HANK WILLIAMS (SR.)
Hank Williams. (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential singers and songwriters of the 20th Century, Williams recorded 35 singles (five released posthumously) that would place in the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that ranked number one. (More from Wikipedia)
After buying a Hank Williams record, Hasil Adkins naively assumed that Williams was playing all of the instruments, since there were no other musician credits shown. By the time he figured out the truth, he had already taught himself to be a one-band band, so he stuck with that.
The Hasil Adkins album that I got is called White Light/White Meat (subtitled: "Authentic West Virginia One Man Band Home Recordings 1958-1965") and provides a representative slice of his output: raucous rockers ("Hot Dog Baby"), Hank Williams-style love songs ("You're Gonna Break My Heart"), songs about dance crazes ("Come on and Do the Shake with Me"), and country weepies ("Lonely Graveyard").
If nothing else had sprung from there, northern Louisiana would still be renowned as the home of the Louisiana Hayride radio show, the direct antecedent of the even more legendary show from WSM Radio in Nashville, The Grand Ole Opry. However, this fertile musical landscape was also the home of artists as varied as the avant-garde (and anonymous) band the Residents, musical entrepreneur Dale Hawkins (whose song "Susie Q" was one of the first in the genre called "swamp rock" and was also the first hit song by Creedence Clearwater Revival), and a wealth of country stars like Trace Adkins (no relation to Hasil Adkins, as far as I know), Tim McGraw and Hank Williams, Jr. (father Hank Sr. was from Alabama).
The man born Thomas Johnson in Bastrop, LA was inspired by the founders of country and western like Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Bill Monroe; and his dream was to appear on the Louisiana Hayride.
Thomas Johnson told Mira Smith that he didn't want his own name on the record. She asked him what he did want, and he gave her the name The Lonesome Drifter, adapted from the name of Hank Williams' band The Drifting Cowboys and also another name used by Williams, Luke the Drifter. So "Eager Boy" was released on the brand new label K Records, though it was actually the flip side "Tear Drop Valley" that finally won the Drifter his spot on the Hayride.
(May 2011)
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Items: Hank Williams, Sr.
