He also wrote a number of religious songs under the pseudonym Luke the Drifter. A year after first meeting with Rose, Williams had his first hit, "Move It On Over." Hank Williams in his coffin. From The Montgomery Advertiser. Years of back pain, alcoholism, and prescription drug abuse severely compromised Williams' health. Best Known For: Hank Williams became one of America's first country music superstars, with hits like "Your Cheatin' Heart," before his early death at 29. [82], On October 18, 1952, Williams and Billie Jean Jones were married by a justice of the peace[83] in Minden, Louisiana. 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. Stopping for gas in Oak Hill, West Virginia, Carr realized Williams was dead. Most of the material was written by Williams himself, in some cases with the help of Fred Rose and his son Wesley. While living in Georgiana, Williams met Rufus "Tee-Tot" Payne, a street performer. "I think he had a profound sadness in him," says Marc Abraham, writer and director of I Saw The Light. Father and son rarely saw each other over the next decade, with Williams' mother, who ran rooming houses, moving the family to Greenville and later Montgomery, Alabama. His salary was enough for him to start his own band, which he dubbed the Drifting Cowboys. Marshall had been previously convicted for forgery, and had been paroled and released from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1951. His first wife and his mother were the driving forces behind having the marriage declared invalid, and they pursued the matter for years. Hank Williams was born Hiram Williams[3] on September 17, 1923,[4] in the rural community of Mount Olive in Butler County, Alabama. He formed the Drifting Cowboys backup band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career. Advance ticket sales totaled $3,500. Williams' personal life took a major turn in 1943 when he met Audrey Mae Sheppard, who was the mother of a young daughter and had only recently left a messy marriage. 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. "I saw that the overcoat and blanket that had been covering Hank had slipped off," Carr told yet another reporter. 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. By the time he'd moved with his mother to Montgomery in 1937, Williams' music career was already in motion. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. Meanwhile, Lewis Fitzgerald's son Ricky billed himself as Hank Williams IV following his father's claim of being Williams' son. [33], As part of an investigation of illicit drug traffic conducted by the Oklahoma legislature, representative Robert Cunningham seized Marshall's files. [113] In the 1980 Canadian film, Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, Williams is portrayed by singer Sneezy Waters. The day after Williams died, The Montgomery Advertiser recalled Williams as a former peanut vendor who learned to play guitar at age 6. Later on, Williams recorded "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", one of the songs that Payne taught him. Williams was scheduled to perform at the Municipal Auditorium in Charleston, West Virginia on Wednesday, December 31 (New Year's Eve), 1952. Hank jr. was three years old when his father died in 1959. [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 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. The house had a small garden on which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his sister Irene sold around Georgiana. One year later, he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues", a huge country hit, which propelled him to stardom on the Grand Ole Opry. Is Hank Williams Sr single? Williams was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most significant country music artists of all time. "Tom [Hiddleston, the actor portraying Williams] puts across that impending sense of doom. Carr stopped at a small all-night restaurant and asked Williams if he wanted to eat. [135][136] The release won a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album. He was very kind, and said Oak Hill General Hospital was six miles on my left," and that would place him in Mount Hope. [47] As a result of the new variety of his repertoire, Williams published his first songbook, Original Songs of Hank Williams. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the two stopped at the Andrew Johnson Hotel. Since Williams' parents were both followers of Freemasonry,[7] Williams was named after Hiram I. He wrote songs weekly to perform during the shows. He was one of the finest young men that we ever knew, Acuff said. Carr later kept driving until he reached a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where Williams was discovered unresponsive in the back seat. Having interviewed Carr, the best that Peter Cooper of The Tennessean could offer was that "somewhere between Mount Hope and Oak Hill", Carr noticed Williams' blanket had fallen off. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. In ways that must have seemed unimaginable to this poor country boy, Williams' life quickly changed. I told Carr that Williams looked dead but I did not press the point when Carr explained that Williams had been given two sedatives, Kitts was quoted as saying. Both women had been using the description professionally. Carr immediately realized that he was dead and informed the filling station's owner, Glenn Burdette, who called the chief of the local police, O.H. 