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Transcript

Hank Williams: Sanatoriums, Poison Pills, and Fired from the Grand Ole Opry · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:11
Speaker 1: Hank Williams are insane. He drunkenly fired rounds into his
0:16
Speaker 1: own home and didn't think twice about where he aimed.
0:20
Speaker 1: He was repeatedly pummeled to a pulp by police officers,
0:24
Speaker 1: fellow musicians, and anyone else who was foolish enough to
0:27
Speaker 1: pick a fight with. His benders often lasted the better
0:31
Speaker 1: part of a week as he drifted in between bars
0:33
Speaker 1: and stints at the sanatorium. His hours spent in the
0:37
Speaker 1: local drunk tank exceeded his number of hit songs, and
0:41
Speaker 1: Hank Williams logged a lot of hit songs. He established
0:45
Speaker 1: a distinct line between folk and quote unquote country and Western,
0:50
Speaker 1: a new fangle genre. He helped pioneer with his signature
0:53
Speaker 1: yodel in blue collar blues. He didn't shape the face
0:57
Speaker 1: of country. He is the face of country. And it's
1:00
Speaker 1: because Hank Williams made great music, some of the greatest
1:04
Speaker 1: music ever made. Unlike that music I played for you
1:08
Speaker 1: at the top of the show that wasn't great music.
1:11
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop from my mellotron called Schlock
1:14
Speaker 1: around the Clock MK One. I played you that loop
1:19
Speaker 1: because I can't afford the rights to off Wheederson Sweetheart
1:22
Speaker 1: by Vera Lynn, And why would I play you that
1:25
Speaker 1: specific slice of drowsy deutsch Land Cheese?
1:28
Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
1:30
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
1:34
Speaker 1: August eleventh, nineteen fifty two, And that was the day
1:37
Speaker 1: Hank Williams was fired from the Grand Old Aubry, sending
1:41
Speaker 1: him further down a spiral of alcoholism and shattering his
1:44
Speaker 1: greatest dream. On this episode, week long Benders, Stints at
1:50
Speaker 1: the Sanatorium, blue collar blues, shattered dreams in the face
1:55
Speaker 1: of country music, Hank Williams, I'm Jake Brennan and this
2:00
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland. Hank Williams was drunk, plastered, actually, and his
2:33
Speaker 1: wife Audrey, was not happy about it. Neither were his
2:37
Speaker 1: touring partners on the Louisiana Hay Ride. This was supposed
2:41
Speaker 1: to be a family event, a picnic a little north
2:43
Speaker 1: of Shreveport at cattle Lake, egg hunts, roasted wieners, sack
2:48
Speaker 1: races for the kids, that sort of thing. But there
2:51
Speaker 1: was also a tub of beer and a bottle of
2:53
Speaker 1: tranquilizers and nasal and hailers boosted by Ben's a dream.
2:58
Speaker 1: Hank Williams was into all of it that weekend, which
3:02
Speaker 1: came as a surprise to those who knew Hank. This
3:05
Speaker 1: weekend was for the kids, and Hank was normally more
3:08
Speaker 1: discerning and choosing his drunks. Usually they were while he
3:12
Speaker 1: was away from his young family, his wife, Audrey and
3:15
Speaker 1: her daughter from another marriage, Lucretia. Let something set him
3:18
Speaker 1: off this weekend, most likely Audrey. Hank Williams was the
3:24
Speaker 1: type of drunk who controlled his alcoholism and fits and starts.
3:28
Speaker 1: He'd go long stretches of time without a drink, and
3:31
Speaker 1: then when the notion took him, he'd have a beer,
3:33
Speaker 1: then quickly another, then some whiskey, and pretty soon he'd
3:37
Speaker 1: forget he was drinking, and he'd go on forgetting and
3:39
Speaker 1: drinking for the next three to six days until someone
3:42
Speaker 1: either hauled him out of whatever local drunk tank was
3:44
Speaker 1: nearest or to the nearest local sanatorium.
3:47
Speaker 2: To dry out.
3:49
Speaker 1: Then Hank would fly sober for a bit, fall victim
3:52
Speaker 1: to the drink soon enough, and right back into the
3:54
Speaker 1: same routine, repeat, repeat, repeat. It made for a hard life,
4:02
Speaker 1: made achieving his dream of performing on the Grand Old Opry,
4:05
Speaker 1: especially hard, but it made for great songwriting. The darkness
4:12
Speaker 1: Hank Williams tapped into for the songs he wrote and
4:15
Speaker 1: performed came from some sort of place that previous country
4:19
Speaker 1: musicians had yet to mine.
4:21
Speaker 2: He knew it, even when others didn't.
4:24
Speaker 1: Like Fred Rose, Hank's music publisher, Rose knew his shit,
4:28
Speaker 1: especially when it came to recording hit songs. He had
4:31
Speaker 1: seriously elevated roy Acuff's profile, after all, and roy Acuff
4:35
Speaker 1: was the model for Hank, a smoky Mountain country singer
4:39
Speaker 1: whose star had seriously ascended and left a major shine
4:42
Speaker 1: on old Hank. Hank loved roy Acuff, and Hank loved
4:47
Speaker 1: the new tune he was fiddling with in the studio
4:49
Speaker 1: on Fred Rose's dime. But Fred didn't believe in the
4:52
Speaker 1: tune love Sick Blues, the old Emma Miller song.
4:56
Speaker 2: Only Hank did. Emmett pulled the.
4:58
Speaker 1: Song from some old tin pan alley poser and made
5:00
Speaker 1: a country Hank made it hillbilly, but Fred Rose didn't care.
5:05
Speaker 1: Fred didn't want to record it, neither really did the
5:08
Speaker 1: session players Fred had hired to back Hank on that
5:11
Speaker 1: recording session. But Hank knew his version of the song
5:14
Speaker 1: had something, so Hank dug in. He was mulelike in
5:18
Speaker 1: his insistence, and this may have been a fred Rose
5:21
Speaker 1: finance production, but Hank was the artist. They recorded Love
5:25
Speaker 1: Sick Blues last without much thought. The first take breezed by,
5:29
Speaker 1: and fred Rose was so offended by the unconventional timing
5:33
Speaker 1: Hank had insisted on it to match the natural length
5:36
Speaker 1: of his yodeling rather than any conventional songwriting meter, that
5:39
Speaker 1: fred Rose decided to leave the studio in hopes that
5:42
Speaker 1: this whole debacle would just go away before he returned.
