Chapter 13
I’ve been a bad boy again.
John Prine
PRESUMABLY, it was at Audrey’s request that Hank moved out of the family home on January 3, 1952. His first stop was the Andrew Jackson Hotel. Don Helms visited him there. He told Don that he didn’t think he’d be going back this time — and how right he was. His next stop was Lilly’s boardinghouse. While he was there, he sent word to Lon asking him to come pick him up. Lon drove in from McWilliams, but just as he was parking he saw Hank being carried out of the boardinghouse on a stretcher, bound for St. Jude’s Hospital. Lon followed the ambulance, and when he got to the hospital he was told that Hank was unconscious. One of the doctors took Lon aside and told him that Hank had overdosed and would have to stay in the hospital until what he called “the dope” had been flushed from his system. Lilly said she couldn’t understand it; Hank had only had two beers and two aspirins all day. On January 13, Hank made a five-hundred-dollar donation to St. Jude’s. Perhaps that was the day he was released back into Lilly’s care.
The dope in Hank’s system was probably heavy-duty prescription painkillers taken in nonprescription doses. Hank had become increasingly reliant upon painkillers as his back pain worsened through 1951. He would go to see several doctors, obtain multiple prescriptions, then take more than the prescribed dose. “It says, ‘Take one every four hours,’” he would say. “Maybe I ought to take four every hour; that’s four times as good, ain’t it?” It would have been sixteen times as good if the logic held water, but overmedication only raised Hank’s tolerance of painkillers so that he needed increasingly large doses, all the while increasing the chance of an overdose.
At some point in January 1952, Hank moved into a house that Ray Price rented at 2718 Westwood Avenue in Nashville. Hank took the downstairs, and Price moved upstairs. Price had come to Nashville from Dallas during the early fall of 1951, and had met Hank backstage at the Opry ‘s Friday Night Frolics show. They liked each other at once, and Hank took Price to a show date in Evansville, Indiana, right after the Saturday night Opry. On the way, they wrote a song, “Weary Blues from Waitin’,” that Hank would copyright as his and Ray would record in October. It was one of the most affecting songs that Hank had a hand in writing.
Through tears I watch young lovers as they go strolling by
For all the things that might have been, I hang my head and cry.
“Hank called me about two weeks later and wanted to know if he could do it,” said Price. “I was trying to get started, and I said, ‘Hank, I need it real bad.’ He said, ‘Well, you go on and use it then. If you don’t, I want to do it.’”
On January 10, Audrey initiated divorce proceedings. Her Bill of Complaint was filed that day, but its list of grudges went back to the early days in Montgomery. She alleged that Hank’s conduct toward her there had embarrassed and humiliated her to the extent that she insisted that they relocate, explaining how they came to move to Shreveport. They weren’t completely happy in Shreveport, she said, because of what she termed Hank’s “continued misconduct,” but she conceded that they did enjoy “some degree of happiness” there. It wasn’t until the spring of 1951, though, that Hank’s conduct became what Audrey called “intolerable.” “While he had been inconsiderate, and even cruel at times,” she alleged, “he then became most abusive, cursing [me] without provocation, and striking [me] on numerous occasions.” Audrey then gave her version of the events surrounding New Year’s, concluded that “cohabitation was unsafe and improper,” and demanded that Hank disclose all of his income, then provide separate maintenance for her as well as child support for Hank Jr.
Gradually, statements came through from Acuff-Rose and MGM concerning Hank’s income. It seems that on top of the thirty-two thousand dollars Acuff-Rose had paid Hank in 1951, another twenty-two thousand was awaiting payment. Acuff-Rose noted, though, that some of the money might have to go to Dixie Music after the resolution of the lawsuit over “Cold, Cold Heart.” Acuff-Rose had paid Hank on the understanding that they could reclaim the funds if the judgment went against them. From that point, though, “Cold, Cold Heart” funds remained frozen until 1955; by then another thirty-two thousand dollars (equivalent to two million records) had accumulated in escrow. The result of the suit wasn’t made public, but on January 3, 1955, Dixie Music was paid just twenty-five hundred dollars in damages and, ten days later, was awarded court costs of five thousand dollars. With that, the case was closed.
MGM stated that between September 1, 1951, and December 31, 1951, Hank had earned $10,754 in domestic royalties and roughly $1,900 in overseas royalties, and that additional royalties covering the period from year-end to February 28, 1952, had yet to be calculated. MGM’s deposition also confirmed Hank’s contractual obligation to make movies, something the company denied after his death.
Predictably, WSM stated that Hank was in the hole to the station to the tune of five hundred dollars, largely because of unpaid commissions on shows that had used the Opry name.
