Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

by Mark Ribowsky

Overview

"A compassionate yet clear-eyed" (Washington Post) portrait of country music’s founding father and "Hillbilly King."

Mark Ribowsky’s Hank has been hailed as the "greatest biography yet" (Library Journal, starred review) of the beloved icon. Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine. Six decades later, Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend—from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year’s Day in 1953. Examining Williams’s chart-topping hits while also re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, Hank uncovers the real man beneath the myths, reintroducing us to an American original whose legacy, like a good night at the honkytonk, promises to carry on and on.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631493379
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	11/07/2017
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Ribowsky is a New York Times acclaimed, best-selling author of fifteen books, including biographies of Tom Landry, Al Davis, Hank Williams, and most recently, In the Name of the Father: Family, Football, and the Manning Dynasty. He lives in Florida.lorida.

Table of Contents

Introduction Just Plain Hank ix

Prologue A Wheel in the Ditch and a Wheel on the Track xix

Part 1 1923-1937

1 King Hiram 3

2 An American Twang 14

3 "Country Music Ain't Nothin' but White People's Blues, Anyway" 23

4 I Got A Home in Montgomery 36

Part 2 1938-1948

5 "Don't Tell Mama" 49

6 Drydock 62

7 "Audrey, Get Me a Bottle" 72

8 "It Ain't a Funny Song" 86

9 Bottle Up and Go 97

10 From A Mean Bottle 115

Part 3 1948-1950

11 "Syrup Sopper" or "Populist Poet" 135

12 "The Sorriest Thing I Ever Did Hear" 155

13 "Never Put Me On After Hank Williams!" 170

14 Pettin' Parties, Cigarettes, and Gin 186

15 "It's Never Too Country" 207

16 A Brand-New Recipe 222

Part 4 1950-1953

17 "Don't He Kill an Audience?" 239

18 "The Gun Shot Four Times" 254

19 "Almost a Continuous Nightmare" 273

20 Hurting from Inside 295

21 So Far Gone 313

22 "I See Jesus Comin' Down the Road" 338

23 "Don't Worry About Ol' Hank" 349

24 Then Came That Fateful Day 367

Epilogue Of Myth and Men 397

Notes 427

Index 451

Editorial Reviews

"A timely biography…Ribowsky has taken on a truly harrowing life."

John Williams

12/05/2016
Country singer Hank Williams’s story is already so well known that Ribowsky’s (Dreams to Remember) entertaining, critical biography reveals no newly uncovered information about him. Nevertheless, Ribowsky is an engaging storyteller, and he tells Williams’ story with such verve and humor—albeit with some over-the-top phrasing (“he was a dysfunction junction”; “Hank seemed like an afterthought lying carefree in a casket”)—that Williams and his music come alive. He chronicles Williams’s childhood in Alabama; his marriage to Audrey Mae Sheppard Guy, and their miserable but symbiotic relationship; his slow but sure rise to country music stardom on the Grand Ole Opry and WSM radio; his marriage to Billie Jean Eshliman; and his death in the back of his Cadillac on January 1, 1953, at the age of 29. Ribowsky offers cunning readings of Williams’s songs: “Mansion on the Hill,” he says, reflects a familiar Williams template that is “part croon, part hoedown, and a metaphoric lament of loneliness and the promise of a reward too far.” Williams emerges from Ribowsky’s powerful biography not only as the author of many familiar country and pop favorites, such as “Hey, Good Lookin’ ” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” but also as a man whose back pain drove him to drink and pills and whose soul was filled more often with gloom than with light. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"A compassionate yet clear-eyed study of the iconic country star. . . . It’s to [Ribowsky’s] credit that he gets as close to Williams as any writer could. . . . . Hank Williams was a tortured poet who died before most Americans today were born, but he’ll outlive us all."

David Kirby

"A new biography that exhumes the strange case of the poet and the peckerwood. . . . [Hank] offers a feast of juicy anecdotes and sharp analysis that should satisfy devotees and attract newcomers to the fold. It’s the most Hank you can get in a single helping—and the most you’d probably want. Williams is always good company, especially around last call."

Wall Street Journal - Eddie Dean

★ 11/15/2016
Hank Williams (1923–53) remains one of the most fascinating artists in popular country music. A troubled troubadour who wrote a great number of classic pioneering country songs, he died tragically at age 29. This story has been told in several previous biographies (the best being Colin Escott's I Saw the Light: The Story of Hank Williams). Ribowsky has written myriad biographies, with subjects ranging from musicians Otis Redding and James Taylor to sports figures Satchel Paige and Howard Cosell. His engaging, informative style makes Williams come alive again 63 years after his death. With such a legendary figure, this book succeeds in painting a seemingly more realistic picture of his life. Exploring Williams's issues with his mother, Jessie, and the fiery, alcoholic, druggy relationship with his on-again, off-again wife, Audrey, gives insight into his most famous songs. Both of them were personally involved in different ways with his career, and both had good and bad influences on how things turned out. VERDICT This book improves upon I Saw the Light and is probably the greatest biography yet. Highly recommended for all popular music collections.—Bill Walker, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., CA

Library Journal

Sept. 6, 2016
“Everything he did was bad for his health”: a sturdy biography of the unsteady icon of outlaw country avant la lettre.Luke the Drifter. The Hillbilly Shakespeare. Before Elvis came along, the King. Hiram King Williams (1923-1953) bore many names and monikers, as befits someone constantly on the move. When he became famous as a musician, being on the move was a requirement; Williams had to get from one gig to another, no matter how drunk or drugged he might be when he took the stage. But even early on, writes Florida-based music journalist Ribowsky (Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: The Life and Music of James Taylor, 2016, etc.), Williams was used to life on the go, his father often traveling on his railroad job, sometimes a step away from the poorhouse. Born with a spinal defect, Williams channeled his pain into music but then, once the music was on paper or acetate, tried to move that pain farther along with an appalling diet of morphine, pharmaceuticals, and booze, all of which hastened his death. As Ribowsky notes, several templates were thus established, from death by prescription-happy doctor (Elvis, Michael Jackson) to country star as soused or pilled-up rebel (Johnny Cash, George Jones). The author is very good on the culture that surrounded Williams, enshrined by an Alabaman who told him, “you do what you gotta do on Saturday night, then go to church on Sunday morning and make it all right with God.” Though defiantly separatist, that culture, in Williams’ case, was laced with the blues and gospel as much as mountain music. Ribowsky covers the details of Williams’ untidy personal life without undue sensationalism, and if it lacks the intellectual depth of a Greil Marcus or the lived-in encyclopedism of a Peter Guralnick, his book is just fine for what it is, a decidedly warts-and-all portrait of a man more revered than listened to these days. It’s not every 29-year-old who can pack enough into a life to warrant a 500-page biography—and a good one at that.

Kirkus Review