5:45
Speaker 2: It didn't go away.
5:47
Speaker 1: Hank and the band nailed the song on the second take,
5:51
Speaker 1: and when they were done, no one in the room
5:53
Speaker 1: knew what Hank Williams knew that they had just recorded.
5:56
Speaker 1: Hank Williams's first smash hit, Love Sick Blues rocketed up
6:01
Speaker 1: the charts. Hank and his band, The Drifting Cowboys would
6:04
Speaker 1: close with the song and audiences would lose their collective mind.
6:08
Speaker 1: They'd insist Hank play it again and again and again.
6:11
Speaker 1: Sometimes the band would play the song at the ends
6:13
Speaker 1: of their sets up to seven times in a row
6:15
Speaker 1: to get the crowd to finally settle down.
6:18
Speaker 2: Hank Williams's version.
6:19
Speaker 1: Of Love Sick Blues had something that no other country
6:22
Speaker 1: song had. Hank would tell you it's quote unquote hillbilly,
6:26
Speaker 1: meaning it's a perfect meld of folk and blues. But
6:29
Speaker 1: it's more than that. There's a drive to it. The
6:32
Speaker 1: drive is very much intentional. The song takes you somewhere,
6:36
Speaker 1: but does so with loose abandon. Hank's yodels are less
6:39
Speaker 1: woe is Me and more life affirming, as if he's saying, yeah,
6:43
Speaker 1: I'm love sick, but so what.
6:44
Speaker 2: At least that lived.
6:48
Speaker 1: Love Sick Blues made Hank Williams the premier performer on
6:51
Speaker 1: the Louisiana hay Ride back in the late nineteen forties.
6:55
Speaker 1: The Louisiana hay Ride was the farm team to the
6:58
Speaker 1: Big League Grand Old Opry, and the hay Ride launched
7:01
Speaker 1: not only Hank Williams, but country stars Webb Peers, Kitty Wells,
7:05
Speaker 1: and eventually, after Hank had long since moved on from
7:08
Speaker 1: the Traveling Jamboree, the Louisiana Hayride gave Johnny Cash and
7:12
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley their starts as well. But the hay Ride
7:16
Speaker 1: for Hank Williams was never meant to be a long
7:18
Speaker 1: term play. It was just a step toward his near
7:21
Speaker 1: term goal of being invited to perform regularly on the
7:25
Speaker 1: grand Ole Opry. The Opry was, without a doubt, for
7:28
Speaker 1: country musicians the big leagues. The Opry was where legends
7:32
Speaker 1: began and where legends stayed forever. Membership meant lifelong status
7:37
Speaker 1: next to the best in the business, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl,
7:41
Speaker 1: Ernest Tubb, Red Foley. There was no higher privileged country
7:44
Speaker 1: music than to entertain at that level to thousands of
7:47
Speaker 1: homes over WSM's far reaching airwaves every week. But the
7:52
Speaker 1: challenge of the grand Ole Opry seemed to weighs off
7:55
Speaker 1: right now. Hank Williams's biggest challenge was his wife, Audrey.
8:00
Speaker 1: The chair flew across the cattle lake cabin. It nearly
8:03
Speaker 1: missed Hank's head. He was drunk, unable to react, so
8:07
Speaker 1: he got lucky the legs of the small wooden chair
8:10
Speaker 1: bust off its seat when it missed him and hit
8:11
Speaker 1: the wide wood paneled floor. Audrey was undeterred and not
8:15
Speaker 1: any less pissed at Hank for ruining their family getaway.
8:18
Speaker 1: The Williamses had a reputation to uphold, didn't Hank know
8:21
Speaker 1: that Audrey had her own singing career to think about.
8:24
Speaker 1: Didn't Hank know that Hank Williams didn't know shit. So
8:27
Speaker 1: Audrey Williams did her best Warren spawn and rocketed the
8:30
Speaker 1: glass tumbler at Hank's belly. Hank took it in stride
8:35
Speaker 1: as the air spurret it out of his lungs from
8:37
Speaker 1: the impact of the hard glassware. He fell back on
8:40
Speaker 1: the cheap cabin's sofa and laughed to himself, obliterated yet again.
8:47
Speaker 1: When he awoke finally, whether it was the next morning,
8:50
Speaker 1: or the morning after that, or the morning after that,
8:52
Speaker 1: Hank woke to good news. Love Sick Blues had paid off.
8:57
Speaker 1: The song owned the charts in nineteen five nine, and
9:01
Speaker 1: the Grand Old Opry had noticed. Hank didn't quite have
9:04
Speaker 1: an invitation. He had a meeting with the WSM program director.
9:10
Speaker 1: Based on the strength of that meeting, and perhaps so
9:13
Speaker 1: Lord Hank Hope not in audition, then Hank would maybe
9:16
Speaker 1: be invited to perform as part of the Grand Old Opry.
9:21
Speaker 1: Hank was on his way, stretched out in the back
9:24
Speaker 1: of his American sedan with his bandmates up front.
9:28
Speaker 2: Hank's back eight.
9:30
Speaker 1: He tried extending his lanky legs to take some of
9:32
Speaker 1: the pressure off his back. As far back as he
9:35
Speaker 1: could remember, his back was an issue, and today was
9:38
Speaker 1: worse than normal. The car ride from Hank's current home
9:41
Speaker 1: in Shreveport, Louisiana, to Nashville was going to be a bear,
9:46
Speaker 1: and there were pills that, no doubt, whiskey along the
9:49
Speaker 1: way to help Delva Paine. But whiskey and pills presented
9:52
Speaker 1: their own complications, diminishing returns. Hank knew this. He knew
9:57
Speaker 1: he needed to be sober for the Opry. He leaned
10:01
Speaker 1: back in the back seat and listened to the radio WSFA,
10:05
Speaker 1: the station that helped launch Hank Williams. Hank had been
10:09
Speaker 1: performing live on the station since nineteen thirty six. It
10:13
Speaker 1: was his first taste to professionalism, and it was his
10:16
Speaker 1: unprofessionalism that led to his departure from the station. No
10:19
Speaker 1: skin off his back. WSFA was small potatoes. The Grand
10:24
Speaker 1: Ole Opry was his destiny. Hank closed his eyes and
10:29
Speaker 1: let the gravel grind of the rubber meeting the road
10:32
Speaker 1: lull him to sleep. The dream would keep him company,
10:35
Speaker 1: it always did. It wasn't scary anymore, not like it
10:39
Speaker 1: was when he was a kid. Hank felt a sharp
10:42
Speaker 1: surge of pain shoot through his back and thought, just
10:46
Speaker 1: hold on, It'll be all right.