Hank told a New York reporter that he played to around fifteen thousand people a night in 1951, but that was probably a maximum attendance rather than an average attendance. Even so, there’s no doubt that he was stuffing several thousand dollars into his valise every night. With radio sponsorship money added in, together with back-pocket money from selling songbooks and photos, Hank had clearly exceeded his declared 1950 income of $92,000, and had almost certainly grossed well over $100,000 in 1951, perhaps as much as the $150,000 he told the Wall Street Journal he would earn that year.
After the depositions came Hank’s cross-complaint against Audrey. He tried to hold himself up as a model of financial probity while contending that Audrey had indulged in “every extravagance she could possibly stretch his income to cover.” He complained of her “insatiable hunger for clothes, jewelry, automobiles, and luxuries far beyond their economic status in life.” His cross-complaint was, in essence, a Hank Williams song rendered in a voice that was an incongruous blend of his own and his lawyer’s.
The first shot across Audrey’s bow was a predictable one:
The first years of…married life were troublesome, because of the inattention of [Audrey] to her home and husband…. [She] refused to appreciate the obligations of married life, denying her attentions and affections to her home and husband, insisting that she too was an entertainer and singer of ability, continuously insisting that the defendant include her on his programs…despite the fact that she had neither voice nor musical ability.
Hank went on to say that he had lost many jobs during his early years in the business because Audrey had insisted upon being included in the act. She had, he said, been evicted from studios and other places of entertainment because of her fits of rage when her ambitions were denied.
Next, Hank accused Audrey of “extravagant living and carousing…such as to keep [his] nose to the grindstone continuously to keep the bills paid.” She had, he said, “no interest or disposition to [stay] at home…but has always insisted upon traveling about, acting independent and free of all marital restraint, seeking and having everything she wanted, and a good time all the time.” Audrey hadn’t spent one full day with Hank Jr. since his birth, contended Hank, unless she couldn’t get someone to stay with him. “As a matter of fact,” he added, “[our] only child refers to its nurse as ‘Mama.’” In return for all Hank’s efforts to provide for Audrey, he said that she continually referred to him as a “ ‘son of a bitch’…and many other names too vile and vulgar to [mention here].”
Then came the parting shots. First, Hank claimed to have evidence of Audrey’s adultery with a highway patrolman while he was on the Hadacol Caravan, and he went on to claim that she’d had an affair with a car salesman. Next, Hank went into detail about Audrey’s detestation of Lilly. She had “condemned and castigated him for showing any love or affection for her,” he said, adding that Audrey had ordered Lilly out of Vanderbilt on the day after the spinal operation. Finally, Hank con- firmed that Audrey had become pregnant around September 1950 but had had an abortion performed at home that had led to an infection, which in turn required treatment at St. Thomas’ Hospital. In the cross-complaint Hank spoke of his humiliation and grief when he heard what Audrey had done. Hank’s cross-complaint was a document that was, by turns, sad and bitter. Unrealistically, his cross-complaint concluded with a request for custody of Hank Jr.
Both sides of the action speak of a dead weight of hurt. It’s hard to tell if Hank still loved Audrey, but it’s clear that she no longer loved him. The divorce proceedings acquired their own momentum, and Audrey seemed set upon her course this time. She would have found it difficult to stop, even if she had been inclined to do so. Hank knew that he had failed and, according to those close to him, still hoped from time to time for a reconciliation. Audrey claimed that she was divorcing Hank for the good of the children. “I had these two children,” she told Dorothy Horstman in 1973, “and I said, ‘These children have to have a mother.’ I could see they wasn’t going to have a father. He was so far gone that they just got nervous when he walked in the door.” Lycrecia later remembered that she’d only seen Hank drunk a couple of times, but the tension in the house when Hank was there must have been unbearable for most of 1951. There’s a haunting photograph that has appeared in several television documentaries in which Hank and Audrey are standing outside their house, turning away from each other. Audrey is covering her eyes as if in tears, while Hank looks down and away. Knowing the state of their relationship during this late stage, it seems as though someone has captured one of their arguments. It’s just as likely, though, that Hank Jr. and Lycrecia were playing hide-and-seek, and that Hank and Audrey were covering their eyes or averting their gaze while the kids scuttled off to hide.
When he signed his cross-complaint on March 5, Hank claimed not to have worked since the operation, which was almost true. He’d taken the Drifting Cowboys off salary, telling them that he would call them for dates and hope that they were available. Sammy Pruett was the first to take full-time employment elsewhere, when he joined Carl Smith’s Tune-smiths. Almost since joining Hank, Pruett had felt stymied keeping the tic-toc rhythm, with so few opportunities for soloing. Don Helms, Jerry Rivers, and Howard Watts tried to keep themselves available for Hank, but Pruett didn’t work a day with him after his operation. The other Drifting Cowboys worked with Ray Price more than anyone else. They wanted to be on call for Hank, but knew that it limited their chances of employment elsewhere because no one wanted to hire band members who were likely to disappear as soon as Hank Williams decided he was ready to put the Cowboys back together.
