YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. "Long Gone Daddy: A Biography of Hank Williams, Country Music's Tragic Hero". If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Hank Williams became one of America's first country music superstars, with hits like "Your Cheatin' Heart," before his early death at 29. [61], In 1950, Williams began recording as "Luke the Drifter" for his religious-themed recordings, many of which are recitations rather than singing. It was placed in a silver coffin that was first shown at his mother's boarding house at 318 McDounough Street for two days. It was her second marriage and his first. [28] His musical style contained influences from Payne along with several other country influences, among them Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, and Roy Acuff. Williams was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most significant country music artists of all time. Ultimately, the completion of the album included recordings by Alan Jackson, Norah Jones, Jack White, Lucinda Williams, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, Patty Loveless, Levon Helm, Jakob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, and Merle Haggard. In late 1951, he suffered a minor heart attack while visiting his sister in Florida. [43] The recordings "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" became successful, and earned Williams the attention of MGM Records. As a girl, Jones had lived down the street from Williams when he was with the Louisiana Hayride, and now Williams began to visit her frequently in Shreveport, causing him to miss many Grand Ole Opry appearances. Williams, who was recently separated from WSM "for failure to make appearances," was a resident of Montgomery, Ala. As a youth he sold peanuts and shined shoes, meanwhile strumming on a. At cafes across the South, the paper added, his songs blared over radios as news of his death spread. [19] In 1935, they settled in Garland, Alabama, where Lillie opened a new boarding house; they later moved with Williams' cousin Opal McNeil to Georgiana, Alabama,[20] where Lillie took several side jobs to support the family despite the bleak economic climate of the Great Depression. Jett was 21 when she realized Williams could be her biological father. Charles Carr told the AJC in 2002 he was the only witness when Hank Williams died. [75], On August 11, 1952, Williams was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry for habitual drunkenness and missing shows. Jett Williams, 39, was born to Bobbie Jett five days after Williams died. His hair began falling out, and he put on 30 extra pounds. He died in the back seat of his Cadillac while being driven to a gig on New Year's Day 1953. [138], After Williams' death, Audrey Williams filed a suit in Nashville against MGM Records and Acuff-Rose. Fearful that disc jockeys and jukebox operators would hesitate to accept these unusual recordings, Williams used this alias to avoid hurting the marketability of his name. They hit it off, and Williams asked Sheppard to marry him almost immediately. . [43] The book only listed lyrics, since its main purpose was to attract more audiences, though it is also possible that he did not want to pay for transcribing the notes. Contribute to chinapedia/wikipedia.en development by creating an account on GitHub. [97], Williams' final single, released in November 1952 while he was still alive, was titled "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive". In 1952, he divorced Sheppard and married singer Billie Jean Horton. [121] In 1999, Williams was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame. [85], Williams was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia, on December 31, 1952. A pop cover version by Tony Bennett released the same year stayed on the charts for 27 weeks, peaking at number one. "I went inside and an older guy, around 50, came back out with me, looked in the back seat, and said, 'I think you've got a problem'. Carr was exhausted and, according to the police reports, nervous enough to invite suspicion that foul play had been involved in Williams' death. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. His iconic status was amplified by his death at age 29 and by his reputation for hard living and heart-on-the-sleeve vulnerability. [58] He brought together Bob McNett (guitar), Hillous Butrum (bass), Jerry Rivers (fiddle) and Don Helms (steel guitar) to form the most famous version of the Drifting Cowboys, earning an estimated $1,000 per show (equivalent to $11,400 in 2021) That year Audrey Williams gave birth to Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.). About 3,000 friends of the family shuffled through his mothers living room on Montgomerys North McDonough Street where Williams body was lain in state that Saturday night. One year later, he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues", a huge country hit, which propelled him to stardom on the Grand Ole Opry. Killorn stated that the fact that Carr told him it was Hank Williams caused him to remember the incident. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (each updated 1/26/2023). He wrote songs weekly to perform during the shows. [74], In June 1952, he recorded "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "Window Shopping", "Settin' the Woods on Fire", and "I'll Never Get out of this World Alive". In addition, her relationship with Williams' mom proved complicated. The day after Williams died, The Montgomery Advertiser recalled Williams as a former peanut vendor who learned to play guitar at age 6. [142], For other people named Hank Williams, see. Malinin found hemorrhages in the heart and neck and pronounced the cause of death as "insufficiency of [the] right ventricle of [the] heart." The local record shops sold out of all of their records, and customers were asking for all records ever released by Williams. In February 2005, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating that Williams' heirsson, Hank Williams Jr, and daughter, Jett Williamshave the sole rights to sell his recordings made for a Nashville radio station in 1951. [78] His final concert was held in Austin, Texas, at the Skyline Club on December 19. Audrey Williams divorced him that year; the next day he recorded "You Win Again" and "I Won't be Home No More". You wrote only what you felt boil up inside you. [80] In June 1952, Williams moved in with his mother, even as he released numerous hit songs such as "Half as Much" in April, "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" in July, "You Win Again" in September, and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" in November. Jeff Wallenfeldt, manager of Geography and History, has worked as an editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica since 1992. Roy Acuff, along with a host of countrys biggest stars, performed I Saw The Light., MONTGOMERY, AL - JANUARY 4: Guitar themed flower arrangements adorn the gravesite of country singer Hank Williams as he is laid to rest at the Oakwood Cemetary Annex on January 4, 1953 in Montgomery, Alabama. Marshall admitted that he had also prescribed chloral hydrate to his recently deceased wife, Faye, as a headache medicine. From The Montgomery Advertiser. [112] He was ranked second in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003, behind only Johnny Cash who recorded the song "The Night Hank Williams Came To Town". [16] Williams' father was frequently relocated by the lumber company railway for which he worked, and the family lived in many southern Alabama towns. The Pulitzer Prize jury awarded him a posthumous special citation in 2010 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". He returned to perform in KWKH and WBAM shows and in the Louisiana Hayride, for which he toured again. Williams' mother had claimed that he was dead. By the early 1940s, he'd caught the attention of music executives in Nashville. "[36], On March 19, Marshall declared that he felt Williams was depressed and committed suicide by taking a higher dose of the drugs he had prescribed. Williams, who wrote most of his songs himself, crafted direct, emotionally honest lyrics that had a poetic simplicity that spoke not only to fans of country and western music but to a much broader audience, as evidenced by the pop hit crooner Tony Bennett had with his cover of Cold, Cold Heart in 1951. One woman was carried out after she collapsed. [16], The circumstances of Williams's death are still controversial. Audrey Williams asked Rose if her husband could sing a song for him on that moment,[51] Rose agreed, and he liked Williams' musical style. The couple were married in 1944 at a Texaco Station in Andalusia, Alabama, by a justice of the peace. When new wife Billie Jean asked what was the matter, she claimed his. James Ellis Garner later played fiddle for him. Since Williams' parents were both followers of Freemasonry,[7] Williams was named after Hiram I. The song, backed by "Kaw-Liga", was No. [77], During his last recording session on September 23, 1952, Williams recorded "Kaw-Liga", along with "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Take These Chains from My Heart", and "I Could Never be Ashamed of You". Instead of performing, Williams died 70 years ago today, on Jan. 1, 1953. On New Year's Day 1953, at the age of 29, Williams suffered from heart failure while being driven to his next scheduled concert in Charleston, West Virginia, and died suddenly in the back seat of the car in Oak Hill, West Virginia. [35] 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. Because a corpse was involved, Stamey called in radio officer Howard Janney. Later on, Williams recorded "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", one of the songs that Payne taught him. He had 2 stepmothers and a mother. [62] Although the real identity of Luke the Drifter was supposed to be anonymous, Williams often performed part of the material of the recordings on stage. [113] In the 1980 Canadian film, Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, Williams is portrayed by singer Sneezy Waters. Before it was over, some 20,000 people had filled the auditorium and the street outside for what was described as the largest funeral in Montgomerys history. [97] His funeral was said to have been far larger than any ever held for any other citizen of Alabama, and the largest event ever held in Montgomery. More than half of the 66 recordings he would make under his own name (he also released a string of religious-themed recordings under the name Luke the Drifter) were Top Ten country and western hits, many of them reaching number one, including Cold, Cold Heart, Your Cheatin Heart, Hey, Good Lookin, Jambalaya (On the Bayou), and Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive. His extraordinary Lost Highway peaked at number 12. His performances were acclaimed when he was sober, but despite the efforts of his work associates to get him to shows sober, his abuse of alcohol resulted in occasions when he did not appear or his performances were poor. The result of the original autopsy indicated that Williams died of a heart attack. Long plagued by alcoholism, Williams fell ill at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville on the last night of 1952. [57] On June 11, 1949, Williams made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry, where he became the first performer to receive six encores. Stopping for gas in Oak Hill, West Virginia, Carr realized Williams was dead. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager. Around this time Williams released more hit songs, such as "My Son Calls Another Man Daddy", "They'll Never Take Her Love from Me", "Why Should We Try Anymore", "Nobody's Lonesome for Me", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me", "Moanin' the Blues", and "I Just Don't Like This Kind of Living". On the weekend after the tour ended, Williams was photographed backstage at the Grand Ole Opry signing a motion picture deal with MGM. All rights reserved (About Us). An immensely talented songwriter and an impassioned vocalist, he also experienced great crossover success in the popular music market. His stardom put money in his pocket and gave him the kind of creative freedom artists long for. [8] Williams and Carr departed from Montgomery, Alabama at around 1:00p.m. Williams arrived at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, where Carr checked in at 7:08 p.m and ordered two steaks in the lobby to be delivered to their rooms from the hotel's restaurant. He made his radio debut at age 13; formed his first band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys, at age 14; and early on began wearing the cowboy hats and western clothing that later were so associated with him. Later he would dull his physical pain with morphine, but alcohol remained his painkiller of choice when he sought to relieve the heartache of his tumultuous relationship with Audrey Sheppard, whom he married in 1942 (they divorced in 1952). In 1977, a national organization of CB truck drivers voted "Your Cheatin' Heart" as their favorite record of all time. James E. (Jimmy) Porter was the youngest, being only 13 when he started playing steel guitar for Williams. [24], There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar. His funeral took place on January 4 at the Montgomery Auditorium, with his casket placed on the flower-covered stage. [90], At around midnight on January 1, 1953, when the two crossed the Tennessee state line and arrived in Bristol, Virginia, Carr stopped at a small all-night restaurant and asked Williams if he wanted to eat. However, his plaintive, bluesy phrasing was unique and became a touchstone of country music. [41], The American entry into World War II in 1941 marked the beginning of hard times for Williams. Alternate titles: Hiram King Williams, the Hillbilly Shakespeare. He was unresponsive and rigor mortis had already begun to set in. A little more than a year later, on December 30, 1952, Williams, newly married to a younger woman named Billie Jean, left his mother's home in Montgomery for Charlestown, West Virginia. [29] Around two tons of flowers were sent. Representative Cunningham presented the committee a telegram from Marshall's seized files, directed to the estate of Hank Williams for $736.39, and stated that the committee was evaluating the revocation of Marshall's parole. When new wife Billie. Sheppard, it seems, was extremely eager to make a mark in show business and, despite her obviously limited talent, pushed her husband to let her sing. Little did he know that the woman he would fall in love with would be the key to his success. Williams said he did not, and those are believed to be his last words. Marshall had been previously convicted for forgery, and had been paroled and released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1951. In 1951, Williams fell during a hunting trip in Tennessee, reactivating his old back pains. [26] His final single released during his lifetime was ironically titled "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. Carr told Cooper this happened at the side of the road six miles from Oak Hill, but investigating officer Howard Janney placed it in the Skyline Drive-In restaurant's parking lot, noting that Carr sought help from a Skyline employee. In full support of Williams' musical aspirations was his mother, Lillie. The two were often rivals for Williams' time and attention. Williams was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia on Wednesday, December 31 (New Year's Eve), 1952. . He later started to consume painkillers, including morphine, and alcohol to help ease the pain. As a result, he was not considered a reliable performer. Williams was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most significant country music artists of all time. It included 10 songs: "Mother Is Gone", "Won't You Please Come Back", "My Darling Baby Girl" (with Audrey Sheppard), "Grandad's Musket", "I Just Wish I Could Forget", "Let's Turn Back the Years", "Honkey-Tonkey", "I Loved No One But You", "A Tramp on the Street", and "You'll Love Me Again". A rookie Tennessee highway patrol officer, Swann Kitts, told reporters he had stopped the Cadillac and fined Carr $25 for speeding, The United Press reported on Jan. 2, 1952. Carr stopped at a small all-night restaurant and asked Williams if he wanted to eat. "I think he had a profound sadness in him," says Marc Abraham, writer and director of I Saw The Light. Hank Williams in his coffin. [36] So many listeners contacted the radio station asking for more of "the singing kid", possibly influenced by his mother, that the producers hired him to host his own 15-minute show twice a week for a weekly salary of US$15 (equivalent to $300 in 2021). A year later he was entering talent shows and had his own band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys. His funeral was held the next day, Sunday Jan. 4, 1953, at Montgomerys City Auditorium. [131] In 1993, a double-disc set of recordings of Williams for the Health & Happiness Show was released. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). During an initial hearing, Marshall insisted that he was a doctor, refusing to answer further statements. Carr later kept driving until he reached a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where Williams was discovered unresponsive in the back seat. [120] The same year, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best RecordingsPlus! [91] Carr later drove on until he stopped for fuel at a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where he realized that Williams had been dead for so long that rigor mortis had already set in. The court rejected claims made by PolyGram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother's Best Flour Show. [46], In 1945, when he was back in Montgomery, Williams started to perform again for the WSFA radio station. The Georgiana . [64][65] Some of the compositions were accompanied by a pipe organ. [87] Carr called the Charleston auditorium from Knoxville to say that Williams would not arrive on time owing to the ice storm and was instead ordered to drive Williams to Canton, Ohio, for a New Year's Day concert there. Hank Williams was an aspiring country music singer when he first met Audrey Williams. There he sang "Hey Good Lookin'", and the next week Como opened the show singing the same song, with apologies to Williams. [141] The original acetates made their way to the possession of Jett Williams. "I saw that the overcoat and blanket that had been covering Hank had slipped off," Carr told yet another reporter. Marshall gave Cunningham a list of his patients, including Hank Williams. Born in Banks, Alabama, in 1923, Audrey Mae Sheppard met her future husband, Hank, in high school. [54] After a few more moderate hits, in 1949 he released his version of the 1922 Cliff Friend and Irving Mills song "Lovesick Blues",[55] made popular by Rex Griffin. The house had a small garden on which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his sister Irene sold around Georgiana. Probably taught his first chords by Payne, Williams began playing the guitar at age 8. Long plagued by alcoholism, Williams fell ill at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville on the last night of 1952. His father worked as a logger before entering the Veterans Administration hospital when young Hank was just six. [5] He met Horace Raphol "Toby" Marshall in Oklahoma City, who claimed to be a doctor. His salary was enough for him to start his own band, which he dubbed the Drifting Cowboys. He purchased the DSC title for $35 from the "Chicago School of Applied Science"; in the diploma, he requested that the DSc was spelled out as "Doctor of Science and Psychology". They later drove to Oak Hill in search of a hospital, stopping at a Pure Oil station on the edge of town. Many of their replacements refused to play in the band due to Williams' worsening alcoholism. [13][14], As a child, Williams was nicknamed "Harm" by his family and "Herky" or "Skeets" by his friends. He also wrote a number of religious songs under the pseudonym Luke the Drifter. [7] Because of an ice storm in the Nashville area that day, Williams could not fly, so he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to the concerts. [26] During the funeral four women fainted and a fifth was carried out of the auditorium in hysterics after falling at the foot of the casket. Finally, after not hearing from the singer for two solid hours, the driver pulled the car over in Oak Hill, West Virginia, at 5:30 in the morning. [88] The two arrived at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Carr requested a doctor for Williams, who was affected by the combination of the chloral hydrate and alcohol he had consumed on the way to Knoxville. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. [12] Stamey and Janney found some empty beer cans and the unfinished handwritten lyrics to a song yet to be recorded in the Cadillac convertible. In ways that must have seemed unimaginable to this poor country boy, Williams' life quickly changed. [52] Rose signed Williams to a six-song contract, and leveraged this deal to sign Williams with Sterling Records. Widely considered country music's first superstar, Hiram "Hank" Williams was born September 17, 1923, in Mount Olive, Alabama. Keillor, Garrison. Among other fake titles, he said that he was a Doctor of Science. The Journal that day reported WSFA received hundreds of calls and telegrams requesting the station play his songs. His funeral took place on January 4 at the Montgomery Auditorium,[23] with his coffin placed on the flower-covered stage. [101] Released in July, "I Won't Be Home No More" went to No. She drove her son and his band to shows throughout southern Alabama. It was at this time that Williams decided to change his name informally from Hiram to Hank. Williams and her son, Hank Jr., became estranged after he turned 18. His childhood was also shaped by his spinal condition, spina bifida, which set him apart from other kids his age and fostered a sense of separation from the world around him. However, much of what led to his non-sobriety is exactly what made his music as good as it was. He was very kind, and said Oak Hill General Hospital was six miles on my left," and that would place him in Mount Hope. All Rights Reserved. His name was misspelled as "Hiriam" on his birth certificate, which was prepared and signed when he was 10 years old. The marriage was technically invalid, since Sheppard's divorce from her previous husband did not comply with the legally required 60-day trial reconciliation. For Hank to have lived even a normal life span, he would have had to avoid chemical dependence. [106], On February 8, 1960, Williams' star was placed at 6400 Hollywood Boulevard on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The authors of Hank Williams: The Biography pointed out that "Hank" sounded more "like a hillbilly and western star" than "Hiram". A quick study, Williams learned how to play folk, country and, thanks to an African-American street musician named Rufus Payne, the blues. [67], Williams' career reached a peak in the late summer of 1951 with his Hadacol tour of the U.S. with Bob Hope and other actors. In 2011, Williams' 1949 MGM number one hit, "Lovesick