Country

The name Hank Williams comes with loads of connotations, thanks to a short but fiery ascent and an equally speedy burnout that made him a country legend.
He was an inspiring songwriter, an energetic performer, a tragic addict, a frail spina bifida victim and — based on his portrait of his marriage to Audrey Williams — a bit of a drama queen.

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Sunday (Sept. 17) marks 100 years since his birth in Alabama, and the century milestone finds his legacy barreling down two tracks. On one hand, he was a breakthrough songwriter whose ability to turn real-life events into melodic, poetic soap operas has influenced generations of artists and composers. On the other, he remains a mythological figure who died in the back seat of a Cadillac during an overnight journey to a concert, a passage that is as mysterious and misunderstood as the bad fortune he stumbled into — or created — during his 29 years on earth.

Neither his artistic track nor his iconic level of tragedy would matter 10 decades after his introduction if Hank Sr. hadn’t had such impact.

“It’s so deceptively difficult to do what he did, like the ability to have humor and marry that with real, raw, honest emotion,” says Ward Hayden, whose Boston-based band Ward Hayden & the Outliers released A Celebration of Hank Williams Live on Sept. 1. “He definitely found something unique, which is why I think so many people have used his music as inspiration. I mean, he really set the bar.”

It’s often said by traditionalists that Hank Sr. wouldn’t have been able to get a recording deal in modern Nashville, but that doesn’t mean his presence isn’t still felt. In Hailey Whitters’ recent top 20 single “Everything She Ain’t,” the singer pledges to be “the Audrey to your Hank.” And in Walker Hayes’ current “Good With Me,” he lampoons himself: “Buddy thinks everything I sing sucks/ ’Cause it don’t sound like Hank.”

That’s one of the frequent criticisms of modern country: that artists who cite Hank Sr. might not even know, let alone appreciate, his music. Even in cases where that’s true, those performers still owe him a debt for the revolution he brought to the genre.

“Anybody who writes a personal song, in some ways, traces back to Hank because when he started, people were writing more generic songs — you know, the tragedies and the heart songs, family and home and God,” says Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum senior writer Michael McCall. “It wasn’t as personal, but Hank sensed all of those things and made them personal. People felt like he was singing about his life.”

Often he was. “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “You Win Again” — an achingly distraught ballad recorded the day after his second divorce from Audrey became final — were all about that central relationship. Even now, Kelsea Ballerini, Megan Moroney, Maren Morris, Jason Aldean and Thomas Rhett are just a smattering of the country artists whose lives or their personal beliefs are incorporated into the material they record.

“We all feel like we know Dolly Parton,” says Williams’ grandson, Mercury Nashville recording artist Sam Williams. “People in my generation, with my music tastes, we know Miley Cyrus — we grew up with Miley Cyrus, we know her different facets. And I think that so many people are able to feel like they know [Hank Sr.] by the honesty that he put in his songs.”

Sam never met his grandfather, but based on the recordings, he believes he inherited some of the same personal traits: a tendency to be misunderstood, a “goofy” sense of humor, a strong work ethic and a posture as a hopeless romantic. He recorded one of Hank Sr.’s songs for the first time in conjunction with the 100th anniversary. Sam delivers “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” with slight melodic changes, darker chord textures and a robust arrangement that heightens the despair in its text.

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Sam released his version on Friday (Sept. 15), and he will perform it on the Grand Ole Opry on Sept. 16 and again during a Hall of Fame tribute concert on Sept. 21, alongside appearances by sisters Hilary and Holly Williams, Lyle Lovett, Connie Smith and more. It’s likely that many of the performers will change the sound of Hank Sr.’s songs — in part because it’s so easy to do. Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Al Green, Pirates of the Mississippi, George Thorogood, Charley Pride, Linda Ronstadt and Hayden’s Outliers are among the scads of acts who found new textures in his classics, as did Hank Williams Jr., most famously.

“The songs are versatile,” Hayden says. “It’s not a blank canvas, but it’s a canvas that can be rearranged without completely changing it.”

Some of that comes from Hank Sr.’s song construction: conversational lyrics with basic chord structures and singable melodies. He left a lot of space for reimagination.

“There was just something about the simplicity of the music and the way he’s saying it,” notes Josh Turner.

The simple presentation doesn’t mean that Hank Sr. had a simple, one-dimensional story. As easy as it is to focus on the sorrow in his ballads or the deep well of inspiration he tapped, he was also conscious of his audience and was intentional about developing material that would connect. Particularly in such uptempo songs as “Honky Tonk Blues,” “Move It On Over,” “Honky Tonkin’,” “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” “Mind Your Own Business” or “Hey, Good Lookin’,” one can sense the core of a great concert experience built to satisfy a crowd.

“He was just one of those engines of charisma in early American popular music that took it to the next level,” Sam says.