Hank’s first road trip after his hospitalization was in late January and it was a disaster. He missed a show in Norfolk, Virginia, but was brought into Richmond, Virginia, on January 29 for a two-night stand. Only Don Helms and Howard Watts were available, and local pickers were recruited to round out the band. Ray Price and Johnnie and Jack were also on the show. The troupe was booked into a hotel, and Hank had a minder assigned to him. With the low cunning that he summoned up when he was desperate, he called down to room service for tomato juice. When that was delivered, he told the waiter that his legs were hurting and he needed some rubbing alcohol. Room service brought it up. Hank mixed the rubbing alcohol with the tomato juice, drank it, then began vomiting violently. Just before showtime he was allowed a beer to settle his stomach, but he was still in no shape to perform.
In a review for the Richmond Times-Despatch the following day Edith Lindeman’s headline read: “Hank Williams Hillbilly Show Is Different: Star Makes Impression of Unexpected Kind.” She went on to describe how Ray Price opened the show, then brought on a clearly inebriated Hank Williams. According to Price, Hank was sitting in the wings, motioning him to do one song after another. Price didn’t have that many songs in his repertoire, but he wanted to give Hank time to straighten up. Price recalled,
This went on for about thirty minutes. Finally, I said, “Folks, now, Hank’s had a serious back operation and he’s really not feeling too well so you’ll all have to forgive him, and here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Hank Williams.” And Hank come moping out there, and the newspaper said his legs certainly wasn’t holding him erect. He had problems remembering his first song and staying in key, and quit after one song.
The emcee said that anyone who wanted a refund would get one, but the promoter, who was reported to be “ill at home,” had already had the proceeds brought to him, and there was nothing left for refunds.
During the intermission, Hank’s minder walked him around out in the frigid night air, forcing a sandwich and some coffee down him. Then Hank went back out to face the crowd. “I wish I was in as good a shape as you are,” he said. “Hank Williams is a lot of things, but he ain’t a liar. If they’s a doctor in the house I’ll show him I’ve been in the hospital for eight weeks…and if you ain’t nice to me, I’ll turn around and walk right off.” Ray Price, seeing that Hank was about to drop his pants onstage, came running out, and grabbed the microphone. “We all love you, Hank, don’t we, folks?” he said, and tried to hustle Hank offstage. Hank headed for his limo. No autographs. No shake ’n’ howdy. There had been other nights like that, but this time there was a newspaper reporter on hand. The following night, Hank was hungover and vengeful. He dedicated a song to a “gracious lady writer” and swung right into “Mind Your Own Business.” It was a moment to savor: shame followed by swift redemption in song. If only all the large and small humiliations could have been reversed so deftly.
The following day, they were in Charleston, South Carolina. Price had to sub for Hank there. The next night, they worked a show date in Macon, Georgia, and then Hank disappeared. “God only knows where he went,” said Price.
I think he went to the coast. Some banker called Jim Denny and said, “We have a man down here that says he’s Hank Williams and wants to cash a check.” Jim said, “What does he look like?’"And he told him. And Jim said, “Well, that’s Hank all right.” Hank’s driver was with him. We called him Brains. Jim spoke to him. He was real mad. He said, “You get that check cashed, and when you get to the ocean, don’t stop, just drive on out in the damn ocean.”
By now word was spreading that getting to see Hank Williams was a hit-or-miss affair. Johnnie Wright reckons that Hank’s average had slipped from its best — around .850 — to .500. Sober, no one had more respect for his fans than Hank, but when he was drunk, yet still believing he was able to perform, he was obtuse and would respond rudely to hecklers. “Someone git a shovel and cover that up,” he would say, or “Hey, pal, we got a surprise for you. After the show, we gonna git yore momma and yore poppa up here, and git ’em married.” Mostly, though, if Hank was drinking, he was too drunk to stand, much less play, but even then he attracted his apologists, much as George Jones later would. If someone said Hank was drunk, someone else would say, “Hell, he had a right to be.”
On April 3, Hank and Audrey’s lawyers arrived at a tentative property settlement and arrangements for the custody of Hank Jr. In the preamble, buried among the “whereas’s” and “hereto’s,” was a sentence noting that the parties couldn’t agree upon a divorce, intimating that Hank was still opposed to it and that Audrey would have to go to court to obtain it. Ray Price remembers that in one set of discussions with the lawyer, Hank more or less agreed to Audrey’s terms, despite the fact that his lawyer considered them punitive. This, according to Price, was because Hank wanted to show his continued love for Audrey and his regret over what had happened. Perhaps in acceding to her demands he would achieve that. Price also remembers that Hank would call Audrey almost every day, and that she would hang up on him.
