My final experience in Nashville on that trip was to see a musical play called Hank Williams: The Lost Highway that featured Jason Petty in the title role – he both looked and sounded like the man. The play was staged at the legendary Ryman Auditorium, the home of The Grand Ole Opry from 1943 through 1974. Much of the story turned on what Hank Williams should do with his masterpiece "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" that didn't fit in well with his other work in this period. Ultimately it was released in 1949 as the B-side of his #2 hit "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It"; the song was later covered by numerous recording artists, notably B. J. Thomas, whose cover of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" hit #8 in the Billboard charts in 1966 and led to a re-release of the original song in the same year that just missed the Top 40. The Hank Williams version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is ranked 29th among the 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music by the basic cable channel Country Music Television. Also, as stated in Wikipedia: "Rolling Stone ranked ['I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry'] #111 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the oldest song on the list."
(February 2015)