Ultimately, Hank Sr.’s legacy is difficult to fully chronicle. For all the identifiable music in his catalog, a mythology arose around his drinking, the drugs, the fights with Audrey and his concert no-shows. His spinal issues created pain and led to experimental treatments, and most certainly influenced some of the erratic behavior. That tragedy, though, exists behind a haze of folklore.

“It’s similar to [Johnny] Cash. Rosanne says you can apply anything to him and it works because he was all those things,” says McCall. “Hank was that way. The mythology became a little different than who he was, and nobody could live up to that kind of mythology, but those myths are strong, and they influence people.”

Hank Sr., as an artist, certainly had an effect. His work inspired the likes of Merle Haggard, George Jones, Bob Dylan, Randy Travis, Kris Kristofferson, Bob McDill, Dean Dillon and Rodney Crowell — anyone who drew from those artists or their stylistic heirs is receiving his hand-me-down spirit. But part of the legacy that accompanies his creations is what Hayden calls “the archetype of the doomed country singer.”

Keith Whitley, who died from overdosing on alcohol in his 30s, seemingly bought into it and paid a price. Turner likewise bought into Hank, but not entirely. The emotional behaviors and the emotional material are both part of the story that surrounds Senior at the century mark.

“It’s definitely a cautionary tale,” Turner warns. “But he was also inspiring because in spite of the pain, he was able to go and do great things.”

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Grammy winner Maren Morris released two new songs — “The Tree” and “Get the Hell Out of Here” — on Friday (Sept. 15). With them, she also shared the nuanced emotions behind her decision to leave country music and her feelings about the socio-political divide that has deepened over the past several years.
“These two songs are incredibly key to my next step because they express a very righteously angry and liberating phase of my life these last couple of years, but also how my navigation is finally pointing towards the future, whatever that may be or sound like,” she said in a statement. “Honoring where I’ve been and what I’ve achieved in country music, but also freely moving forward.”

On “The Tree,” she sings, “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem/ But you want to blame it on me.” She adds on “Get the Hell Out of Here”: “I hung around longer than anyone should/ You’ve broken my heart more than anyone could.”

She went into detail about her decision in an interview with The Los Angeles Times, sharing that the growing sociopolitical divide within country music — and the right-leaning views of some of the genre’s artists and fans — has been an ongoing challenge and barrier.

“After the Trump years, people’s biases were on full display,” Morris told the paper. “It just revealed who people really were and that they were proud to be misogynistic and racist and homophobic and transphobic. All these things were being celebrated, and it was weirdly dovetailing with this hyper-masculine branch of country music. I call it butt rock.”

“I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over,” she added. “But it’s burning itself down without my help.”

Morris — who graced the cover of Billboard’s Pride issue alongside drag stars — has also been one of the fiercest advocates for diversity, inclusion and progress within the country music genre, championing greater inclusion of voices and music from women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and artists of color. When she won a CMA Award for female vocalist of the year in 2020, Morris used her acceptance speech to honor women of color within country music. She performed at the Love Rising concert in Nashville earlier this year, an event that celebrated the LGBTQ+ community and challenged anti-trans legislation in Tennessee. Last year, Morris also had a war of words with Jason Aldean and his wife, Brittany, over gender-affirming care.

Morris’ move away from the genre comes as four country songs, including Aldean’s controversial “Try That in a Small Town,” have topped the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.

“I think it’s a last bastion,” Morris said of the consumption of “Try That in a Small Town.” “People are streaming these songs out of spite. It’s not out of true joy or love of the music. It’s to own the libs. And that’s so not what music is intended for. Music is supposed to be the voice of the oppressed — the actual oppressed. And now it’s being used as this really toxic weapon in culture wars.”

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Morris noted that she did not initially consider herself a political artist — merely an artist writing songs about the happenings in the world around her. “But the further you get into the country music business, that’s when you start to see the cracks,” she pointed out. “And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. So you start doing everything you can with the little power you have to make things better. That doesn’t make you popular.”

She went on to say why she thinks it’s necessary to speak up. “If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized,” Morris told the paper. “Anything this popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress. But I’ve kind of said everything I can say. I always thought I’d have to do middle fingers in the air jumping out of an airplane, but I’m trying to mature here and realize I can just walk away from the parts of this that no longer make me happy.”

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Morris noted that she is “still unraveling” a lot of her feelings of connection with country music.

“I don’t want to have an adversarial relationship to country music,” she added. “I still find myself weirdly wanting to protect it. But it’s not a family member. That’s the f–ked-up part, is that I’m talking about it as if it’s a person, but it’s not. So it’s a lot of deep deconstructing that I’m still unraveling.

“These songs are obviously the result of that — the aftermath of walking away from something that was really important to you and the betrayal that you felt very righteously. But also knowing there’s a thread of hope as you get to the other side,” Morris continued. “I hope it comes across that way because I truly was in a space of hope when I wrote the two songs, even though ‘Get the Hell Out of Here’ is really heavy. It’s about disarming that trauma and saying, ‘I can’t bail water out of this sinking ship anymore. It’s so futile. I choose happiness.’”