10:48
Speaker 2: It isn't my time. It's only a dream. Death is
10:53
Speaker 2: only a dream.
11:23
Speaker 1: Eleven year old Hank Williams was transported. He learned this
11:27
Speaker 1: song as a hymn in his own Sunday school lessons.
11:30
Speaker 1: The version he learned was nothing like the version floating
11:33
Speaker 1: through the Alabama breeze right now, drifting on the back
11:37
Speaker 1: of the Southern wind from the open windows of the
11:39
Speaker 1: black church located down the road from Hank's mother's boarding house.
11:44
Speaker 1: Death is only a dream. The words took him somewhere else,
11:50
Speaker 1: away from the pain, the pain in his back spina bifida.
11:54
Speaker 1: The adult said, whatever that was, why should we weep
11:58
Speaker 1: when weary ones rest in the bosom of Jesus Supreme?
12:02
Speaker 1: Even at eleven, that sounded like a better deal.
12:05
Speaker 2: To Hank. It sounded like peace, which was a far
12:08
Speaker 2: cry from what.
12:09
Speaker 1: He was experiencing. His father was gone, ill, they said, disabled,
12:14
Speaker 1: unable to provide. His mother was all he had, and
12:17
Speaker 1: she was busy trying to make a living, setting up
12:20
Speaker 1: a boarding house. Springing in transience, those passing through, Some
12:24
Speaker 1: overstayed their welcome. Ramblers, gamblers, women, lots of women, experienced women.
12:30
Speaker 1: Some of the boys in town talked. What were those
12:33
Speaker 1: women up to? What exactly did they do for work?
12:36
Speaker 1: Over at old Hank's mother's place. Hank didn't know, but
12:40
Speaker 1: he wished the rumors weren't there, but there.
12:42
Speaker 2: Was little he could do about it. Same as the
12:44
Speaker 2: pain in his back, it wasn't going anywhere.
12:47
Speaker 1: He learned to live with it. The music helped, listening
12:51
Speaker 1: to it, even playing it. His mother took some of
12:54
Speaker 1: that boarding house money and sent Hank to singing school.
12:58
Speaker 1: He learned out of shape notes in his mouth how
13:00
Speaker 1: to take those hymns he heard drifting through the Alabama countryside.
13:04
Speaker 1: It meld them into something that suited him, that kept
13:07
Speaker 1: him occupied, and that was enough for the moment that
13:11
Speaker 1: in the alcohol alcohol, hooch, white lightning, moonshine, whatever. It
13:16
Speaker 1: was hard to come by for an eleven year old,
13:18
Speaker 1: but there was plenty around rural Alabama if he knew
13:20
Speaker 1: where to look. Just follow the loggers. The local blue
13:24
Speaker 1: collar workers would stash their bottles in the woods on
13:26
Speaker 1: the way to work and pick them up on their
13:28
Speaker 1: way out. In the meantime, Hank would raid their stash
13:31
Speaker 1: and hit various bottles to make his head spin. That
13:34
Speaker 1: he'd sit and strum the guitar his mother had given him,
13:36
Speaker 1: an attempt to mouth the hymns. He'd become familiar with
13:41
Speaker 1: all of it, the high of the alcohol, the thrill
13:43
Speaker 1: of the illicit take, the music. It was a perfect
13:46
Speaker 1: distraction from the physical pain and the confusion of early adolescents.
13:51
Speaker 1: And then Hank met Tea Todd. Tee Todd was a
13:57
Speaker 1: black Alabama street musician whose real name was Rufus Payne.
14:01
Speaker 1: Tee Tat was young Hank Williams's two obsessions, music and
14:05
Speaker 1: alcohol personified. The name tee Tot was a silly, ironic
14:09
Speaker 1: pawn on the word teetotaling. Tee Tot was seldom found
14:13
Speaker 1: without a bottle of homebrewed hooch in an array of
14:15
Speaker 1: home fashioned instruments. He'd take to perform as a one
14:18
Speaker 1: man band. Cymbals strapped to his knees, stopboard under his foot,
14:23
Speaker 1: harp around his neck, guitar and hands, singing.
14:26
Speaker 2: To the heavens.
14:27
Speaker 1: Local kids were plenty amused and took to following Tee
14:30
Speaker 1: Tot all over what young Hank Williams was the only
14:33
Speaker 1: one among them who wanted to do more than listen.
14:36
Speaker 1: He wanted to learn. Where and how Tee Tot learned
14:42
Speaker 1: his craft is a matter of debate, but most places
14:45
Speaker 1: musical education to New Orleans early twentieth century, Gone of
14:49
Speaker 1: the jazz age. Tee Tot swung lazy. Tee Tot also
14:53
Speaker 1: drove hard. Te Tot hit you with that sock rhythm.
14:56
Speaker 1: Te Tot hit him high. Te Tot hit him low.
14:59
Speaker 1: Tea Tot rocked, rolled. Tee Tot roiled those emotions, those
15:02
Speaker 1: sneaky feelings.
15:04
Speaker 2: Tee Tot connected.
15:06
Speaker 1: Hank Williams took note, and by the time he was
15:09
Speaker 1: sixteen and had dropped out of school to play music
15:11
Speaker 1: full time in his own group, the Drifting Cowboys, Hank
15:14
Speaker 1: Williams had distilled down the infectious jazz and blues feel
15:18
Speaker 1: of te Tot's tunes with the sharp directness of folk
15:21
Speaker 1: and country music by way of Jimmy Rogers and the
15:23
Speaker 1: Carter Family, and all of it underpinned by the eerie
15:26
Speaker 1: darkness of Hank's beloved gospel music. It made for a
15:33
Speaker 1: particularly unique musical style, one that's now been emulated so
15:38
Speaker 1: much that it's hard to hear its special qualities. But
15:40
Speaker 1: when Hank Williams made the scene showing up in dive
15:43
Speaker 1: bars around Alabama and the Florida Panhandle and on air
15:47
Speaker 1: at Montgomery, Alabama's WFSA radio station, Hank Williams didn't sound
15:52
Speaker 1: like anyone else. He was country, but lacking almost completely
15:55
Speaker 1: in sophistication. He hinted at blues and gospel, but he
15:59
Speaker 1: was whiter than a ghosts. His music swung, but with
16:02
Speaker 1: tiny instrumentation compared to the big bands of the day.