Predictably, the care of Hank Jr. was entrusted to Audrey, with the provision that Hank could have Hank Jr. reside with him for three months during the summer of 1953. Audrey got the house on Franklin Road, including all the fixtures, as well as her 1951 Cadillac convertible and one thousand dollars in cash. Hank also agreed to pay her attorney’s fees. According to court documents, $13,559 was still owing on the house, and Audrey assumed that debt, together with a $706 note on the Cadillac. But she got one-half of all Hank’s future royalties with a binding obligation upon MGM and Acuff-Rose to remit them directly to her. If Audrey ever remarried, her claim upon the royalties would end and Hank’s only obligation would be a maintenance payment of $300 a month for Hank Jr. until he was twenty-one. Hank got Hank and Audrey’s Corral, a marginal business at the best of times, and the farm in Williamson County with its derelict house and $45,000 mortgage. Hank would keep all of his road income, presumably because Audrey knew most of the ways he could hide it from her.
In retrospect, it was a fabulous settlement for Audrey, but at the time, she was so skeptical that she built in a provision for Hank to remit extra funds to her if her earnings from half of his royalties dropped below certain thresholds. Audrey would never remarry — not, as she was fond of saying, because no love could ever match what she and Hank had shared, but because she couldn’t bear for her half of the oil well to gush in someone else’s backyard. She didn’t retire to a life of quiet contemplation, but all suitors knew her ground rule on marriage.
If Hank was indeed still besotted with Audrey, it didn’t stop him from taking a new girlfriend, Bobbie Jett. Ray Price remembers Bobbie accompanying Hank on the disastrous January tour, and some claim that she was with him in Montgomery earlier in the month, so it is very likely that Hank knew her before he separated from Audrey. Bobbie had lived a life every bit as troubled as Hank’s. She came from a prominent Nashville family, but her mother had lit out for California shortly after Bobbie was born, leaving Bobbie in the care of her grandmother. Born on October 5, 1922, Bobbie was slightly less than a year older than Hank. After the war she too had gone to California, where she later claimed to have married movie star Monte Hale. Married or not (likely not), she returned to Nashville with a child, Jo, in 1949, and was working as a secretary when Hank met her. Hank was not alone in fancying Bobbie; Decca Records’ Paul Cohen was beguiled by her, as were several others.
By the time the blossoms began appearing along Natchez Trace, Hank was starting to think about work again. On March 22, 1952, he was on the Grand Ole Opry, quite possibly for the first time that year. Immediately after the show, Hank and an Opry troupe flew to New York for a March 26 appearance on the Kate Smith Evening Hour. The following weekend, he was back on the Opry and working on shows for WSM. In early April, he left for a tour of California that probably started in Fresno on April 9.
On April 13, Hank was interviewed by jazz journalist Ralph J. Gleason, who later cofounded Rolling Stone but was writing for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. Gleason caught up with Hank at the Leamington Hotel in Oakland. Gleason was surprised by the number of pills Hank had about his person, and by the fact that the pills constituted most of his breakfast. Hank talked about his background and about “folk” music in much the same terms as he had in Charleston earlier that year. He professed to like the petulant, melodramatic style of Johnnie Ray, and he told Gleason that he could never sing songs like “Mairzy Doats” or “Rag Mop” because he couldn’t relate to the lyrics. Harping on one of his favorite themes, he said, “A song ain’t nuthin’ in the world but a story with music to it…. I’ve been offered some of the biggest songs to sing and turned ’em down. There ain’t nobody can pick songs.”
Gleason was sufficiently intrigued to catch Hank in person that night at the San Pablo Hall. According to his account, the hall was a one-story white building. You parked in the mud, and inside the door there was a long room with a bandstand at one end and a bar in an annex at one side. Hank “had that thing,” wrote Gleason. “He made them scream when he sang. There were lots of those blondes you see at C&W affairs [with] the kind of hair that mother never had and nature never grew…guys looking barbershop neat but still with a touch of dust on them.” Hank appeared a little stoned between sets, didn’t remember Gleason from that morning, and was hanging out with a crowd of whiskey drinkers. But here at least, in a northern California beer hall, Hank was on his home turf. He was playing to exiled southerners and Okies, most of whom had come out to work in the munitions factories during the war. He understood them, and they understood him when he sang about getting back to pappy’s farm. They both knew it would never happen.