Blues", was inducted into the Recording Academy Grammy Hall of Fame. They began to fill the auditorium hours before the afternoon funeral. A doctor injected. He was dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry because of his unreliability and alcoholism. PolyGram contended that Williams' contract with MGM Records, whose back catalogue they owned at the time, prior to current owner Universal Music's absorption of PolyGram the next year, gave them rights to release the radio recordings. Hiram "Hank" Williams died on January 1, 1953, at the age of 29. Malinin also found that, apparently unrelated to his death, Williams had also been severely kicked in the groin during a fight in a Montgomery bar a few days earlier[14] in which he had also injured his left arm, which had been subsequently bandaged. [4], Due to Williams's excesses, Fred Rose stopped working with him. Now free to travel without Williams' schooling taking precedence, the band could tour as far away as western Georgia and the Florida Panhandle. She stated that she received after Williams' death a bill for $800 from Marshall for the treatment. [96] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver casket, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners. Cut from rural stock, Williams, the third child of Lon and Lillie Williams, grew up in a household that never had much money. [122] On April 12, 2010, the Pulitzer Prize Board awarded Williams a posthumous special citation that paid tribute to 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". Corrections? During one of his concerts, Williams met his idol, Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff backstage,[43] who later warned him of the dangers of alcohol, saying, "You've got a million-dollar talent, son, but a ten-cent brain. In 1946, Williams traveled to Nashville to meet with music publisher Fred Rose and the Acuff-Rose Publications company. [89] Dr. P. H. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain of morphine. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hank-Williams. [133] In May 2014, further radio recordings by Williams were released. [40] Williams' alcohol use started to become a problem during the tours; on occasion he spent a large part of the show revenues on alcohol. The suit demanded that both of the publishing companies continue to pay her half of the royalties from Hank Williams' records. Astrological Sign: Virgo, Death Year: 1953, Death date: January 1, 1953, Death State: West Virginia, Death City: Oak Hill, Death Country: United States, Article Title: Hank Williams Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/hank-williams, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: September 18, 2019, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. [38] The same day, the District Attorney's office declared that after a new review of the autopsy report of Faye Marshall, toxicological and microscopic tests confirmed that her death on March 3 was not related to the medication prescribed by her husband. 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, and the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1999. Entrance marker of the Oakwood Annex Cemetery in, Grave of Audrey (left) and Hank Williams (right) at Oakwood Annex Cemetery, Oklahoma investigation of Horace Marshall. Williams' version became a huge country hit; the song stayed at number one on the Billboard charts for four consecutive months,[56] and gained Williams a place in the Grand Ole Opry. [77] It was the second marriage for both (each being divorced with children). [103][104] Alabama governor Gordon Persons officially proclaimed September 21 "Hank Williams Day". Over the next several years he churned out a number of other big hits, including "Cold, Cold Heart," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey Good Lookin'," "Lost Highway," and I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing. At his mothers request, the concert in Canton went on as planned. Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine, which made his heart problems worse. [59] He met Horace "Toby" Marshall in Oklahoma City, who said that he was a doctor. Despite his physical failings, Williams was cleared for more travel. Hanks first and second wives watched from the front pew. As a boy, Williams was the musical protg of Rufus Payne, an African American street performer who went by the name Tee-Tot and busked on the streets of Georgiana and Greenville, Alabama. [98][99] Williams' remains are interred at the Oakwood Annex in Montgomery. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain (16.2 mg) of morphine. The important thing is that he made millions of people happy, an editorial in The Advertiser stated on Jan. 3, 1953. Hank jr. was three years old when his father died in 1959 His father actually died January 1, 1953, and of course Jr was 3 years old. On the evening of Dec. 30, 1952, the restless, rail-thin 29-year-old tossed and turned in bed at his home in Montgomery, Ala. Shortly thereafter he became a regular on the newly created Louisiana Hayride radio program based in Shreveport, Louisiana. [27] Payne taught Williams chords, chord progressions, bass turns, and the musical style of accompaniment that he would use in most of his future songwriting. Carr requested a doctor for Williams, who was feeling the combination of the chloral hydrate and alcohol he consumed on the way from Montgomery. His life and music received a fresh look in 2019 with Ken Burns' 16-hour documentary, Country Music, which prominently featured the icon in an episode titled "The Hillbilly Shakespeare.". Hank Williams, the 29-year-old King of Country Music, was to have flown to Charleston, West Virginia for a New Year's Eve concert but an ice storm near Nashville kept him away.
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