“I’m just gonna go home, lie down, and listen to country music. The music of pain.” – Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Before Hank Williams, country music resembled a bastardized version of Tin Pan Alley and the blues; it lacked the authenticity of the blues’ hard knocks and retained the lyrical depth of early 20th century show tunes. Billboard had labeled it Hillbilly, followed by Folk, before finally settling on Country, a term still synonymous with rednecks and sentimental, often insipid, lyrics (“We’ll stick a boot in y’r ass / it’s the American way,” anyone?). But, in the short span of Hank Williams’ 29 years, he was one of the few musicians to genuinely turn those presumptions on their head and record some immortal—and damn good—pop songs; “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Lovesick Blues,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” to name just a few.
Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams is a slick biography from Paul Hemphill, an inspired choice to chronicle the musician’s life. Hemphill, one of Alabama’s native sons, like Hank, has made a career out of transcribing the experience of his southern roots into thirteen novels and books of nonfiction, covering everything from life on the road to the baseball diamond. Hemphill leaves his own personal touch on this biography with two stories from his own life; the first, discovering the music of Hank Williams on a road trip in his father’s tractor-trailer, and an epilogue of personal history that nearly mirrored the musician’s own tragic end. While Hemphill’s bookends are a nice touch, it’s Hank’s life that provides the real thrills.
Born Hiram in 1923, but called Harm by his family, the country legend’s hardships started all too early. His father left the family when Hank, the name he would later take and make famous, was just six years old. At thirteen, he’d already had his first taste of liquor, the beginning of an addiction that would claim his life just 16 short years later. But despite his hardships, the young boy found solace, and a profession, in performing. Under the tutelage of Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne, a troubadour of southern Alabama, Hank proved adept at being a musician, and just as much, a showman. Hank dropped out of school early, and started making his living on the road and in the studio.
Hank caught his first break performing for a local radio station, WSFA, in Montgomery, Alabama. His mother, Lillie, an overbearing woman who would try control as much of his life while she could, took over as his manager and started to book gigs for Hank and The Drifting Cowboys, Hank’s revolving door of supporting musicians. However, in the first of a long string of similar incidents, Hank’s drinking would cost him the local radio show, as it would later his wife, record labels, and eventually his spot in the Grand Ole Opry. As quickly as Hank had something good going for him, (which at times afforded him multiple Cadillacs, a farm house, and an expensive, if gaudy, home in Nashville), his alcoholism would rear its ugly head and bring everything around him crashing down. These details of Hank’s highest highs and lowest lows are the most fascinating aspects of Hemphill’s biography. It’s amazing he even made it for as long as he did.
The timelessness of Hank’s experience in show business (that old cycle of poverty, stardom, and abuse), foreshadowed that of so many talented musicians in the years to come. One could just as easily replace Hank William’s name in this biography with that of Jim Morrison, or Kurt Cobain, despite the fact that his music sounds more Lawrence Welk than Layne Staley. At the height of his popularity, a Hank Williams’ show had the unpredictability of an Axl Rose meltdown; “Will tonight be the night the show goes on?” In one particularly resonant passage, Hemphill recounts a concert where Hank, as loaded as he could be, stumbled on stage in front of packed house incapable of performing. He rhetorically asked the crowd if they traveled real far to see him that night, and then after the crowd cheers, he quips, “Now you’ve seen ol’ Hank,” and walks off the stage.
Hank’s pure authenticity bleeds through the page and by the end leaves one with the overwhelming feeling of regret; regret for what might have been had Hank lived. Whether it’s struggling to survive his overbearing mother, a listless marriage, the pressures of living up to his own fame and fortune, or the combination of whiskey and chloral hydrates, Hank Williams becomes our tragic Everyman. Hemphill's crisp narration reinforces this idea, and when he describes Hank as the poet, the proletarian prophet, of the working classes, of “the waitresses the route salesman and the farmers and the truck drivers of the world,” you can feel the truth in the statement.
At times, Lovesick Blues induces a sense of nostalgia for a time that may never have truly existed. Hemphill probably romanticizes the long, quiet road, the all-night diners, and the rowdy cowboy bars more than they deserve, but this biography is such a quick and entertaining read (novelesque) that the lack of a contextual reality is easy to forgive. I, for one, am longing for my own place in early 20th America with nothing but “three chords and the truth.”
In the epilogue, Hemphill recounts the following interaction with his father:
The last time we spoke was on a day when I visited him, drinking out of lonesomeness, and invited him to check out my new Chevy Blazer. A Chrysler man, he wasn’t impressed. “Probably got a bad transmission,” he said.
“Yeah, but it’s got a real good radio,” I told him.
“Will it pick up country music?”
“Of course it will.”
“Must be a hell of a radio, then,” he said. “Ain’t been no country music since Hank died.”
Hemphill briefly ponders the question of whether Hank was really better off dead than alive, or if at least his legacy was. For all we know, Hank could have been a musical footnote wiped from the charts during Elvis’s reign as King. Like the careers of John Lennon, and Kurt Cobain, we’re left with only question marks about their untapped potential. While it’s not necessary to be a fan of Hank Williams, or even familiar with him, to enjoy this biography, listening to his raw emotion in songs like “Lovesick Blues” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” certainly adds a sense of tangibility for a star who prospered before the golden age of television. In Lovesick Blues, Hemphill proves that we should all at least be grateful for what Hank did leave behind for us.
In the words of Hank himself, “If the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise, we’ll see you next time.”
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