On April 16, Hank was feted by MGM Records distributors in Los Angeles and received an award. The following day, Hank and Wesley Rose went to see Dore Schary at MGM Pictures. Hank had been stalling since he’d signed the movie contract in September 1951, but now he could stall no longer. Things got off to a bad start when he wouldn’t take off his hat as he entered Dore Schary’s office. Schary was one of MGM Pictures’ production chiefs, and had what Rose later called a pompous and condescending manner. Hank had been drinking. He put his boots up on Schary’s desk, pulled his hat down over his eyes and answered all questions in monosyllables and grunts. Some said he made anti-Semitic remarks, too. Wesley’s accountant’s soul couldn’t comprehend this. When they got outside, he asked Hank for an explanation of his conduct. “You see this kid here,” said Hank, gesturing to a black shoe-shine boy, “this kid is more of a man than that guy in the office will ever be.”
Hank, whose inferiority complex often manifested itself in truculence, developed lightning antipathy toward anyone who was even ever so slightly condescending toward him. It’s possible that a chance remark from Schary brought all his resentment of the business end of the entertainment business from a simmer to a boil. It’s equally likely that Hank had already determined that he wasn’t going to make movies for MGM or anyone so he might as well put on an act for his own amusement. He had been given the script to a Jane Powell and Farley Granger movie called Small Town Girl, which was to start shooting right away, but the bulk and complexity of the script probably intimidated him to the point that he felt hopelessly out of his depth. He masked his fear with boorishness because the ol’ drifting cowboy couldn’t appear to be intimidated. Hank wasn’t the borderline illiterate that he has been made out to be — and sometimes made himself out to be — but bypassing minor roles and going straight to headlining was like going from college ball to the major leagues. Few were suited to such a transition; Hank wasn’t.
The following day, Hank resumed his California trek, touring cities populated by Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas émigrés. He was in Los Angeles at Tex Williams’ Riverside Rancho, and in Bakersfield and Oakland before flying back to New York for the second Kate Smith Evening Hour on April 23. Three days later, he was advertised as the headliner of an Opry show at Boston’s Symphony Hall, but no one remembers him appearing. From April 29 until May 2, he was on an Opry package in southeastern Texas. He swung from there into Ontario for a short Canadian tour in early May, trying to expunge the memories of the 1951 tour. Then he went to Texas, followed by Las Vegas. And then, on May 22, MGM Pictures wrote to him, requesting that he show up for work on June 16. Hank had already decided that he wouldn’t.
A little snapshot of the risks involved in booking Hank comes from Sergeant F. D. McMurry of the Beaumont, Texas, police department. In an attempt to raise funds, the Beaumont Police Benefit Association arranged for an Opry troupe led by Hank, Ernest Tubb, and Minnie Pearl to play there on April 29 as part of the swing along the Gulf coast. They arrived in Henry Cannon’s Beechcraft. Warning McMurry about Hank, Jim Denny had said, “If you take care of him, he’s yours.” Someone in the cast advised McMurry to keep watch over Hank to ensure that he remained sober until after the show. McMurry took the task upon himself, and like Gleason, he was amazed at the number and variety of pills that he took. “He had pills in his hat band, his guitar, pills everyplace,” said McMurry, who’d never seen anything like it.
The troupe arrived in the morning, and McMurry escorted them around to do some PR at the local stations, then took Hank out to his mother-in-law’s house for a meal. “Ol’ Hank sure did enjoy that,” said McMurry. “He said he didn’t get meals like that often. He stretched out on the couch, kicked his boots off. We took the pressure off of him.” Hank made the show that night at the Municipal Auditorium, and everyone loved him. It was a good night. He was still in fine form in Ontario a week later, showing off his operation scars and talking positively.
Starting May 16 for two weeks, Hank was supposed to play Vegas. Roy Acuff, who had done everything first, had tried to bring hillbilly music there without much success. Hank was booked into the Last Frontier’s Ramona Room, where he played second fiddle to an old vaudevillian, Willie Shore. Hank and a supporting Opry troupe were booked in connection with a western theme month, Helldorado, run by the Frontier and some other venues. No one had told the bookers that although Hank dressed like a western singing star and led a band called the Drifting Cowboys, he wasn’t a western act, and wasn’t likely to go over much better than Acuff.
