Biografi
Hank Williams was born in September 1923 in a small farming community in Alabama, about 70 miles south of Montgomery. His father, a railroad engineer, suffered from shell shock after serving a year in France during World War I and spent many years in veterans hospitals. Hank's mother, Lillian Skipper Williams, played the organ at their local church and taught him gospel songs when he was six. By age 10, Hank had taught himself to play the guitar, mainly by watching other guitarists.
During his teenage years, Hank learned to play and sing country songs he heard on the family radio and picked up some blues chords from a black friend and street musician named Tee-Tot (Rufe Payne). At 14, Hank formed his own band, performing at hoedowns and local gatherings, where he won a talent contest with his song "WPA Blues." At 17, he created a group called 'Hank Williams' Original Drifting Cowboys' and successfully auditioned for the manager of WSFS Radio in Montgomery, earning regular airplay. Hank met his first wife, Audrey Williams, during a traveling medicine show, and they married in December 1944 at an Alabama gas station. Audrey, a strong-willed woman, became Hank's booking agent, road manager, and promoter. She encouraged the stage-shy Hank to perform and helped arrange gigs beyond Alabama.
In 1946, Hank and Audrey traveled to Nashville to secure a music publishing contract with producer Fred Rose, head of Acuff-Rose publishing. Rose asked Hank to write a song on the spot, resulting in "Mansion on the Hill," which earned him a publishing contract. In the late 1940s, Hank, a tall, slender man known for wearing a short-brimmed white cowboy hat, reached his peak years. MGM Records signed him, and he became a regular on "Louisiana Hayride," a KWKH radio show in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1949, following the birth of their son Hank Williams Jr., Hank was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, making his stage debut on June 11, 1949.
Between 1949 and 1950, Hank became country music's top artist with hits such as "Lovesick Blues," "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It," "Moanin' the Blues," and "Why Don't You Love Me." His 1951 hits included "Hey, Good Lookin'," "Cold, Cold Heart," and "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)." In 1952, he released hits like "Honky Tonk Blues," "Jambalaya," and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive."
However, Hank's extraordinary success came at a cost. A heavy drinker since his late teens, he became unreliable, often arriving at concerts intoxicated or missing them entirely. After Audrey divorced him in 1951 due to their constant fights over his drinking, his band grew disillusioned with him, and the Grand Ole Opry suspended him from live performances. In October 1952, Hank married his second wife, 19-year-old Billie Jean Jones, who was unable to protect him from his self-destructive tendencies. That same month, the Drifting Cowboys left due to Hank's violent mood swings and unpredictability. Despite this, he remained in demand for live shows.
In the early hours of New Year's Day 1953, while traveling through West Virginia en route to a show in Canton, Ohio, Hank Williams died in his sleep in the back seat of his Cadillac limousine at the age of 29.
