_____________________________________________________________________________ _ _ __ __ _ ___ \\\\\___| |_| | \ \ / / / \ | __|___\"-._ /////~~~| _ | \ / / _ \ __ ~~~/.-' |_| |_| \/\/ /_/ \_\ |___| _____________________________________________________________________________ THE HANK WILLIAMS APPRECIATION SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL 1978 _____________________________________________________________________________ "A quiet night spent with a country legend" ____________________________________________________________________________ By Rheta Grimsley Johnson ____________________________________________________________________________ FISHTRAP HOLLOW, Miss. -- By dark I was tired in that good, physical kind of way that leaves your body sore but your mind free. I had spent the day piling tree limbs scattered by the last ice storm. Tidying up after nature. The potbelly stove was roaring, the porch thermometer showed 20 degrees. Hot stars were burning holes in a velvet sky. So I settled in to hear the last half of The Complete Hank Williams, that 10-CD, deluxe edition that comes with a book and even postcards. (I started the marathon the night before.) At 1 a.m. I was still on the couch, listening to Hank's recorded apology to a Washington audience for a 1951 show he failed to make. (He was recovering from surgery.) That pitiful apology is the last cut on the last CD, and the regret and pain in Hank's voice kept me up another hour just thinking. Boxed sets can be the showiest kind of rip-off, but this one's not. It's all there, all right -- Hank and his Health and Happiness Show, Hank in Europe with an Opry troupe, Hank on Armed Forces Radio, Hank with Audrey, Hank with just his guitar. There's Hank pitching a book on how to write and sell music, and Hank making a plea for the March of Dimes. Hank worked hard for the money his children and wives eventually would fight over. The book contains the definitive disclaimer from Fred Rose that he was the genius behind the genius: "Don't get the idea that I made the guy or wrote his songs for him. He made himself." But it also makes clear which songs Hank wrote and which he did not. He wrote plenty. And an amazing percentage of those songs were winners. A dozen or so were profound poetry. I never can decide on my top 10 Hank songs. I feel the sadness of his death every January. Had things gone dramatically differently, he would be 76 this year. A grandfather. Maybe a regular on the Opry. A living legend instead of a dead one. But, on the other hand, think of all the bad stuff Hank missed. He never had a chance to get sick to death of his own songs, for one thing. Hank performed a relatively short time, and, by all accounts, loved his work. He had new hits so often that audience requests probably were never a chore. Hank certainly didn't live long enough to become a has-been, reduced to playing lounges on cruise ships, or ribbon-cuttings at grand openings of Piggly Wigglys. He didn't live long enough to align himself with some right-wing politician, or show up on the wrong side of a just cause. He never did "Hee Haw." Hank's early death spared him many of the predictable mistakes of a hillbilly singer's show business career. He never filed for bankruptcy, or had his assets vacuumed up by the IRS. Hank drank, but at least he never talked about it on Oprah. There's a kind of purity about Hank's short career that would have been impossible had he lived longer, or later. Think if Hank had been born in 1973, instead of '23. He'd be making those god-awful videos, writing with visuals in mind. He might have done what Kris Kristofferson did -- forsake writing altogether for a movie career. There'd be no way he could avoid those overproduced music award shows, or sensational headlines in tabloids. "Hank Beaten Up By Mother." I can see it now. Instead, we have the lonesome, tragic, midnight-hour body of work that inspires the boxed-set essayist to quote what Ben Jonson once wrote of William Shakespeare: "He was not of an age, but for all time." That sure seemed to be the case from my winter wallow in a dark Mississippi hollow. ____________________________________________________________________________ King Features Syndicate ____________________________________________________________________________ Copyright ©1998, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications ____________________________________________________________________________ UPDATE Feb 8th, 2011 Rheta is contemplating a book about Hank Williams in the next year or so. From: http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/02/columnist_entertains_crowd_at.html ____________________________________________________________________________ Update April 1st, 2012 DECATUR, Alabama - Nationally syndicated columnist and author Rheta Grimsley Johnson will talk about her new book about Hank Williams April 5 at the Decatur Public Library. The event is free. Johnson, whose column appears in 50 newspapers nationwide including The Huntsville Times, will talk about popular music in the 1950s and '60s "viewed through the life story of Hank Williams and the people he influenced," a library press release said. The new book is titled "Hank Hung the Moon ... and Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts." The program will be at the library, 504 Cherry St., Decatur at 6:30 p.m.. The book will be available for purchasing and autographing. For more information, call the library at 256-353-2993, ext. 100. From: http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2012/03/columnist_rheta_grimsley_johns.html ____________________________________________________________________________ Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html Doctrine of International Copyright Law ____________________________________________________________________________ Note: Join Robert Ackerman's Hank Fan Mailing list. _____________________________________________________________________________ Email: Hank1@mtaonline.net _____________________________________________________________________________