Hank had hired Don Helms and Jerry Rivers for the trip, and the three of them drove out together. “The closer we got to Vegas, the more nervous he became,” said Helms. “We got there and checked in and the next day he was wiped out.” Jim Denny told Don and Jerry to hire two minders to watch Hank in alternating twelve-hour shifts. He was sober by show time, but with more reason to drink than on any recent trip. Hank felt ridiculed and out of place. As he peeked through the curtains, he knew it wasn’t going to work. Music in Vegas had a very specific function: it was supposed to lull sensibilities and provide a backdrop for dining and gambling. Some performers were born to play Vegas; some weren’t. The unsettling emotionalism in Hank Williams’ music was precisely what Vegas did not want. His five-piece band sounded thin, and his crowd wasn’t there. There was a room full of suits, ties, and dinner dresses. Those who had come especially to see him bought an overpriced fifty-cent Coke and nursed it until the end of the show, then left without staying to drink and gamble. Hank no more belonged there than Sammy Davis Jr. belonged at the Wagon Wheel in Opelika, Alabama. It was reported that none of Hank’s records were on the jukebox at the Last Frontier, so he ordered a jukebox from a local jobber, filled it with his own records, and hauled it to the showroom. “This one’s got some good records on it,” he said.
On the morning of May 23, Hank was awakened with a phone call from the Last Frontier’s booker. He was being canceled after one week, and comedian Ed Wynn was drafted in at short notice to take his place. “I could see a sigh of relief come over him,” said Helms. On the way out of town, they checked out Rex Allen’s show at the Thunderbird Lounge. Hank started drinking there, and he drank all the way back to Nashville. Don and Jerry drove in alternating shifts. Four years later, Vegas provided Elvis Presley with the first serious debacle of his career. It was a town without pity for those who didn’t understand it.
Hank now presented bookers with an acute dilemma. He was one of the biggest draws in country music, but the odds on his showing up sober or showing up at all were now no better than even. There was only one reason that Fred Rose, Jim Denny, MGM, and all other interested parties didn’t give up on him: he never struck out in the studio. “Baby, We’re Really in Love” was in the charts for fifteen weeks starting in December 1951, and it was followed in March 1952 by “Honky Tonk Blues,” which peaked at number two and stayed twelve weeks on the charts. “Honky Tonk Blues” was followed in May by “Half As Much,” which also peaked at number two and stayed around for four months. “Cold, Cold Heart” was still on the charts as 1952 dawned, and “Hey, Good Lookin’” had yet to drop from heavy rotation. The streak was alive.
On June 13, Hank went into the studio for a late morning session — his first for six months. He’d put off recording, holding out for a cash payment. With Sammy Pruett gone, Fred Rose contracted Chet Atkins for the session. Howard Watts was also unavailable, and Charles “Indian” Wright of the Willis Brothers / Oklahoma Wranglers band was drafted in to play bass. Wright had played on Hank’s very first session for Sterling almost five years earlier. There were four songs on the menu; the first was Marcel Joseph’s “Window Shopping.” Joseph was a French Jew who’d settled in New York in 1914; he developed a fascination with country music after hearing it on a New Jersey station. He wrote hundreds of songs, but “Window Shopping” was his only hit. By day, he was an illustrator at the Journal American. “Window Shopping” was just one verse and a chorus, and Rose obviously coached Hank on his diction because “window” was not “winn-der.”
Joseph was a fortunate man because “Window Shopping” got a free ride on the flip side of the next song recorded that day, “Jambalaya (on the Bayou).” Hank had worked on the song with singer-pianist Moon Mullican, who wasn’t a Cajun but had worked the eastern Texas and Gulf Coast honky-tonks since the 1930s. In a letter to Fred Rose just after the session, Hank directed that Mullican surreptitiously receive 25 percent of song’s publishing royalties. The ostensible reason was that Mullican was to record it, but that doesn’t ring true. If everyone who recorded a Hank Williams song got 25 percent of it, there would have been nothing left. It’s likelier that Mullican wrote at least some of the song. Mullican, though, was under contract to King Records and its publishing division, Lois Music; Rose paid him surreptitiously so that he wouldn’t have to split the music publishing with King. Mullican was trying hard to get off King, even conscripting Jim Denny to intercede on his behalf, but no one got out from under a King Records contract.
Most cajun songs are interbred, and the melody of “Jambalaya” came from Chuck Guillory’s 1946 recording of “Gran’ Texas.” It’s hard to know if Mullican’s recording of “Jambalaya” was made before or after Hank’s, but it’s quite different from Hank’s record, suggesting that either Fred Rose or Hank tinkered with the song after Mullican was through with it. Hank had already shown a passing familiarity with cajun culture on “Bayou Pon-Pon,” a song he’d written with Jimmie Davis, and there’s a sheet among his effects in which he phonetically transcribed the names of cajun foods. He loved the cajun areas of Louisiana because the cajuns offered a view of life that he desperately wished for himself. “He loved the carefree life [down there],” said Jerry Rivers. “He longed for it because he was not ever a carefree person. He took everything seriously.” He even seemed to take “Jambalaya”; seriously; his performance is dour and completely without sparkle. On live shows, Hank would deliver the song with some panache, but the record sounds enervated.