16:05
Speaker 1: Hank just called it hillbilly music, and the people loved it. Folks,
16:10
Speaker 1: ordinary folks, playing spoken folks, hard working folks, hard drinking folks.
16:15
Speaker 1: Radio station managers, promoters, record label bosses not so much,
16:19
Speaker 1: but ordinary folks.
16:20
Speaker 2: They went wild for Hank Bolliams's music, even in those
16:24
Speaker 2: early days.
16:27
Speaker 1: His music was primal. It moved people, compelled them just
16:31
Speaker 1: like Tee Tot. It hit high and it hit low.
16:34
Speaker 1: It connected on a purely visceral level. It was driving,
16:38
Speaker 1: sexual and it hit you in the heart. It tapped
16:40
Speaker 1: into the darkness you felt when the lights were low
16:42
Speaker 1: and no one else was around. Those feelings you thought
16:45
Speaker 1: only you felt you were wrong. Hank felt them too,
16:48
Speaker 1: you could tell from his words, and that meant other
16:50
Speaker 1: people felt them as well. You weren't alone after all,
16:53
Speaker 1: at least for the moment. The moments were fleeting. The
16:59
Speaker 1: harder Hank at his career and at life in general,
17:02
Speaker 1: the faster the moments flew by. Hank's relationship with alcohol
17:06
Speaker 1: didn't slow things down. Neither did his relationship with his
17:10
Speaker 1: new bride, Audrey. Alcohol and Audrey both were enough to
17:14
Speaker 1: send Hank Williams spinning off the planet. Audrey fancied herself
17:18
Speaker 1: a singing talent and wanted her own career. She also
17:21
Speaker 1: wanted a husband. Hank Williams's alcoholism made him ill equipped
17:25
Speaker 1: to give her either, so he chose among the two
17:28
Speaker 1: Alcohol and Audrey. Alcohol won out, and Hank Williams spun
17:33
Speaker 1: out repeatedly. Hank Williams was in his and his wife's
17:39
Speaker 1: new front yard, howling at the moon. Hank was in
17:42
Speaker 1: the mud, howling like a wolf, rolling around like a
17:44
Speaker 1: pig that had been married barely a minute, and Audrey
17:47
Speaker 1: had thrown him out already over what. Hank didn't know,
17:49
Speaker 1: but his drunkenness surely had something to do with it,
17:52
Speaker 1: and now Audrey was throwing Hank's clothes out the door
17:55
Speaker 1: and into the mud with him in the front yard.
17:57
Speaker 1: Hank howled some more. Audrey screamed out to shut the
18:00
Speaker 1: hell up. Hank kept at it. Audrey went in the
18:02
Speaker 1: house and called the police. Hank didn't let up, and
18:08
Speaker 1: the police didn't play. Hank Williams was a well known
18:11
Speaker 1: local nuisance cuffs arrested in the drunk tank, Hank's steel
18:18
Speaker 1: guitar player, Don Helms, bailed him out. On Hank's way
18:21
Speaker 1: out of the station, the cops told him cheekily to
18:23
Speaker 1: come back and see them soon, and Hank told him
18:26
Speaker 1: to go to hell, but he surely would not before
18:31
Speaker 1: sobering up and putting in some work again with the
18:33
Speaker 1: drifting cowboys and trying to fly right as Audrey's husband.
18:37
Speaker 1: But soon enough Hank would find a bottle, and when
18:40
Speaker 1: he did a couple months later, he went.
18:42
Speaker 2: Looking for a fight with a little while.
18:46
Speaker 1: Hank knew just where to look wherever Dad krysl and
18:49
Speaker 1: his band of local wannabe Western Swing cowboys were slinging
18:53
Speaker 1: that tired, pseudo sophisticated crap. Hank hated Western Swing, thought
18:58
Speaker 1: it was for long hairs, it was hillbilly, and Dad
19:01
Speaker 1: Chrysler should have known better than to take it to
19:03
Speaker 1: the stage. Hank Williams bum rush. Dad sat heckled him
19:07
Speaker 1: and his band from right there on the dance floor
19:09
Speaker 1: for playing that garbage. Dad and his boys were more
19:12
Speaker 1: than happy to drop their fiddles and jump into the
19:14
Speaker 1: audience and pummel Hank to a pulp. Hank had a
19:17
Speaker 1: coming penance. He reckoned. Hank knew he had to atone
19:21
Speaker 1: for any number of things. Most things were forgivable, However,
19:25
Speaker 1: blowing it on stage was not, which is why he
19:28
Speaker 1: counted himself among the lucky ones. No matter how legless
19:32
Speaker 1: he drank himself, he could nearly always bring it on stage,
19:36
Speaker 1: nearly always. And there was that time in Southern Alabama
19:41
Speaker 1: when Hank started singing There's a Moon over my shoulder
19:44
Speaker 1: in one key and playing it on guitar in another key.
19:48
Speaker 1: The band politely ushered him off stage to save Hank
19:51
Speaker 1: from further embarrassment. Hank wandered off stage, out into the
19:54
Speaker 1: parking lot and promptly picked a fistfight with a policeman.
19:59
Speaker 1: You're gonna pick a fight with me, boy, Hank was
20:04
Speaker 1: promptly beat to a pulp and then thrown into jail
20:06
Speaker 1: once again, penance once more, then the sanatorium in Prattville, Alabama,
20:14
Speaker 1: to dry out.
20:15
Speaker 2: That was back in forty five.
20:21
Speaker 1: Here in nineteen forty nine, in the back seat of
20:24
Speaker 1: his sedan en route to Nashville for a shot at
20:26
Speaker 1: the Opry, the pain Hank felt in his back reminded
20:29
Speaker 1: him of the sanatorium. Hank would dry out in numerous
20:33
Speaker 1: facilities over the years, and each time the pain of
20:36
Speaker 1: getting sober drifted away, the pain at his back would return.
