jennings and Charlie
Daniels, and he was hard working and prolific.
His songs were raunchier than his father’s work, about drinking, having
fun and hell- raising. Though in most of
his music, there are poignant reminders of his father’s work. One of his albums -“Whisky Bent and Hell
bound” contains the title song, which refers to drinking in a honky-tonk and
listening to Hank Williams.
It also contains the songs “Women
I’ve never had”, “The Conversation” and “White Lightning” by the “Big Bopper”,
which is about making moonshine.
One of his best-known songs is “Family Tradition”, in which he refers
to the fact that he and his father both “lived out the songs that they wrote”,
and liked to “get drunk and sing all night...”
I’ve never seen Hank junior live, but I hope I will one day. What impresses me most with the snippets I’ve
seen of his concerts are his vigour as a performer and his obvious enjoyment of
his work... And his talent at adapting lyrics, on stage which is of course an
old country tradition.
I’m very glad that he’s
still going strong.
No comments:
Post a Comment