“Jambalaya” proved to be the Hank Williams song that crossed all musical boundaries to the point that it is no longer a country song. Fats Domino had a hit with it, John Fogerty had a hit with it, and every cajun and zydeco band is obliged to play it whether they want to or not. Its success is probably due to the fact that it isn’t really a cajun song. Ethnic music is usually unpalatable for a mass market unless it is diluted in some way (Harry Belafonte’s calypsos, Paul Simon’s Graceland… the list is endless). The broader audience related to “Jambayala” in a way that it could never relate to a true cajun two-step led by an asthmatic accordion and sung in patois.
The third item on the menu that morning was “Settin’ the Woods on Fire.” Like “Hey, Good Lookin’,” it pointed unerringly toward rockabilly. Although it sounded for all the world like a Hank Williams song, it was written by Fred Rose and an elderly New Yorker, Ed G. Nelson Sr., the writer of “In a Shady Nook by a Babbling Brook” and “When a Yankee Doodle Learns to Parlez-Vous Francais.” Nelson had written with Rose back in the mid-1930s and had been partly responsible for his conversion to Christian Science, but where the pair acquired the vocabulary of “Settin’ the Woods on Fire” is anybody’s guess. Once again, Hank sounded curiously lifeless.
The fourth song on the slate was “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” Too much has been made of its significance. It wasn’t number one on the day he died, although it shot to number one in the wake of his death. Were it not for the coincidence that it was on the market when he died, it would have been seen for no more than what it was: a novelty song, like “Howlin’ at the Moon” or “Mind Your Own Business.” The addition of Fred Rose to the composer credit suggests that Rose had to contribute more than usual. In fact, this was the only Hank Williams session in which there were no songs that were solely his own work.
It was a lackluster session in every way, and Hank’s physical appearance made a deep impression on Chet Atkins. “We recorded ‘I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,’” he told Alanna Nash, “[and] after each take, he’d sit down in a chair. I remember thinking, ‘Hoss, you’re not just jivin’,’ because he was so weak that all he could do was just sing a few lines, and then just fall in the chair.” Atkins may have been exaggerating a little. Hank probably sat down to ease his back, but he certainly wasn’t in peak form that day.
By now, Frank Walker was sick of seeing Mitch Miller scoop Hank’s songs and transform them into pop hits, so he gave “Window Shopping” to one of his hottest properties, band leader Art Mooney, who recorded it on July 21. Walker then gave “Settin’ the Woods on Fire” to Fran Warren, whose version was released the same day as Hank’s, but he neglected “Jambalaya,” which Mitch Miller eagerly picked up and recorded with Jo Stafford. Miller also persuaded Stafford to duet with Frankie Laine on “Settin’ the Woods on Fire.” Once again, Miller got the hits; “Settin’ the Woods on Fire” went to number twenty-one on the pop charts, and “Jambalaya” went all the way to number two. And if Hank’s version of “Jambalaya” made only a passing nod toward cajun music, Stafford’s record didn’t make the connection at all; it was sung incongruously to a mambo rhythm. They were that clueless.
Right after the session, on June 16, Hank was due to report for work at MGM Pictures, but on June 17, MGM wrote to Hank in care of Fred Rose notifying him that “for good and sufficient cause, your employment…is terminated.” Presumably, Hank never showed up. As far as we know, he barely worked at all in June. There was probably an appearance in El Paso with Minnie Pearl, and for many years Minnie told the same story with slight variations, usually referring to Hank as “ill” or “sick” rather than drunk. On an MGM Records documentary she said,
The boys were worried that Hank was ill and unable to perform. They kinda insisted that he perform, and it made me unhappy. Then I walked backstage, and they were bringing him up the steps, and the look he had on his face was of such implication that I never will forget it. He said, “Minnie, I can’t work. I can’t work, Minnie. Tell ’em.” I had no authority. They went ahead, and he worked and it was bad. A. V. Bamford told me to stay with him between shows. He said, “He may listen to you. You may be able to keep him from getting any worse than he is.” Maxine Bamford and Hank and me and someone else drove around with him. This was between shows, and we were trying to keep him from getting anything else that would make him get in worse shape than he was. We started singing. He was all hunkered down, looking out of the side of the car singing. He was singing, “I Saw the Light,” then he stopped and he turned around, and his face broke up and he said, “Minnie, I don’t see no light. There ain’t no light.”