20:40
Speaker 1: It was a vicious cycle, one pain to replace a
20:44
Speaker 1: different pain. Hank let his head sink back on top
20:47
Speaker 1: of the car seat. On the car radio, the Carter
20:52
Speaker 1: family's version of death is only a dream, crackled out
20:56
Speaker 1: of the speakers, Only a dream, only a dream of
21:00
Speaker 1: glory beyond the dark stream, darkness pain. Despite the pain
21:06
Speaker 1: Hank was in, he knew it still was in his time.
21:09
Speaker 1: It was still much to be done, too much life
21:12
Speaker 1: to live. Death may only have been a dream that
21:15
Speaker 1: the Grand Ole Opry was life.
21:21
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this word word word, Nashville,
21:29
Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine.
21:31
Speaker 1: Country music had just become quote unquote country music.
21:35
Speaker 2: Up until that year, Billboard.
21:37
Speaker 1: Magazine and the rest of the music industry categorized the
21:39
Speaker 1: new genre as folk tunes and if country music had
21:43
Speaker 1: a super Bowl back in the forties. It happened weekly
21:46
Speaker 1: on Saturday nights at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee,
21:50
Speaker 1: and broadcast over one hundred and fifty stations via WSM's
21:54
Speaker 1: fifty thousand watts straight into the homes of Hillbillies and
21:57
Speaker 1: country sophisticates alike from muscle shows to Minneapolis. Inside the
22:02
Speaker 1: walls of the rhyme. In that evening, past, present and
22:05
Speaker 1: future country Royalty assembled off stage Minnie Pearl, Little Jimmy Dickens,
22:09
Speaker 1: roy Acuff, Porter Wagoner Eddie Arnold. On stage, twenty five
22:14
Speaker 1: year old Hank Williams hit his mark under the opry
22:17
Speaker 1: spotlight seemingly shown by the Lord himself, highlighting the darkness
22:21
Speaker 1: imbued into the young songwriter. Hank swung that darkness in
22:26
Speaker 1: the form of his signature song, the Emmett Miller tune
22:30
Speaker 1: Love Sick Blues From the jump. The discerning opry audience
22:34
Speaker 1: in the room was with Hank Williams and his band,
22:36
Speaker 1: The Drifting cowboys, and by the time the second chorus hit,
22:40
Speaker 1: all in attendance were affirming from the top of their
22:42
Speaker 1: lungs that they, like Hank Wirey Gone intense hillbilly musician
22:46
Speaker 1: on stage before them, had a feeling too the love
22:50
Speaker 1: Sick Blues. Jenny said, goodbye, Patsy would do you, but
22:54
Speaker 1: then do your best friend mary Anne would call you
22:56
Speaker 1: sweet daddy one minute, but make it clear she didn't
22:59
Speaker 1: care about you in the next. Ruthy had that kind
23:01
Speaker 1: of love, and you grew used to her but couldn't
23:03
Speaker 1: make her stay. She, like Audrey, was the leaving kind,
23:06
Speaker 1: and old Janne was surely going to say goodbye. You
23:08
Speaker 1: like everyone else, didn't know what you were going to do.
23:11
Speaker 1: You were nobody's sugar daddy, not now, not ever. You
23:13
Speaker 1: were just regular folk like Hank up there singing into
23:16
Speaker 1: the opry mic. And your girl Lucinda, she was just
23:20
Speaker 1: like the others, just like all the girls who occupied
23:22
Speaker 1: all the dreams of all your friends and all your neighbors.
23:25
Speaker 1: One day she was going to say goodbye. But until then,
23:27
Speaker 1: all Hank up there could lay it out for you
23:29
Speaker 1: for everyone the truth, and the truth was this, despite
23:32
Speaker 1: your girl, despite your troubles. Despite the darkness, life was
23:37
Speaker 1: such a beautiful dream. When Hank finished Loved Sick Blues,
23:44
Speaker 1: the Opry crowd erupted. Hank made quick work of his
23:48
Speaker 1: momentum and called off the next tune, his recent hit,
23:51
Speaker 1: mind Your Own Business, And when he finished that one,
23:54
Speaker 1: the crowd went nuts. Hank Williams's Grand Old Opry debut
23:58
Speaker 1: made an immediate impact on country music. From there, Hank
24:03
Speaker 1: Williams took country music by storm. Fred Rose hooked Hank
24:07
Speaker 1: up with a recording contract with MGM in a matter
24:10
Speaker 1: of days. Soon, his time crooning before audiences at the
24:13
Speaker 1: Ryman Auditorium became time crooning before crowds across the country.
24:18
Speaker 1: He started his leather cowboy boots across the South, the
24:21
Speaker 1: West Coast, even pieces of Canada. As it turned out,
24:24
Speaker 1: touring paid even better than royalties did, which were also
24:27
Speaker 1: pouring in now thanks to new hits like My Bucket's
24:30
Speaker 1: Got a Hole in It in wedding Belts. The year's
24:33
Speaker 1: excitement peaked in November when Hank packed up his guitar
24:36
Speaker 1: and nicest suit to join the Grand Ole Opry on
24:39
Speaker 1: their first ever tour of Europe. For two weeks, he
24:42
Speaker 1: spent his nights bringing cheer to American military bases with
24:45
Speaker 1: other members of the Opry. Minnie Roy read his heroes
24:50
Speaker 1: were family now. Upon his return, he found a surprise
24:54
Speaker 1: when he flipped open a new copy of Billboard. There
24:57
Speaker 1: was his name, Hank Williams listed as the second best
25:01
Speaker 1: selling country artist of nineteen forty nine, second only to
25:05
Speaker 1: Eddie Arnold. But despite what his wife Audrey thought, and
25:10
Speaker 1: despite what Dad Chrysol or any of the local pde
25:13
Speaker 1: back in Mobile or Shreveport from parts surrounding the Panhandle thought,
25:17
Speaker 1: success had not gone to Hank Williams's head. Hank was
25:21
Speaker 1: still Hank. He sang, he drank, drank, and sang, drank
25:25
Speaker 1: some more, got himself in trouble, then locked up, then
25:28
Speaker 1: dried out, then got sober, stayed that way long enough
25:31
Speaker 1: for those around him to justify tolerating his bullshit, and then,
25:34
Speaker 1: just when anyone would least expect it, he'd do the
25:37
Speaker 1: whole routine over again. For those in Hank's circle, his
25:41
Speaker 1: wife Audrey, fred Rose, his bandmates, his fellow Opry performers.
