Hank Williams died a legend in 1953. At the age of twenty-nine, felled by a lethal combination of alcohol and the pain-killers he had used for years to ease the chronic pain of a congenital spine defect, his untimely death seemed tragically apt for the man whose songs of loss and waste had held the heartstrings of America.
Hank Williams was the first musician to lift country music out of the backwoods and into the popular music charts. He became the most influential country music singer and song-writer of the century, with heartfelt songs like 'Your Cheatin' Heart', 'Cold Cold Heart' and 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry', that have such undeniable emotional appeal that they transcend time, place and audience. Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have hailed him as a major influence, and his songs have been recorded by such diverse artists as Elvis Costello, The Carpenters and The Cowboy Junkies.
But few knew that Williams was privately suffering most of what he sang about so convincingly. Raised in Alabama in the most abject poverty, with an absentee father, a dominating mother, and an equally domineering first wife, he also had a crippling defect of the lower spine which was never treated and which eventually drove him to drugs and alcohol.
Chet Flippo's compelling biography is a fascinating tribute to a musician and his world; a history of country music encapsulated in one man's career.
