Whilst chatting with new friend Robert Ellis and discussing the point where George Jones and Jackson Browne meet, and his love of Dawes and Paul Simon, he touched on the fact that his evolving musical direction might make it harder for him to play to the good ol’ boys in Texas. That’s the bars where they say (in homage to the Blues Brothers) “we enjoy both kinds of music … country and western”.
Which got me thinking of an uncool accident, not one but two.
This, is the son of a music legend:
And here he is with dad
And for a while he was heavily burdened with being “son of Hank” as you can see from the album title above. So much so that he pretty much became known as a Hank Williams Sr impersonator, and the tale goes that he was pissed off enough to pretty much disown his own family.
But in 1975 Hank Jr, apparently inspired by a systematic program of increasing alcohol and drug involvement, went mountain climbing here:
And I think its safe to say that these two (or three) hobbies aren’t an ideal combination. In an “uncool accident” Hank fell through the snow and dropped 500 feet onto rock. Understandably, he broke a lot of stuff including skull fractures and facial lacerations. But in good news (unlike some of those featured earlier in the series) Hank Jr survived and it was pretty much the making of him.
Hank had to cover up so he grew a beard, put on the shades and started to wear a fuck off big hat. Hank Jr looked like this now:
He didn’t bother to cut back much on the weed or the booze and maybe some other stuff. At least if he did its not obvious from his lyrics. And he started hanging out with the Outlaws (Waylon n’ Willy) and some of the Southern Rock brotherhood and all of a sudden this new song of his
(done here in a howling at the moon party version with a fellow shitkicker Kid Rock) meant something and was the first of a bunch of massive hits with lyrics like:
“I have loved some ladies,
And I have loved Jim Beam”
Which made it pretty clear where Hank Jr was coming from as did sentiments like “A Country Boy Can Survive” and “If the South Would’ve Won” . Naturally he took up hunting.
Hank Jr still mentioned his old man in every song (as above) but now the titles were hard wired into his songs as lifestyle statements. Hank Jr just worked his dad’s titles - “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, “I’m So Lonesome” and “Ramblin Man” – into songs like this little beauty “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” (a pure Hank Jr title) but now he didn’t do covers – he wrote news songs with classic titles like If You Don’t Like Hank Williams (You Can Kiss My Ass)
Hank wrote slow and sad, and he wrote Southern pride, and he wrote those songs that the shitkickers liked and finally he came up with that enduring masterpiece “All My Rowdy Friends (are coming over tonight)” and in turn that became one of the greatest uses of a quick rewrite in TV sport history. Every Monday night for 20 odd years Hank and his rowdy pals welcomed the world to football hog heaven.
All of which would have been pretty OK, and borderline funny in the right ironic way, if it didn’t turn out that uncool accident #1 had done some lasting damage. Guess what, once a redneck properly a redneck.
Hank came up with uncool accident #2, live on TV. He didn’t fall off a mountain this time, and it wasn’t life or career threatening, but he fell off his peak live on TV as follows:
HOST: So what did you think of Obama playing Golf with some republican politicians?
HANK: “Come on. That’d be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu … In the country this shape is in … I mean, in the shape this country is in?”
HOST: “You used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the president.“
HANK: "Well, that is true. But I’m telling you like it is.”
Yup, that was Hank’s view on live on Sport TV. And guess what, they pulled his ad.
And not finished Hank Jr took it to the stage:
“We’ve got a Muslim for a President who hates cowboys, hates cowgirls, hates fishing, hates farming, loves gays, and we hate him!”
And pretty soon Hank’s sponsors dried up faster than Lance Armstrong’s and to (mis)quote Oscar Wilde (who Hank would have hated too it’s fair to say):
“to be outspoken once may be regarded as a misfortune: to do it twice looks like carelessness”.
It probably doesn’t matter much to Hank as he’s made all the money he ever needs, is heir to his Dad’s copyrights, has cheated Death properly, and anyway his fans (who wont like Robert Eliis’ new album probably) mostly agree with him.
But it’s a warning for those of you who embrace “ironic cool”. Watch out! There’s nothing ironic about Hank .. as his own son Hank 3 says (and he’s not exactly a shrinking violet either)
“most musicians, including my dad, are “not worthy” of a political discussion”
True dat!
Well we cant all be Bono!
-Tony H
(Getting back to my new friend and good music for a second, Robert Ellis has a beautiful album called Photographs which is available in Australia now in tour edition format thanks to his recent shows with Justin Townes Earle. If you like new country and great songwriting there’s a side of each for you. He will be back we hope, maybe with a new album as he’s been busting new tunes a-plenty.
Also, Kid Rock is living the redneck dream and has an awesome new album appropriately called Rebel Soul out now and it includes the William-esque advice “if it looks good you’ll see it. if it sounds good, you’ll hear it. if it’s marketed right, you’ll buy it. but ..if it’s real you’ll feel it”.
Hank Jr (if you don’t feel too bad about doing it) has several top notch ‘best of’ albums which you can drink beer to while listening and flaunt your farmers tan. He also put out a 2012 album which includes this return to form duet with Brad paisley “I’m Gonna get drunk and play hank Williams all night Long” that shows whatever his politics the old formula is still pretty sweet)