25:44
Speaker 1: It was maddening, but none of that deterred MGM. MGM
25:50
Speaker 1: knew what they had. Despite Hank Williams's very well publicized
25:54
Speaker 1: troubles with alcohol and the law, MGM knew they had
25:57
Speaker 1: a star on their hands. In star were meant to
26:00
Speaker 1: shine on the biggest stage possible, or in this case,
26:05
Speaker 1: on the biggest screen possible. The Grand Old Opry was
26:10
Speaker 1: one thing, but having your face blasted on a movie
26:13
Speaker 1: screen's thirty feet tall all over America was another thing entirely,
26:17
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what MGM intended to do. That's why
26:20
Speaker 1: Hank was there in New York City to meet with MGM,
26:24
Speaker 1: to hear them out on their pitch, to put him
26:25
Speaker 1: in pictures. Hank Williams wasn't just ol Hank from the
26:29
Speaker 1: Grand Old Opry. No, Hank Williams was potentially just like
26:33
Speaker 1: Old Blue Eyes from the Saloon. Hank had appeal everywhere,
26:37
Speaker 1: from the Smoky mountains to the streets of Manhattan. Hank
26:40
Speaker 1: Williams's songs connected his words, his themes. They were relatable
26:44
Speaker 1: all over. I saw the light Mansion on the hill
26:47
Speaker 1: Lost Highway in the Big Daddy of all big Daddies,
26:50
Speaker 1: the King of the Heartbreak songs, I'm so lonesome, I
26:53
Speaker 1: could cry this kind of relatability was rare, the ability
26:57
Speaker 1: to cross cultures, the ability to over Just as Frank
27:02
Speaker 1: Sinatra was capable of appealing to blue collar, working class
27:05
Speaker 1: Joe's and their girlfriends, Hank Williams could just as easily
27:09
Speaker 1: turn on that shine for urbane intellectuals in their one
27:12
Speaker 1: night stands. Hank's appeal was potentially even broader. Sure, at
27:16
Speaker 1: the moment it was quote unquote country, but his songs
27:19
Speaker 1: took flight, his words had wings, His music was not
27:23
Speaker 1: going to be restricted by geographical regions. The proof was
27:27
Speaker 1: right there in front of Hank. He sat in the
27:30
Speaker 1: posh Manhattan hotel lounge after his meeting with MGM annoyed
27:34
Speaker 1: by the whole experience. Him a star on screen, What
27:39
Speaker 1: the hell did they know about it? Anyway, Hank was
27:42
Speaker 1: just Hank, a hillbilly. He was a regular folk, just
27:45
Speaker 1: like his fans. Hank eagerly pulled on a tumbler of
27:49
Speaker 1: cheap whiskey, the cheapest the bar had, and filling the
27:52
Speaker 1: air from the speakers of the jukebox was one of
27:54
Speaker 1: his songs.
27:56
Speaker 2: Damn right there in Manhattan, not in.
27:58
Speaker 1: Mobile, not in Shreveboard, hell, not even in the Athens
28:01
Speaker 1: of the South. Nashville in Manhattan. But it wasn't Hank's voice.
28:05
Speaker 1: It was Tony Bennett's voice, the Tony Bennett, the pop star,
28:09
Speaker 1: singing his cover version of Hank's Cold Cold Heart. Hank
28:14
Speaker 1: let the whiskey drown Tony Bennett out. He lay his
28:17
Speaker 1: head back on the plush fabric of the oversized armchair
28:20
Speaker 1: he was sitting in and thought back to Dad krysl
28:24
Speaker 1: that brawl back in Shreveport or was it mobile? Did
28:27
Speaker 1: it even matter? In Hank's mind, he was now winning
28:30
Speaker 1: the brawl with Dad and his voice, taking them all
28:33
Speaker 1: on and fending them off with that long reach of
28:35
Speaker 1: his beating them back. But the fantasy was short lived.
28:40
Speaker 1: Soon enough, the pain in his back beat back the
28:42
Speaker 1: fantasy of it all, and the real memory crept in
28:44
Speaker 1: alongside the back pain, the memory of getting pummeled, and
28:48
Speaker 1: deservedly so. Hank knew deep down it wasn't his place
28:52
Speaker 1: to heckle another man while he worked. That was just
28:54
Speaker 1: the whiskey barking. But that pain, that pain was something else.
28:59
Speaker 1: That pain took away the other pain, and that meant something.
29:03
Speaker 1: Hank belted back the rest of his whiskey, then another
29:06
Speaker 1: and another, but When Hank Williams woke up, he was
29:09
Speaker 1: back in Nashville and contemplating taking the cure. The sanatorium
29:15
Speaker 1: in Louisville sealed it as if Hank didn't know it already.
29:19
Speaker 1: The doctors at this institution officially pronounced Hank to be
29:22
Speaker 1: an alcoholic. His binge drinking now with the pressures of success,
29:27
Speaker 1: the busier than ever schedule, and the increased back pain
29:29
Speaker 1: that went along with the stress and physical exertion, led
29:32
Speaker 1: to more frequent bouts with the bottle, and increasingly, when
29:36
Speaker 1: Hank wasn't drinking, he was twisted up in some sort
29:39
Speaker 1: of withdrawal pain. It got so that not drinking was
29:42
Speaker 1: just as painful as drinking. The circle was closing, The
29:47
Speaker 1: snake was eating itself. Hank knew what was happening. He
29:52
Speaker 1: hated it, hated the feeling, but was helpless to the pain.
29:56
Speaker 1: He carried around with him his medicine. They called it
29:58
Speaker 1: the Curer, basically a poison pill. Alcoholics took it to
30:03
Speaker 1: curb the craving, but the rub was that if you
30:05
Speaker 1: drank any alcohol while you had the cure in your system,
30:09
Speaker 1: you'd likely die. If he didn't make it to a
30:10
Speaker 1: hospital in short order. Hank took the cure, and of course,
30:15
Speaker 1: then he drank, and then he wound up in the hospital,
30:18
Speaker 1: and then again the sanatorium to dry out, and the
30:21
Speaker 1: cycle continued. But Hank's career continued to thrive. But when
30:25
Speaker 1: he wasn't filling his time with performances and recording engagements,
30:29
Speaker 1: Hank did his time at home. It was not a
30:31
Speaker 1: happy experience. He and Audrey were constantly on the outs.