Hank’s self-defeating conduct stemmed in part from his perception that he was being marketed as a commodity. He was sent here and there to fly the flag for country music in general and the Grand Ole Opry in particular. The comfort and joy he’d once drawn from checking the charts diminished now that he came to see himself as commodified. Never especially forthcoming, he withdrew all the more now that Audrey was gone, but still needed the constant distraction of people around him. On a night when he found himself home alone on Natchez Trace, he would phone all around the country trying to find Ray Price or someone else to talk to. Fame seems to carry with it an inability to be alone, or to be yourself without an audience, and the Hank Williams who encountered himself on Natchez Trace didn’t like the company he found.
What makes the evidence of Hank’s dissolution almost unbelievable is that he could still exercise restraint over his drinking when he absolutely had to. The Kate Smith Evening Hour appearances show a rivetingly on-form performer. Hank was intent, focused, and every inch the star. He stared at the cameras during his performance of “Cold, Cold Heart” with a cockiness and self-confidence that bordered on arrogance. His dark Indian eyes were burning and utterly alive in the moment. The rhinestones on his jacket glistened in the television lights, and the fringe swayed in time with the music. When he dueted with Anita Carter on “I Can’t Help It (if I’m Still in Love with You),” she seemed terribly in awe of him, perhaps even in love with him. Smith herself was patronizing. Struggling hard to find something to say, she mentioned the Opry’s “nice” dancing and “good, wholesome” entertainment. It’s hard to know how many people saw Hank and the Opry troupe. The Kate Smith Evening Hour on NBC ran only from September 1951 to June 1952; it went head-to-head with Arthur Godfrey, and lost.
It wasn’t coincidental that Kate Smith was on NBC-TV and the Grand Ole Opry was on NBC radio. The Opry management wanted to market the show nationwide via television, and to be first in the race to bring country music to network television. As a result, it was playing its aces, like Hank Williams, and calling in favors with the network. By the spring of 1952, there were fifteen country music television shows in Los Angeles alone, and western swing star Tex Williams was trying to find a network that would syndicate his Roundup Time at the Riverside Rancho show. The Oprydidn’t want to lose the initiative to Tex Williams or anyone else, so it brought in the heavy guns.
WSM, which owned the Opry, had done as NBC had urged: secured channel space and picked up NBC’s television shows. WSM-TV had started in September 1950, but, like almost every television station, it was losing money because few people had sets, and, unlike WSM radio, WSM-TV’s signal barely reached the Kentucky state line. WSM-TV had a hillbilly show, Tennessee Jamboree, but the viewership was pitifully small. The Opry needed a network platform if it was to beat out the competition from California and elsewhere, and, with that in mind, Denny had not only arranged to showcase his acts on Kate Smith, but also made an agreement to rotate the Opry cast through the Astor Hotel’s rooftop ballroom. The Roof was one of the top venues in New York, and the Opry was committed to providing a house band and a featured artist every week for sixteen weeks. With the prestige accruing from the Roof and The Kate Smith Evening Hour, Denny believed that a network television offer was a foregone conclusion.
Country music, and the Opry in particular, was beginning its eternal quest for prime time. The timing seemed right: the “folk boom” was on everybody’s lips, Eddy Arnold was to be the summer replacement for Perry Como, Roy Acuff was to go on the cover of Newsweek in August, and Hank Williams had songs dotted over two charts. Even so, the plan failed. The Astor roof engagement was canceled by mutual consent after four weeks, and Hank, who had been scheduled to close the series with a grand finale on September 13, didn’t get to play. In fact, by September 13, his last appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was already a fairly distant memory.
As 1952 wore on, Hank was increasingly past caring what the Opry’s plans were, and whether or not he figured in them. Most of those who worked with him that year talk of his rapid disintegration, but the truth is a little more complex. He had been drinking and screwing up since the late 1930s, and his back had been troubling him for almost as long. His marriage and his other personal relationships had never been stable. The patterns that troubled everyone in 1952 had always been there; now they were magnified. The ever present problems were exacerbated by the fact that his career was entering uncharted territory. Three years earlier, Hank had been playing schoolhouses in Louisiana and eastern Texas; now he was expected to headline in New York and Vegas, act in motion pictures, perform on network television, and write songs that Bing Crosby could sing. Nothing prepared him for this, and, unlike Elvis Presley, who left the hillbilly market a few years later, Hank had no one like Presley’s Colonel Parker to at least give the semblance of knowing what to do. His reaction was to withdraw. “You could see Hank’s concern for his career decline,” says Don Helms. “He’d often say, ‘Aw, to hell with it.’ It reached a point where he didn’t really care.” A year or two earlier, he had been almost desperately eager to keep his hit streak alive; as soon as one record was out and in the charts, he was itching to repeat, or do even better than he had done before. Now those around him sensed that he didn’t care as much, and sometimes seemed not to care at all.