Twang Nation – The Best In Americana Music
Americana & Roots Music & Culture
Looks like Mike Curb is going to do right by Hank III and release his new album on the originally slated date. For those of you that just can’t wait for tomorrow’s release of Hank Williams III “Damn Right, Rebel Proud” head over to the online listening station and hear the release in it’s entirety. Let me say that again, entirity.
Hank III – Damn Right, Rebel Proud EPK
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKd2UPiSsWc[/youtube]
David Fricke over at RollingStone.com has some noce things to say about the upcoming Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings box set – “…the 54 performances in this three-CD set pack a magical, concentrated immediacy that is, in its time and way, as electrifying as Johnny Cash’s Sixties prison shows or Bob Dylan’s early acoustic concerts. Williams’ nasally drawl is crisp and strong, like the young Dylan without the sandpaper; he holds the long, desolate notes in “Cool Water” with stunning force.”
Country Music legend Marty Stuart’s “Sparkle & Twang: An American Musical Odyssey“, an exhibit of four decades of rock, country, rockabilly, bluegrass, rhythm & blues and gospel music memorabilia from Stuart’s personal collection
will make its way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland from Oct. 30 through March 1. The 300 items, including musical instruments, stage clothing, handwritten lyrics and photographs. Among them are Hank Williams’ handwritten lyrics “Cold, Cold Heart” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart, Elvis Presley’s sweater worn in a photograph with Junior Parker, Johnny Cash’s first black suit from 1955 and handwritten lyrics for “Folsom Prison Blues†and “Man in Black,†Performance outfit worn by Bob Dylan, Clarence White of the Byrds’ blue leather suit, Pop Staples’ 1962 Fender Jazzmaster guitar and Marty Stuart’s first guitar and performance outfit, sewn by his mother.
I’m in Nashville for the Americana Music Association Conference which starts full steam tomorrow so today I had time to stop by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to check out their new exhibit Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy featuring Hank Sr. and Hank Jr. I was perusing this great exhibit and reading the history of Hank Sr.’s life and it dawned on me. It’s Hanks 85th birthday today (as well as my Sister’s, not 85 though) !
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snFnsGDG5tY[/youtube]
From Country Standard Time: Don Helms, pedal steel guitarist for Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys, died this morning at 81. He is featured on more than 100 Williams recordings. Helms played a lap steel (also known as “Hawaiian steel”) guitar. This type of steel guitar lacks the foot pedals found on the more modern pedal steel guitar, which did not come into prominence in country music until after Hank Williams’ death in 1953.
Now go put on a Hank Sr. song (“So Lonesome I Could Cry” is a good one) and listen to the distict wail of Helms’ pedal steel.
60 years ago in this day, June 11th 1949, Hank Sr. made his famous debut on the Grand Ole Opry. He sang his hit Lovesick Blues and received a record number of ovations and encores, the Opry and Country Music were never the same.
Help reinstate Hank to the Opry.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will present an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of a great American musical dynasty in Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, Co-Presented by SunTrust and Ford Motor Company, a more than 5,000-square-foot exhibition opening on Friday, March 28, 2008, and closing on December 31, 2009.
“The Williams family story may seem familiar,†said Museum Director Kyle Young. “However, this exhibit will take the visitor inside the family to revisit the life and impact of Hank Williams, examine the struggles and musical successes of his only son, Randall Hank Williams, and study the direct descendants, who are now striving within a new generation of artists, all measuring themselves by the example of Hank Williams.â€
The exhibition has benefited enormously from the blessing and cooperation of the family, including Randall Hank Williams, now known as singer-songwriter Hank Williams Jr.; Lycrecia Williams Hoover, Hank Jr.’s older sister and the only member of the family with clear personal memories of Hank Williams; and singer-songwriter Jett Williams, who discovered her Williams parentage in the 1980s. Lending their own stories and family mementoes are Hank Jr.’s eldest children, singer-songwriters Shelton Williams, now Hank III, and Hilary and Holly Williams.
New York City’ – Christie’s November 30 sale of rock and pop memorabilia at totaled $864,938 and was sold 95 percent by value and 87 percent by lot. The top lot was Hank Williams’ notebook of 13 lyrics, which posted a world auction record for a Hank Williams manuscript at $145,000.The 18-page composition notebook is creased down the middle, most likely because Williams carried it in his back pocket for handy use to jot down songs when the mood struck him.
55 years ago, at 3 am Eastern Standard Time, on a cold road somewhere between Knoxville, Tennessee and Oak Hill, West Virginia, the King of Country music, Hank Williams died in the back of a Cadillac on the way to a New Years Day show in Canton, Ohio. Let’s keep the spirit of Hank Sr. alive and rejoice in the simple beauty of his legacy.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xu71i89xvs[/youtube]
Sometime between New Years Eve 1952 and New Years Day 1953 Hank Williams Sr, died
in the back of his new cadillac as a hired a chauffeur was taking him to a scheduled show on Canton, Ohio, on Jan. 1. The weather would not permit flying.
Every New Years Eve for the past few years the faithful from all over the world gather at the Hank Williams museum in Montgomery, Alabama, which is home to the Cadillac in which Williams died, to honor the music, legacy and life of Hiram “Hank” King Williams.