30:35
Speaker 1: Hank tried to beat back the beast, but to little success.
30:39
Speaker 1: Audrey was a problem. Audrey was unfaithful. Hank was too,
30:43
Speaker 1: But what did that matter? He reasoned, He was a
30:45
Speaker 1: traveling musician. He wore the pants, brought home the bake
30:48
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. What did Audrey do besides.
30:50
Speaker 2: Spend his money?
30:52
Speaker 1: There was that state trooper. Hank knew what he and
30:54
Speaker 1: Audrey were up to. What was the point of staying
30:58
Speaker 1: sober for someone if that's someone was up to something
31:01
Speaker 1: with someone else. There was a lyric in there somewhere,
31:03
Speaker 1: if Hank could only keep his head clear enough to
31:05
Speaker 1: fish it out.
31:07
Speaker 2: Fuck it.
31:08
Speaker 1: He sat in his and Audrey's home and stewed she'd
31:11
Speaker 1: be home soon. Hank loaded his pistol. The gun in
31:15
Speaker 1: his hand comforted him. The gun was true, the gun
31:19
Speaker 1: shot straight. More than he could say for Audrey. She
31:22
Speaker 1: shot herself all over town. Hank sat on his back porch.
31:26
Speaker 1: He took aim randomly, had something off in the distance,
31:30
Speaker 1: and fired off around and then he took a slug
31:33
Speaker 1: from his tumbler. Then another shot, just then a scream. Shit.
31:39
Speaker 1: Audrey was home, hell on wheels to the front door, screaming,
31:43
Speaker 1: bloody murder. What the hell, Hank Williams, was your drunk
31:46
Speaker 1: ass up to now? Hank screamed something back. Another shot
31:50
Speaker 1: went off, this one inside of the house. Audrey lost it, tears, feared,
31:56
Speaker 1: The door slammed. Audrey was gone for good. Hank another
32:00
Speaker 1: slug from the tumbler. When he emerged from his bender,
32:08
Speaker 1: divorce was on the horizon. Hank drowned his pain and
32:12
Speaker 1: more alcohol. He performed, He wrote, He drank, dried out,
32:16
Speaker 1: performed some more recorded perform drank fought, sobered up, drank
32:20
Speaker 1: and played some more. Inevitably missed some shows. Then he
32:23
Speaker 1: missed even more shows. Hank Williams was an electric but
32:26
Speaker 1: unreliable performer. It was too much for the Grand Ole
32:30
Speaker 1: Opry too many missed performances, and sponsors started to worry,
32:35
Speaker 1: and maybe the Opry wasn't such a safe bet, Maybe
32:37
Speaker 1: the Opry wasn't such a good place to park all
32:39
Speaker 1: those advertising dollars. Hank Williams was warned. Hank Williams didn't listen.
32:45
Speaker 1: Hank Williams was fired from the Grand Ole Opry. Hank
32:48
Speaker 1: Williams hit his personal rock bottom. Sadly, we sing with
33:17
Speaker 1: tremulous breath as we stand by the mystical stream in
33:21
Speaker 1: the valley and by the dark river of death. And
33:24
Speaker 1: yet 'tis no more than a dream. The gunplay, the
33:31
Speaker 1: errant bullet flying around his in Audrey's home, the random
33:35
Speaker 1: beating from the police, the beating from Dad krysl and
33:38
Speaker 1: his boys, the horror filled nightmares, and the various sanatoriums,
33:42
Speaker 1: the poison pills. None of it spelled death for Hank Williams.
33:47
Speaker 1: Not then anyway. It wasn't his time. Yet death was
33:53
Speaker 1: still only a dream.
33:57
Speaker 2: Hank Williams hadn't yet filled his bucket.
34:00
Speaker 1: Life sometimes escaped from the buckets hole, sure, but Hank
34:03
Speaker 1: just went on living, went on filling that bucket, carried
34:07
Speaker 1: on not just with living, but loving, fighting, drinking, connecting,
34:12
Speaker 1: whether he knew it or not. Despite the pain, the
34:14
Speaker 1: physical pain, the mental pain from the breakup of his family,
34:16
Speaker 1: or perhaps from the early abandonment of his father, from
34:19
Speaker 1: the humility and shame of being kicked off the grand
34:22
Speaker 1: Ole opry. From whatever the pain gave Hank Williams purpose,
34:27
Speaker 1: he wrote. He was the hillbilly Shakespeare. His words mattered,
34:32
Speaker 1: his songs mattered. His music gave others, regular people, good folk,
34:36
Speaker 1: a light, a path away.
34:38
Speaker 2: A conduit, a connection.
34:40
Speaker 1: His songs were relatable enough to comfortably be programmed on
34:43
Speaker 1: the radio alongside other pop bits of the day, but
34:46
Speaker 1: also heavy enough to drive listeners back again and again
34:49
Speaker 1: for repeat listening. And that is what the best pop
34:52
Speaker 1: music does. It connects on both levels. By nineteen fifty two,
34:58
Speaker 1: due to his chronic and now debilitating pain, which originated
35:01
Speaker 1: as a child and was exacerbated by his constant drinking
35:04
Speaker 1: as an adult and made even worse by a recent
35:07
Speaker 1: hunting accident, by fifty two, what little life Hank had
35:10
Speaker 1: left in him he funneled into his songwriting, and for
35:13
Speaker 1: good reason. Songwriting was one of the only things that
35:16
Speaker 1: worked for Hank Williams in his short time as a professional,
35:20
Speaker 1: dating back to nineteen forty seven, Hank Williams had landed
35:24
Speaker 1: thirty two songs in the top ten.
35:26
Speaker 2: Eleven of them went to number one.
35:29
Speaker 1: This from a man who couldn't read or write music,
35:32
Speaker 1: but who just sang what he felt, who tapped into
35:34
Speaker 1: the darkness we all have in us, and was brave
35:37
Speaker 1: enough to bear it in the service of his art.
35:39
Speaker 1: A word he would have hated to hear used to
35:41
Speaker 1: describe his.
35:42
Speaker 2: Music by the way art.
35:46
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, Hank Williams wrote about the pain and wrote through
35:49
Speaker 1: the pain, and in nineteen fifty two, Hank recorded what
35:53
Speaker 1: would become his final statement, the expertly penned emotional harpoon
35:57
Speaker 1: entitled I'll Never get out of this world A lot.
36:01
Speaker 2: The title said it all.
36:04
Speaker 1: As nineteen fifty two started to turn into nineteen fifty three,
36:08
Speaker 1: Hank Williams's bucket was close to full. That hole, the
36:12
Speaker 1: one where life gushed out, had seemingly been plugged by
36:15
Speaker 1: the pain. The pain was ever present, now, performing had
36:19
Speaker 1: long since lost its luster. After the writing and recording
36:23
Speaker 1: of I'll Never get out of this World alive, there
36:25
Speaker 1: didn't seem to be much left to say. Hank filled
36:29
Speaker 1: the void and buried the pain with more alcohol, and
36:32
Speaker 1: more recently, with a dangerous cocktail of pharmaceutical narcotics, morphine
36:37
Speaker 1: injections for his back during his waking hours, and chloral
36:41
Speaker 1: hydrate to help him sleep through the agony. But on
36:44
Speaker 1: December thirtieth, nineteen fifty two, Hank Williams was up early.
36:50
Speaker 1: There was money to make, shows to do. He had
36:55
Speaker 1: a new driver, a seventeen year old son of a friend.
36:58
Speaker 1: The boy's name was Charles. He looked silly peering over
37:02
Speaker 1: the massive steering wheel of Hank's Cadillac, but he'd get
37:05
Speaker 1: the job done so long as Hank could stretch out
37:07
Speaker 1: in the back seat. En route gigs in Charlestown, West Virginia,
37:11
Speaker 1: in Canton, Ohio, first stop, however, was a general store
37:15
Speaker 1: for a six pack of Flagstaff. Hank got to the
37:18
Speaker 1: bottom of all six cans in no time. He and
37:21
Speaker 1: his driver spent the night in a Birmingham hotel. Hank
37:24
Speaker 1: bonded with a bottle of bonded bourbon.
37:26
Speaker 2: He was leveled.
37:28
Speaker 1: He spread some cash out for the hotel staff, crashed
37:31
Speaker 1: and woke up early to a fresh snowfall. On New
37:33
Speaker 1: Year's Eve Day, Hank and Charles drove through the snow.
37:38
Speaker 1: It whipped up and down the two lane highway. This
37:42
Speaker 1: could be the day, This could be his time. In
37:46
Speaker 1: the back of that car. It was hard to see
37:48
Speaker 1: anything else through the blinding worlds of snow and sharp
37:51
Speaker 1: tusks of pain. Over the turbid and on rushing tide.
37:55
Speaker 1: Got the light of eternity gleam in the ransom, the
37:59
Speaker 1: darkness and storm shell outride to wake with glad smiles
38:03
Speaker 1: from the dream. Hank lay his weary head back on
38:08
Speaker 1: the car seat, all six feet two inches of them,
38:11
Speaker 1: stretched out, trying to grab a wink, trying to push
38:14
Speaker 1: his consciousness into the slip stream of slumber, trying to
38:17
Speaker 1: outrun the pain, trying to dream. As the Cadillac rambled
38:24
Speaker 1: north through the snow, through the darkness toward Ohio, Hank
38:27
Speaker 1: slipped into a half sleep. His back pain raged, and
38:31
Speaker 1: they stopped for gas. Hank woke, got out of the car,
38:34
Speaker 1: stretched his legs. His driver asked him if he wanted
38:36
Speaker 1: anything to eat. Nah, Hank replied, I just want to
38:39
Speaker 1: get some sleep. They were the last words Hank Williams said,
38:44
Speaker 1: and like the words Hank Williams wrote he meant them deeply.
38:48
Speaker 1: He was done negotiating with the pain. Sleep, He reasons,
38:52
Speaker 1: in the moment is the answer, and death is only
38:56
Speaker 1: a dream. Hank Williams crammed his body into the back
38:59
Speaker 1: seat of his Cadillac and settled in for his last ride.
39:03
Speaker 1: He wrapped his bespoke blazer over his chest, laid himself out,
39:07
Speaker 1: closed his eyes, and heard that distant traditional roll through
39:11
Speaker 1: his memory. Only a dream, only a dream of glory
39:16
Speaker 1: beyond the dark stream. How peaceful the slumber, how happy
39:20
Speaker 1: the waking, Where death is only a dream. The cadillac
39:28
Speaker 1: rolled softly into the parking lot of the Oak Hill,
39:30
Speaker 1: West Virginia Hospital on New Year's Day, nineteen fifty three.
39:35
Speaker 1: The sun had yet to break through the darkness of Appalachia,
39:38
Speaker 1: and darkness rested peacefully at long last in the back
39:41
Speaker 1: seat of the cadillac. The driver, in his heart knew
39:47
Speaker 1: the worst was true, but still he hoped for death
39:50
Speaker 1: to be forgiving. He pulled two interns from the hospital
39:54
Speaker 1: to attend to the matter of the unconscious songwriter in
39:57
Speaker 1: his back seat. One look was all took. He's dead.
40:02
Speaker 1: The driver asked if there wasn't anything they could do
40:05
Speaker 1: of course there wasn't and there wasn't anything left for
40:08
Speaker 1: Hank Williams to do at the age of twenty nine.
40:12
Speaker 1: By then, for him anyway, he'd done it all, written
40:16
Speaker 1: all he could write, loved as hard as he could
40:18
Speaker 1: have loved, lived, His bucket was full. Death came as
40:26
Speaker 1: a welcomed friend, as a dream. The driver asked the
40:30
Speaker 1: interns again, nothing, you can't do anything. This is Hank Williams.
40:35
Speaker 1: One in turn looked at the driver coldly. No, he's
40:39
Speaker 1: just dead. I'm Jake Brennan in This is Disgraceland. Disgraceland
41:00
Speaker 1: created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with
41:02
Speaker 1: Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on
41:05
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41:09
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41:52
Speaker 2: He then