Hank Williams

He was born Hiram Williams in the crossroads community of Mount Olive, Alabama, and the birth certificate was not drawn up until he was 10, by which point a clerk had spelled it Hiriam. He had spina bifida occulta, a defect of the spinal column that hurt him for life and fed the drinking that followed. His father, a railroad engineer, suffered a brain aneurysm and spent eight years in a hospital. His mother Lillie ran boarding houses, worked a cannery and a night nursing shift, and managed the band. He got a harmonica at six and a guitar for three dollars and 50 cents. He attached himself to a Black street singer named Rufus Payne, called Tee-Tot, who taught him blues chords, rhythm and how to work a crowd.

He was on Montgomery radio in the late 1930s, dropped out of school in October 1939 to keep at it, and was fired by WSFA in August 1942 for habitual drunkenness. He recorded for Sterling in December 1946, signed with MGM in 1947 and put out Move It On Over, and Fred Rose at Acuff-Rose took over his publishing. On June 11, 1949 he sang Lovesick Blues at the Grand Ole Opry and was called back for six encores. He could not read or write music. He wrote Your Cheatin' Heart, Hey Good Lookin', I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Jambalaya and Kaw-Liga anyway. Under the name Luke the Drifter he cut spoken moral recitations that jukebox operators were warned off buying. Fifty-five of his singles reached the country top 10 and 12 went to number one.

The Opry fired him on August 11, 1952 for drunkenness and missed shows. Audrey divorced him that year, and the day after the decree he recorded You Win Again. In October he married Billie Jean Jones before a justice of the peace in Minden, Louisiana, and then twice more the next day at the New Orleans Civic Auditorium in front of paying audiences, 14,000 seats sold for each ceremony. In Oklahoma City he had met a man calling himself Doctor Toby Marshall, a paroled forger who had bought a doctorate for 25 dollars by mail, and who prescribed him amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate and morphine. A dancer named Bobbie Jett was carrying his daughter. On New Year's Eve a snowstorm grounded his flight and he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to a show in Ohio.

They found him dead in the back seat at a filling station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, rigor already set. The autopsy found hemorrhages in the heart and neck, gave the cause as acute right ventricular dilation, and noted he had been badly beaten in a Montgomery bar days earlier. He was 29. On January 4, 1953 between 15,000 and 25,000 people stood outside the Montgomery Auditorium while 2,750 sat inside, the balcony set aside for about 200 Black mourners, and Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb and Red Foley sang I Saw the Light. His daughter, born five days after he died, was adopted out and was recognized as his heir by the Alabama Supreme Court in 1989.

Hank Williams's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Move It On Over song
  His first hit after signing with MGM 1947
• Lovesick Blues song
  A cover, and the record that brought six encores at the Grand Ole Opry 1949
• I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry song
  The song that made his name as a writer rather than a singer 1949
• The Luke the Drifter recordings other
  Spoken moral pieces issued under a pseudonym so jukeboxes would not stock them 1950
• Your Cheatin' Heart song
  Cut at his last session, on September 23, 1952 1952
• Kaw-Liga song
  From the same session, three months before he died 1952

• October 1939 aged 16 Drops out of school to work radio, schoolhouses, movie theaters and bars
• August 1942 aged 18 WSFA fires him for habitual drunkenness He was medically disqualified from the draft after a rodeo fall in Texas hurt his back.
• December 15, 1944 aged 21 Marries Audrey Sheppard at a Texaco station in Andalusia, Alabama The marriage was technically invalid — her divorce had not cleared the required 60-day period.
• 1947 aged ~24 Signs with MGM Records and releases Move It On Over
• June 11, 1949 aged 25 Sings Lovesick Blues at the Grand Ole Opry and is called back six times
• August 11, 1952 aged 28 The Opry fires him for drunkenness and missed shows
• October 19, 1952 aged 29 Marries Billie Jean Jones twice in one day before ticketed audiences The New Orleans Civic Auditorium sold 14,000 seats for each ceremony.
• September 23, 1952 aged 29 Records Kaw-Liga, Your Cheatin' Heart and Take These Chains from My Heart His last session.
• January 1, 1953 aged 29 Found dead in the back seat of a car at a filling station in Oak Hill, West Virginia He was on his way to a New Year's Day concert in Canton, Ohio.

• Bessie Smith 1892–1937
  Leading blues recording artist of the 1920s known as the Empress of the Blues. the blues tradition Tee-Tot taught him
• Scott Joplin 1868–1917
  Ragtime composer whose piano rags were among the first widely sold American popular sheet music. earlier Southern songwriter
• Irving Berlin 1888–1989
  Songwriter whose vast catalog, from 'God Bless America' to Broadway standards, helped define the American popular songbook. the professional songwriting trade he came in under
• Bruce Springsteen b. 1949
  Songwriter whose music made working-class life, aspiration, and disappointment central themes of American rock. later heir
• Taylor Swift b. 1989
  Singer-songwriter whose commercial reach, fan culture, and control of her catalog reshaped the modern music business. descendant in the form