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. [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. 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. During an initial hearing, Marshall insisted that he was a doctor, refusing to answer further statements. While living in Georgiana, Williams met Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne, a street performer. [83], On January 2, Williams' body was transported to Montgomery, Alabama, where it was placed in a silver casket that was displayed at his mother's boarding house for two days. [73] That same year, Williams had a brief extramarital affair with dancer Bobbie Jett, with whom he fathered a daughter, Jett Williams. In 1947, he released "Move It on Over", which became a hit, and also joined the Louisiana Hayride radio program. 1 on the country charts. His stardom put money in his pocket and gave him the kind of creative freedom artists long for. The material was restored and remastered by Michael Graves and released by Omnivore Recordings. A pop cover version by Tony Bennett released the same year stayed on the charts for 27 weeks, peaking at number one. Heart failure and hard living did him in. "Tom [Hiddleston, the actor portraying Williams] puts across that impending sense of doom. His song "Your Cheatin' Heart" was written and recorded in September 1952, but released in late January 1953 after his death. [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. As if straight out of a country song, it was revealed decades later that Williams had fathered a daughter, Jett, who was born shortly after his death. He had 2 stepmothers and a mother. The janitor was accused of theft, but the charges were later dropped when a judge determined that her version of events was true. A 3-CD selection of the tracks, restored by Joe Palmaccio, was released by Time-Life in October 2008 titled The Unreleased Recordings. Another researcher decided it could have happened at any of the gas stations near Mount Hope. 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.". Williams later credited him as his only teacher. [103][104] Alabama governor Gordon Persons officially proclaimed September 21 "Hank Williams Day". [123] Several members of Williams' descendants became musicians: Hank Williams Jr., daughter Jett Williams, grandsons Hank Williams III and Sam Williams, and granddaughters Hilary Williams[124] and Holly Williams are also country musicians. 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. When he tried to move his hands, they snapped back to the same position the hotel porters had arranged him in. [3] In October 1952, he married Billie Jean Jones. [120] The same year, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best RecordingsPlus! His son, Hank Jr., was ranked on the same list. Carr later kept driving until he reached a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where Williams was discovered unresponsive in the back seat. [100] "Take These Chains From My Heart" was released in April 1953 and reached No. If Williams had lived, it's not entirely certain that the Nashville music community, so eager to shed its hillbilly roots, would have continued to embrace Williams' music. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)Getty Images. 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. Their son, Randall Hank Williams (now known as Hank Williams Jr.), was born on May 26, 1949. The marriage was always turbulent and rapidly disintegrated, and Williams developed serious problems with alcohol, morphine, and other painkillers prescribed for him to ease the severe back pain caused by his spina bifida occulta. Hank Williams is considered one of the most popular American country music singer/songwriters with songs like "Cold, Cold Heart," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'" and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." 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. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain (16.2 mg) of morphine. Corrections? As his driver, college student Charles Carr, barreled toward a concert venue in Canton, Ohio, Williams' health took a turn for the worse. Ernest Tubbs began the funeral with Beyond the Sunset and Red Foley and The Statesman Quartet sang Peace In The Valley.. 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. As people across his native Alabama picked up their newspapers that day, they were greeted with the tragic news Williams had died. The lanky guitar player with twangy voice began his musical career in Montgomery, singing over WSFA, the newspaper reported. His life and career were the subject of I Saw the Light, a 2015 biopic, starring Tom Hiddleston as Williams and Elizabeth Olsen as his first wife, Audrey. [16] Williams' father was frequently relocated by the lumber company railway for which he worked, and the family lived in many southern Alabama towns. Cut from rural stock, Williams, the third child of Lon and Lillie Williams, grew up in a household that never had much money. [16] The couple divorced on May 29, 1952. Carr drove through the night as Williams declined his offer to stop for food. The identity of her famous father remained a mystery to her until her early twenties. Williams and Sheppard married in 1944. Instead of performing, Williams died 70 years ago today, on Jan. 1, 1953. Williams had an agreement giving his first wife half of the royalties, but allegedly there was no clarification that the deal was valid after his death. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hank-Williams. The suit demanded that both of the publishing companies continue to pay her half of the royalties from Hank Williams' records. In late 1951, he suffered a minor heart attack while visiting his sister in Florida. [53], Williams signed with MGM Records in 1947 and released "Move It on Over"; considered an early example of rock and roll music, the song became a country hit. "[34], On March 10, Marshall was called again to testify. A doctor injected Williams with B12 and morphine and porters carried the legendary singer-songwriter to the car. Lillie Stone, Audrey Williams, and Hank Williams, Jr., seated on a bed while looking through letters and cards received after the death of Hank Williams, Sr. He was one of the finest young men that we ever knew, Acuff said. Among other fake titles he claimed to be a Doctor of Science. Later that year he received his first recording contract, with Sterling Records; however, it was on the start-up label MGM that he had his first hit, Move It on Over in 1947. Probably taught his first chords by Payne, Williams began playing the guitar at age 8. ), He was racked by physical and emotional afflictions, and these coupled with his gift of song, made him kin to millions.. The fall reactivated his old back pains. A doctor injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that contained morphine. During World War II Williams commuted between Mobile, where he worked in a shipyard, and Montgomery, where he pursued a musical career. Williams had also married Sheppard before her divorce was final, on the 10th day of a required 60-day reconciliation period. After Hawkshaw Hawkins and other performers started singing "I Saw the Light" as a tribute to Williams, the crowd, now realizing that he was indeed dead, followed them. Years of back pain, alcoholism, and prescription drug abuse severely compromised Williams' health. At 11:25 p.m., Hank Williams was arrested in Alexander City at the Russell Hotel for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Many artists have covered his songs and he has influenced Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones, George Strait, Charley Pride, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, among others. Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine, which made his heart problems worse. Less than 48 hours later, Hank Williams was dead. "[25] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver coffin, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners. "Your Cheatin' Heart" was written and recorded in 1952 but released in 1953 after Williams's death. Long plagued by alcoholism, Williams fell ill at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville on the last night of 1952. [42] He continued to show up for his radio show intoxicated, so in August 1942 the WSFA radio station fired him for "habitual drunkenness". [46], In 1945, when he was back in Montgomery, Williams started to perform again for the WSFA radio station. In 1989, the Alabama State Supreme Court ultimately ruled in her favor and found her to be an equal heir, after an old document was recovered that showed Williams and Jett's mother had signed a shared custody agreement. 7. [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. Hank Williams, byname of Hiram Williams, also called the Hillbilly Shakespeare, (born September 17, 1923, Georgiana, Alabama, U.S.died January 1, 1953, Oak Hill, West Virginia), American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who in the 1950s arguably became country musics first superstar. Payne,[1] along with Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb,[2] had a major influence on Williams' later musical style. [33], As part of an investigation of illicit drug traffic conducted by the Oklahoma legislature, representative Robert Cunningham seized Marshall's files. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager. She drove her son and his band to shows throughout southern Alabama. [64][65] Some of the compositions were accompanied by a pipe organ. Hank jr. was three years old when his father died in 1959. While he was medically disqualified from military service after suffering a back injury caused by falling from a bull during a rodeo in Texas, his band members were all drafted to serve. The station's owner called the local police chief. [85], Williams was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia, on December 31, 1952. Williams and his wife approached Fred Rose, the president of the company, during one of his habitual ping-pong games at WSM radio studios. 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. [86] Fitzgerald was interviewed, and he suggested that Lillie Williams operated a brothel at her boarding house in Montgomery. 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. The song, backed by "Kaw-Liga", was No. Hank Williams Sr. was 29 Years, 3 Months, 15 Days old. Most of the material was written by Williams himself, in some cases with the help of Fred Rose and his son Wesley. Williams eventually started to host a show on KWKH and started touring across western Louisiana and eastern Texas, always returning on Saturdays for the weekly broadcast of the Hayride. In 1951, Williams fell during a hunting trip in Tennessee, reactivating his old back pains and causing him to be dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. was honored with a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album. Many of their replacements refused to play in the band due to Williams' worsening alcoholism. Killorn stated that the fact that Carr told him it was Hank Williams caused him to remember the incident. 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. 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. The pain and anguish that led him to drink could be heard in his songs. [34] By the end of 1952, Williams had started to have heart problems. [85] In 2005, the BBC documentary series Arena featured an episode on Williams. The two were often rivals for Williams' time and attention. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. Williams had to cancel the concert due to an ice storm; he hired college student Charles Carr to drive him to his next appearance, a concert on New Year's Day 1953, at the Canton Memorial Auditorium in Canton, Ohio. [17] Author Colin Escott concluded in his book Hank Williams: The Biography that the cause of death was heart failure caused by the combination of alcohol, morphine and chloral hydrate.[18]. Hank Williams was an aspiring country music singer when he first met Audrey Williams. His passing did not bring about the end to his stardom, however. [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. The authors of Hank Williams: The Biography pointed out that "Hank" sounded more "like a hillbilly and western star" than "Hiram". 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. Williams remains a beloved albeit tragic figure in country music and his work continues to influence musicians to this day. Williams said he did not, and those are believed to be his last words. He returned to Shreveport, Louisiana, to perform on KWKH and WBAM shows and in the Louisiana Hayride, for which he toured again. On New Year's Day 1953, he took his seat in the back of his 1952 powder blue Cadillac. [19] Carr's account of how he discovered that Williams was dead outside Oak Hill is challenged by Dr. Leo Killorn, a Canadian intern at Beckley hospital, West Virginia, fifteen miles from Oak Hill, who claims that Carr drove up to the hospital and asked him to see Williams. A year later he was entering talent shows and had his own band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys. They are in a bedroom in the home of Lillie (Hank Williams's mother) on North McDonough Street in Montgomery, Alabama. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Alternate titles: Hiram King Williams, the Hillbilly Shakespeare. At around midnight on New Year's Day, Thursday, January 1, 1953, they crossed the Tennessee state line and arrived in Bristol, Virginia. 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". Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Both women had been using the description professionally. His first wife and his mother were the driving forces behind having the marriage declared invalid, and they pursued the matter for years. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. From The Montgomery Advertiser. After recording "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" with Sterling Records, he signed a contract with MGM Records. While he was medically disqualified from military service after suffering a back injury caused by falling from a bull during a rodeo in Texas, his band members were all drafted to serve. In addition, her relationship with Williams' mom proved complicated. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Carr called the Charleston auditorium from Knoxville to say that Williams would not arrive on time owing to the ice storm and was ordered to drive Williams to Canton, Ohio for the New Year's Day concert there. After determining that Williams was dead, Carr asked for help from the owner of the station who notified the police. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Author Colin Escott concluded in his . [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. 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". She worked in a cannery and served as a night-shift nurse in the local hospital. By the early 1940s, he'd caught the attention of music executives in Nashville. His funeral took place on January 4 at the Montgomery Auditorium, with his casket placed on the flower-covered stage. Williams had married his second wife, Billie Jean Jones in October 1952, as 14,000 people looked on in Louisiana where Williams hosted radio shows after being fired from the Grand Ole Opry in August of that year. He was driving Hank Williams, 29, who died that night. [96] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver casket, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners. On December 11, 1946, in his first recording session, he recorded "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul", "Calling You", "Never Again (Will I Knock on Your Door)", and "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels", which was misprinted as "When God Comes and Fathers His Jewels". [107] He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame[108] in 1961 and into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985. (An audio recording of the funeral begins at the 7:30 mark of the video below. Despite his relatively brief career, he is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century, especially in country music. [26] His final single released during his lifetime was ironically titled "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." Copy. It was her second marriage and his first. [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. The Georgiana native hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to perform a concert planned in Canton, Ohio. He sang "Cold, Cold Heart", "Hey Good Lookin''", "Glory Bound Train" and "I Saw the Light" with other cast members, and a duet, "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)" with Anita Carter. [121] In 1999, Williams was inducted into the Native American Music Hall of Fame. He died in the back seat of his Cadillac while being driven to a gig on New Year's Day 1953. One year later, he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues", a huge country hit, which propelled him to stardom on the Grand Ole Opry. The song resonated with music fans, as well as executives at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, who invited Williams to perform. [131] In 1993, a double-disc set of recordings of Williams for the Health & Happiness Show was released. The album, named The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, was released on October 4, 2011. 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).
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