Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

"A compassionate yet clear-eyed" (Washington Post) portrait of country music’s founding father and "Hillbilly King."Mark Ribowsky’s Hank has been hailed as the "greatest biography yet" (Library Journal, starred review) of the beloved icon. Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine. Six decades later, Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend—from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year’s Day in 1953. Examining Williams’s chart-topping hits while also re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, Hank uncovers the real man beneath the myths, reintroducing us to an American original whose legacy, like a good night at the honkytonk, promises to carry on and on.

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Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

"A compassionate yet clear-eyed" (Washington Post) portrait of country music’s founding father and "Hillbilly King."Mark Ribowsky’s Hank has been hailed as the "greatest biography yet" (Library Journal, starred review) of the beloved icon. Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine. Six decades later, Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend—from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year’s Day in 1953. Examining Williams’s chart-topping hits while also re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, Hank uncovers the real man beneath the myths, reintroducing us to an American original whose legacy, like a good night at the honkytonk, promises to carry on and on.

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Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

by Mark Ribowsky
Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

Hank: The Short Life and Long Country Road of Hank Williams

by Mark Ribowsky

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Overview

"A compassionate yet clear-eyed" (Washington Post) portrait of country music’s founding father and "Hillbilly King."Mark Ribowsky’s Hank has been hailed as the "greatest biography yet" (Library Journal, starred review) of the beloved icon. Hank Williams, a frail, flawed man who had become country music’s first real star, instantly morphed into its first tragic martyr when he died in the backseat of a Cadillac at the age of twenty-nine. Six decades later, Ribowsky traces the miraculous rise of this music legend—from the dirt roads of rural Alabama to the now-immortal stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and, finally, to a lonely end on New Year’s Day in 1953. Examining Williams’s chart-topping hits while also re-creating days and nights choked in booze and desperation, Hank uncovers the real man beneath the myths, reintroducing us to an American original whose legacy, like a good night at the honkytonk, promises to carry on and on.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781631493379
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date: 11/07/2017
Pages: 512
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Mark Ribowsky is the author of fifteen books, including Ain't Too Proud to Beg: The Troubled Lives and Enduring Soul of the Temptations, the New York Times Notable Book Don’t Look Back: Satchel Paige in the Shadows of Baseball, and, most recently, Dreams to Remember: Otis Redding, Stax Records, and the Transformation of Southern Soul. He lives in Florida.

Table of Contents

Introduction Just Plain Hank ix

Prologue A Wheel in the Ditch and a Wheel on the Track xix

Part 1 1923-1937

1 King Hiram 3

2 An American Twang 14

3 "Country Music Ain't Nothin' but White People's Blues, Anyway" 23

4 I Got A Home in Montgomery 36

Part 2 1938-1948

5 "Don't Tell Mama" 49

6 Drydock 62

7 "Audrey, Get Me a Bottle" 72

8 "It Ain't a Funny Song" 86

9 Bottle Up and Go 97

10 From A Mean Bottle 115

Part 3 1948-1950

11 "Syrup Sopper" or "Populist Poet" 135

12 "The Sorriest Thing I Ever Did Hear" 155

13 "Never Put Me On After Hank Williams!" 170

14 Pettin' Parties, Cigarettes, and Gin 186

15 "It's Never Too Country" 207

16 A Brand-New Recipe 222

Part 4 1950-1953

17 "Don't He Kill an Audience?" 239

18 "The Gun Shot Four Times" 254

19 "Almost a Continuous Nightmare" 273

20 Hurting from Inside 295

21 So Far Gone 313

22 "I See Jesus Comin' Down the Road" 338

23 "Don't Worry About Ol' Hank" 349

24 Then Came That Fateful Day 367

Epilogue Of Myth and Men 397

Notes 427

Index 451

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