_____________________________________________________________________________ _ _ __ __ _ ___ \\\\\___| |_| | \ \ / / / \ | __|___\"-._ /////~~~| _ | \ / / _ \ __ ~~~/.-' |_| |_| \/\/ /_/ \_\ |___| _____________________________________________________________________________ THE HANK WILLIAMS APPRECIATION SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL 1978 _____________________________________________________________________________ Hank's last night at the Andrew Johnson Hotel Nearly everyone in Knoxville knows about the country singing sensation Hank Williams. Some may also know about how he was found dead in his car in West Virginia on the cold New Years Day of 1953, but what they might not know is that Hank Williams spent his last night at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville. He may still be at the hotel. Hank's chauffeur, a college student, was driving him from Montgomery, Alabama to Charleston, West Virginia for a concert; the trip was going to take nearly 20 hours to complete, and Hank was tired and in pain. For many years he had suffered from back spasms, and he drank liquor and took morphine to ease the pain. He and his chauffeur decided to stop in Knoxville to rest for a while. At around 7:00 P.M. Hank Williams checked into the Andrew Johnson Hotel, but by 11:00 P.M. his chauffeur had checked him out - not nearly enough time to fully rest. However, it is enough time to drink quite a bit, and to obtain morphine, perhaps, too much morphine. So by 11:00 P.M. he was heading toward Charleston or was he? One rumor has it that while at the Andrew Johnson Hotel, Hank Williams purposely killed himself by taking too much morphine or that in a drunken stupor he accidently killed himself. The chauffeur then placed his boss's body in the car and drove to West Virginia where the body was "found." Whatever the truth of the matter may be, Hank Williams last night was spent in the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Downtown Knoxville. What is also known is that every so often, in the very periphery of hearing, Hank's voice can be heard singing Death is Only a Dream: Sadly we sing, and with tremulous breath, As we stand by the mystical stream, In the valley by the dark river of death, And yet there's no more than a dream. Only a dream! Only a dream! Of glory beyond the dark stream. How peaceful the slumber, How happy the waking, For death is only a dream. Why should we weep when the weary ones rest, In the bosom of Jesus Supreme, And the mansions of glory prepared for the blessed, For death is no more than a dream. Naught in the river the sanction of Paul, Though it frightfully dismal may seem, In the arms of our Savior no ill can befall, They'll find it no more than a dream. Public Domain Courtesy of: http://knoxville.about.com/ _____________________________________________________________________________ Did Andrew Johnson Hotel kill Hank Williams Sr.? Jack McElroy , USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee - April 22, 2017 The strange circumstances surrounding Hank Williams’ death quickly became apparent in the News Sentinel’s coverage back in 1953. The songwriter’s 29-year-old heart turned cold, cold sometime on the last night of 1952 as his driver, Charles Carr, tried to get the star from Knoxville’s Andrew Johnson Hotel to a gig in Canton, Ohio. The hotel was in the news again last week after Mayor Tim Burchett announced that Knox County would seek proposals to redevelop the building, where some say Williams died, but where, in fact, he may have been inadvertently killed. His death was declared in Oak Hill, W. Va., as reported on the front page of the New Year’s Day edition of the evening News Sentinel along with a more prominent story about the Vols preparing for the Cotton Bowl and the announcement of a new strip joining the comics page: “Pogo.” The next day, though, the story took a strange turn. Tennessee Highway Patrol Cpl. Swan Kitts reported stopping Williams’ Cadillac for reckless driving just outside Knox County around 1 a.m. on Jan. 1. The country singer was prone in the back seat and already “looked dead,” Kitts said. But Carr insisted Williams was just ill and had been given a sedative by a doctor in Knoxville. Investigations ensued. The Highway Patrol found no sign of foul play, and a coroner’s jury in West Virginia determined that Williams died of a “severe heart condition.” Alcohol was in his bloodstream, but, supposedly, no drugs. In March, though, a paroled convict with phony medical credentials told investigators in an unrelated case that Williams had been paying him $300 a week plus expenses to treat him for alcoholism and help him “sober up” for appearances. The fake doc had prescribed a powerful sedative, chloral hydrate, shortly before Williams' death. Then a few days later, a real doctor in Knoxville, “who asked that his name be withheld,” told a News Sentinel reporter that he had given Williams two shots just hours before he died. Williams had been drinking, but the doctor denied the injections were the “final blow” that did him in. “The shots I gave Williams had absolutely nothing to do with his death,” the physician said, and “it is ridiculous to think that they did.” The news tapered off in the months that followed, but books and articles speculating about the death have proliferated through the years, including some theorizing that Williams already was dead when Carr took him from the Andrew Johnson Hotel. Perhaps the definitive piece in the News Sentinel was by music writer Wayne Bledsoe, who interviewed Carr at length in 2002. He said it was the hotel doctor who gave Williams shots of morphine and B-12 before they left town A few hours later, somewhere around Bristol, Williams spoke his last. Carr asked if he wanted anything to eat: “He just thought he was going to get some sleep.” http://www.knoxnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/jack-mcelroy/2017/04/22/ did-andrew-johnson-hotel-kill-hank-williams-sr/100673352/ _____________________________________________________________________________ Follow this link to visit our page dedicated to Hanks favorite Song, "Death is Only a Dream": http://www.angelfire.com/me2/kulacoco/deathdream.html _____________________________________________________________________________ Note: Join Robert Ackerman's Hank Fan Mailing list. _____________________________________________________________________________ Email: Hank1@mtaonline.net _____________________________________________________________________________