how old was hank williams senior when he died how old was hank williams senior when he died

His breakthrough moment came in 1949 with the release of Lovesick Blues, an old show tune that Williams parlayed into a chart-topping hit, an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and international fame. The president of MGM Records told Billboard magazine that the company got only about five requests for pictures of Williams during the weeks before his death, but over 300 afterwards. Country music legends June Carter and Bill Monroe were among those who filed past his open casket as Hanks band, The Drifting Cowboys, backed up those singing tributes to the fallen star. "[36], On March 19, Marshall declared that he felt Williams was depressed and committed suicide by taking a higher dose of the drugs he had prescribed. A little more than a year later, on December 30, 1952, Williams, newly married to a younger woman named Billie Jean, left his mother's home in Montgomery for Charlestown, West Virginia. The marriage was technically invalid, since Sheppard's divorce from her previous husband did not comply with the legally required 60-day trial reconciliation. During one of his concerts, Williams met his idol, Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff backstage,[43] who later warned him of the dangers of alcohol, saying, "You've got a million-dollar talent, son, but a ten-cent brain. Williams eventually started to host a show on KWKH and started touring across western Louisiana and eastern Texas, always returning on Saturdays for the weekly broadcast of the Hayride. James Ellis Garner later played fiddle for him. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the two stopped at the Andrew Johnson Hotel. [52] Rose signed Williams to a six-song contract, and leveraged this deal to sign Williams with Sterling Records. [142], For other people named Hank Williams, see. [103][104] Alabama governor Gordon Persons officially proclaimed September 21 "Hank Williams Day". Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine, which made his heart problems worse. [89] Dr. P. H. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain of morphine. Payne,[1] along with Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb,[2] had a major influence on Williams' later musical style. It was something he apparently saw coming. A year after first meeting with Rose, Williams had his first hit, "Move It On Over." They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. It was placed in a silver coffin that was first shown at his mother's boarding house at 318 McDounough Street for two days. Hank Williams died of drug and alcohol abuse at the age of 29. Marshall gave Cunningham a list of his patients, including Hank Williams. [105] Williams had 11 number one country hits in his career ("Lovesick Blues", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me", "Moanin' the Blues", "Cold, Cold Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive", "Kaw-Liga", "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "Take These Chains from My Heart"), as well as many other top 10 hits. This being the days of Jim Crow, the 200 Black mourners were in a segregated balcony. The worker claimed that she sold Williams' notes to a representative of the Honky-Tonk Hall of Fame and the Rock-N-Roll Roadshow. He found hemorrhages in the heart and neck and pronounced the cause of death as "insufficiency of the right ventricle of the heart". While Jett was a college junior at the University of Alabama in Montgomery majoring in recreation therapy, her adoptive . Carr talked to Williams for the last time when they stopped at a restaurant in Bristol, Virginia. The important thing is that he made millions of people happy, an editorial in The Advertiser stated on Jan. 3, 1953. Jones declared "I have never accepted the report that my husband died of a heart attack. Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine.[6]. [38] The band traveled throughout central and southern Alabama performing in clubs and at private gatherings. Among the hits he wrote were "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". Hank Williams was an aspiring country music singer when he first met Audrey Williams. [141] The original acetates made their way to the possession of Jett Williams. Hiram "Hank" Williams died on January 1, 1953, at the age of 29. Lillie was unwilling to let him reclaim his position as the head of the household. [38] The same day, the District Attorney's office declared that after a new review of the autopsy report of Faye Marshall, toxicological and microscopic tests confirmed that her death on March 3 was not related to the medication prescribed by her husband. A. The 27-year-old was driving the car, which was. That night, the singers body was taken back to Montgomery. Cut from rural stock, Williams, the third child of Lon and Lillie Williams, grew up in a household that never had much money. Lillie Stone, Audrey Williams, and Hank Williams, Jr., seated on a bed while looking through letters and cards received after the death of Hank Williams, Sr. Stopping for gas in Oak Hill, West Virginia, Carr realized Williams was dead. As the titles of some of Williams' songs suggest, heartbreak and turmoil were never that far from his life. While he was medically disqualified from military service after suffering a back injury caused by falling from a bull during a rodeo in Texas, his band members were all drafted to serve. A year later he was entering talent shows and had his own band, Hank. Over the next several years he churned out a number of other big hits, including "Cold, Cold Heart," "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey Good Lookin'," "Lost Highway," and I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive." [139] On October 22, 1975, a federal judge in Atlanta, Georgia, ruled Horton's marriage to Williams was valid and that half of Williams' future royalties belonged to her.