Hank Williams Sr. 50th

January 1, 2003 5:03 PM

Just another guy on the lost highway died 50 years ago today. Here's an interesting site with some newspaper clippings, and here are some video clips and tabs in case you feel like doing a little strummin'.
posted by transient (5 comments total)

I was excited to see the video clips of what looked like Opry performances, but whoever is responsible 1)cut in dumb footage of "modern" people to make the clips more MTV and 2)didn't see fit to let the whole song play. Good post though, I didn't realize he died on New Year's Day. The newspaper clippings were interesting.
posted by sklero at 9:21 PM on January 1, 2003

If I may derail the thread a bit, January 1st also marks the death of Townes Van Zandt (my favorite songwriter of all time). Townes was, like Hank, wayyy too skinny, a drunk, and had premonitions of death. The site that his wife set up is a little hokey, but has a number of links to other stuff on the web.

All my bookmarks got wiped when I reinstalled windoze a couple weeks ago, else I'd have made an FPP about Townes.
posted by notsnot at 10:10 PM on January 1, 2003

whoops. Forgot the http. that link should be this.
posted by notsnot at 11:32 PM on January 1, 2003

I'd forgotten they shared the same death day, notsnot, that's eerie. Anyway I always thought of Townes as having carried on the Hank Williams lifestyle in an even more morbid way, so it's not entirely unfitting to discuss him in a memorial thread. [my contribution to your future fpp]

Damn, now I wish I'd brought my guitar on vacation.
posted by Hildago at 12:49 AM on January 2, 2003

My favourite Hank story -

Tony Bennett was one of the first to record a Williams song.
Williams, though, had an odd way to show his appreciation for Bennett recording Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart."
"He called up after it had sold millions of copies - 'Hi Tony, what's the idea of ruining my song?' " Bennett said during an interview in 1994.
Bennett said he believes that Williams was actually joking and that he has since been told that Williams regularly listened to Bennett's recording of the song.

Tony Bennett absolutely murdered that song. Of course, he was a crooner and completely unsuited to it.

Link.
posted by emf at 1:10 AM on January 2, 2003