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 music 's first superstar. Born and raised in Alabama, Williams was given guitar lessons by African-American blues musician Rufus Payne in exchange for meals or money. His official cause of death was listed as heart failure, but there are many who say otherwise. Marshall admitted that he had also prescribed chloral hydrate to his recently deceased wife, Faye, as a headache medicine. Williams and his wife approached Fred Rose, the president of the company, during one of his habitual ping-pong games at WSM radio studios. Carr drove through the night as Williams declined his offer to stop for food. Around this time, he met Billie Jean Jones, a girlfriend of country singer Faron Young, at the Grand Ole Opry. It's hard to know another's lips will kiss you And hold you just the way I used to do "When I pulled it back up, I noticed that his hand was stiff and cold." 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. Lillie Williams became the Drifting Cowboys' manager. [78] His final concert was held in Austin, Texas, at the Skyline Club on December 19. 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. [129][130], Material recorded by Williams, originally intended for radio broadcasts to be played when he was on tour or for its distribution to radio stations nationwide, resurfaced throughout time. She stated that she received after Williams' death a bill for $800 from Marshall for the treatment. In 1977, a national organization of CB truck drivers voted "Your Cheatin' Heart" as their favorite record of all time. He won the first prize of $15, singing his first original song "WPA Blues". He died in 1939, but his musical legacy would live on in Williams. [92] In Williams' Cadillac, the police found some empty beer cans and unfinished handwritten lyrics. At this stage Williams began abusing alcohol, a problem that haunted him the rest of his life but that came about partly as a result of his attempts to self-medicate agonizing back pain caused by a congenital spinal disorder. The prolific musician and performer wrote songs such as "Your Cheatin' Heart," drank too much whiskey, had family problems. In 2010 the Pulitzer Prize board awarded Williams a special citation 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.. 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. It was placed in a silver coffin that was first shown at his mother's boarding house at 318 McDounough Street for two days. He acknowledged that in previous testimony he had falsely claimed to be a physician. The Opry eventually fired him, and in 1952, he and Sheppard divorced. [66] In 1951, "Dear John" became a hit, but it was the flip side, "Cold, Cold Heart", that became one of his most recognized songs. The newlyweds spent Christmas 1952 with Williamss mother in Montgomery. [70], In November 1951, Williams fell during a hunting trip with his fiddler Jerry Rivers in Franklin, Tennessee. His father was a railroad engineer who was also a victim of shell shock after a year of fighting in France in 1918 during World War I and spent many years in veterans hospitals. Best Answer. His funeral was held the next day, Sunday Jan. 4, 1953, at Montgomerys City Auditorium. Among the hits he wrote were "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Williams was among the first class of artists inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, and in 2010, the Pulitzer Board awarded him a special citation for songwriting. It was her second marriage and his first. James Ellis Garner later played fiddle for him. They later drove to Oak Hill in search of a hospital, stopping at a Pure Oil station on the edge of town. It could be argued, in fact, that his early death only enhanced his legend. medically disqualified from military service, I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You), Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, "Luke the Drifter and the Secrets of Country | ABCtales", "Cowtown Birthplace of Western Swing - Hank Williams", Escott, Colin, Merritt, George & MacEwen, William 2015, "Show 9 Tennessee Firebird: American country music before and after Elvis. Hank Williams became one of America's first country music superstars, with hits like "Your Cheatin' Heart," before his early death at 29. By the end of 1952, Williams had started to suffer heart problems. His body was initially transported to Montgomery and placed in a silver coffin shown at his mother's boarding house. In 1948, he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, and he joined the Louisiana Hayride, a radio show broadcast that propelled him into living rooms all over the Southeast appearing on weekend shows. [10] Carr and Williams headed out of Knoxville from the Andrew Johnson Hotel via Gay Street to Magnolia Ave to 11w. Despite his relatively brief career, he is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century, especially in country music. The worker claimed that she sold Williams' notes to a representative of the Honky-Tonk Hall of Fame and the Rock-N-Roll Roadshow. The authors of Hank Williams: The Biography pointed out that "Hank" sounded more "like a hillbilly and western star" than "Hiram". However, she was to marry someone else before the .