[140]. Elonzo stayed to celebrate his son's birthday in September before he returned to the medical center in Louisiana. [127] His great-grandson Coleman Finchum, son of Hank Williams III, released his debut single credited to IV and the Strange Band in 2021. They are in a bedroom in the home of Lillie (Hank Williams's mother) on North McDonough Street in Montgomery, Alabama. As if straight out of a country song, it was revealed decades later that Williams had fathered a daughter, Jett, who was born shortly after his death. [1] His alcoholism worsened in 1952. Jett was 21 when she realized Williams could be her biological father. In 1946 Williams landed a songwriting contract with Acuff-Rose Publications and began composing material for singer Molly ODay. One year later, he released a cover of "Lovesick Blues", a huge country hit, which propelled him to stardom on the Grand Ole Opry. [100] "Take These Chains From My Heart" was released in April 1953 and reached No. [25][26] Payne's base musical style was blues. Also, the Drifting Cowboys were at the time backing Ray Price, while Williams was backed by local bands. [53], Williams signed with MGM Records in 1947 and released "Move It on Over"; considered an early example of rock and roll music, the song became a country hit. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1999. Instead, Williams died 67 years ago, on Jan. 1, 1953. Montgomery, Alabama Hank Williams was country music's first megastar. Carr and Williams checked out of the hotel at around 10:45p.m. Hotel porters had to carry Williams to his vehicle, an Olympic Blue 1952 Cadillac Series 62 convertible, as he was coughing and hiccupping. [22] At a chance meeting in Georgiana, Williams met U.S. Representative J. Lister Hill while Hill was campaigning across Alabama. [35] On March 12, 1953, Billie Jean Jones appeared before the Oklahoma committee. Tributes to Williams took place the day after his death. [120] The same year, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best RecordingsPlus! His father was a railroad engineer who was also a victim of shell shock after a year of fighting in France in 1918 during World War I and spent many years in veterans hospitals. That all changed in 1949 with the release of "Lovesick Blues," a throwaway rendition of an old show tune he'd pushed to tape at the end of a recording session. Williams remains a beloved albeit tragic figure in country music and his work continues to influence musicians to this day. Both women had been using the description professionally. Astrological Sign: Virgo, Death Year: 1953, Death date: January 1, 1953, Death State: West Virginia, Death City: Oak Hill, Death Country: United States, Article Title: Hank Williams Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/hank-williams, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: September 18, 2019, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. Williams had also married Sheppard before her divorce was final, on the 10th day of a required 60-day reconciliation period. There he sang "Hey Good Lookin'", and the next week Como opened the show singing the same song, with apologies to Williams. [102], Williams has been called "the King of Country Music" in popular culture. [96] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver casket, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners. [134] Gimarc contacted Williams' daughter Jett, and Colin Escott, writer of a biography book on Williams. [30] Williams's remains are interred at the Oakwood Annex in Montgomery. "Tom [Hiddleston, the actor portraying Williams] puts across that impending sense of doom. [66] In 1951, "Dear John" became a hit, but it was the flip side, "Cold, Cold Heart", that became one of his most recognized songs. [27] Payne taught Williams chords, chord progressions, bass turns, and the musical style of accompaniment that he would use in most of his future songwriting. A rookie Tennessee highway patrol officer, Swann Kitts, told reporters he had stopped the Cadillac and fined Carr $25 for speeding, The United Press reported on Jan. 2, 1952. It is unimportant whether you liked his songs, whether in your opinion he created ugliness or beauty. Instead of performing, Williams died 70 years ago today, on Jan. 1, 1953. His father was a Mason and his mother was a member of the. He was dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry because of his unreliability and alcoholism. 1 on the country charts. They began to fill the auditorium hours before the afternoon funeral. Around this time, he met Billie Jean Jones, a girlfriend of country singer Faron Young, at the Grand Ole Opry. As his success deepened, so did Williams' dependence on alcohol and morphine. Because a corpse was involved, Stamey called in radio officer Howard Janney. However, much of what led to his non-sobriety is exactly what made his music as good as it was. Due to Williams' excesses, Fred Rose stopped working with him. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. Later he would dull his physical pain with morphine, but alcohol remained his painkiller of choice when he sought to relieve the heartache of his tumultuous relationship with Audrey Sheppard, whom he married in 1942 (they divorced in 1952). The result of the original autopsy indicated that Williams died of a heart attack. The Georgiana native hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to perform a concert planned in Canton, Ohio. For Hank to have lived even a normal life span, he would have had to avoid chemical dependence. Williams was pronounced dead a short while later. [24], There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar. All rights reserved (About Us). [125][126] In July 2020, his granddaughter Katherine (Hank Jr.'s daughter) died in a car crash at the age of 27. The janitor was accused of theft, but the charges were later dropped when a judge determined that her version of events was true. Born and raised in Alabama, Williams was given guitar lessons by African-American blues musician Rufus Payne in exchange for meals or money. After an autopsy, the cause of death was determined to be "insufficiency of the right ventricle of the heart.". [39] Oklahoma Governor Johnston Murray revoked the parole of Horace Raphol "Toby" Marshall, who returned to prison to complete his forgery sentence.[40]. "[44], He worked for the rest of the war for a shipbuilding company in Mobile, Alabama, as well as singing in bars for soldiers. In 1948, he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, and he joined the Louisiana Hayride, a radio show broadcast that propelled him into living rooms all over the Southeast appearing on weekend shows. If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing.