Williams began his career by following in his famed father’s footsteps; singing his father’s songs and imitating his father’s style. Williams’s own style slowly evolved as he struggled to find his own voice and place within the country music industry. This trend was interrupted by a near fatal fall off the side of Ajax Mountain in Montana on August 8, 1975. After an extended recovery he challenged the country music establishment with a blend of country, rock, and blues. Williams enjoyed much success in the 1980s from which he earned considerable recognition and popularity both inside and outside the country music industry.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Williams’s repertoire of skills include guitar, bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, banjo, Dobro, piano, keyboards, harmonica, fiddle, and drums.
Biography
Early life and career
Williams was born on May 26, 1949, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father nicknamed him Bocephus (after Grand Ole Opry comedian Rod Brasfield’s ventriloquist dummy). After his father’s untimely death in 1953, he was raised by his mother, Audrey Williams. While he was a child, a vast number of contemporary musicians visited his family, who influenced and taught him various music instruments and styles. Among these figures of influence were Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Earl Scruggs, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Williams first stepped on the stage and sang his father’s songs when he was 8 years old. In 1964 he made his recording debut with “Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” one of many of his father’s classic songs.
Williams’s early career was guided, and to an extent some observers say outright dominated, by his mother who is widely claimed as having been the driving force that led his late father to musical superstar status during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Audrey, in many ways, promoted young Hank Jr. as a Hank Williams impersonator, even to the extent of having stage clothes designed for him that were identical to his father’s, and encouraging vocal styles very similar to those of his father’s.
A change in appearance and musical direction
Although Williams’s recordings earned him numerous country hits throughout the 1960s and early 1970s with his role as a “Hank Williams impersonator,” he became disillusioned and severed ties with his mother. By the mid-1970s, Williams began to pursue a musical direction that would, eventually, make him a superstar. While recording a series of moderately successful songs, Williams began a heavy pattern of both drug and alcohol abuse. Upon moving to Alabama, in an attempt to refocus both his creative energy and his troubled personal life, Williams began playing music with Southern rock musicians, among them Waylon Jennings, Toy Caldwell, Charlie Daniels,and others. Hank Williams, Jr. and Friends, often considered his watershed album, was the product of these then-groundbreaking collaborations.
Just as his career was starting to see a revival, tragedy struck Hank Williams Jr. once again. While he was climbing Ajax Mountain in Montana on August 8, 1975, he fell 442 feet down the side of the mountain. His injuries were serious—his skull was split and his face was crushed—but he survived. Following extensive reconstructive and cosmetic surgery, he had to learn how to speak and sing all over again. Williams’s recovery period lasted at least 2 years. After over two years of surgery and recovery, Williams returned to the studio, releasing two albums. In 1977 Williams released One Night Stands. It was the New South album work with his old friend Waylon Jennings. Waylon produced the album and appeared with vocals on Once and For All. It is after the mountain-climbing accident that Williams adopted his trademark beard and sunglasses (and usually a cowboy hat) in order to hide his facial scars from the accident.
Acceptance into the country music establishment
Williams’s career began to hit its peak after the Nashville establishment gradually—and somewhat reluctantly—accepted his new sound. His popularity had risen to levels where he could no longer be overlooked for major industry awards. He was prolific throughout the 1980s, sometimes recording and releasing two albums a year. Family Tradition, Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound, Habits Old and New, Rowdy, The Pressure Is On, High Notes, Strong Stuff, Man of Steel, Major Moves, Five-O, Montana Cafe, and many others resulted in a long string of hits. In 1987 and 1988, Williams was named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. In 1987, 1988, and 1989, he won the same award from the Academy of Country Music. The pinnacle album of his acceptance and popularity was Born to Boogie. During the 1980s, Williams became a country music superstar known for catchy anthems and hard-edged rock-influenced country. During the late 1970s and into the early to mid 1980s Hank Jr’s songs constantly flew into the number one or number two spot. His songs like “Family Tradition,” “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound,” “Old Habits,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “Born to Boogie,” and “My Name Is Bocephus.”[clarification needed] The 1987 hit single Wild Streak was co-written by Houston native Terri Sharp, for which Williams and Sharp both earned gold records.
In 1988 he released a Southern pride song, “If The South Woulda Won.” The reference is to a Southern victory in the Civil War. The song featured modern Southern holidays, honoring Elvis Presley, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Patsy Cline. Hank Williams Jr. would run for president of the South. He would place the capital in Montgomery, Alabama. Honoring his father, Hank Williams Sr., with his image on the $100 bill. The song was popular as he addressed the issues of the day.
His 1989 hit “There’s a Tear in My Beer” was a duet with his father created using electronic merging technology. The song itself was written by his father, and had been previously recorded with Hank Williams playing the guitar as the sole instrument. The music video for the song combined television footage that had existed of Hank Williams performing, onto which electronic merging technology impressed the recordings of Hank Jr., which then made it appear as if he were actually playing with his father. The video was both a critical and commercial success. It was named Video Of The Year by both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Hank Williams Jr. would go on to win a Grammy award in 1990 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.
He is probably best known today for his hit “A Country Boy Can Survive.” He may also be well known today as the performer of the theme song for Monday Night Football, based on his 1984 hit “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight.” In 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994, Williams’s opening themes for Monday Night Football earned him four Emmy awards. In 2001 Hank rewrote his classic hit “A Country Boy Can Survive” after 9/11, renaming it “America Can Survive.” In 2004, Williams was featured prominently on CMT Outlaws. And in 2006 Williams starred at the Summerfest concert.
He has also made a cameo appearance along with Larry the Cable Guy, Kid Rock, and Charlie Daniels in Gretchen Wilson’s music video for the song “All Jacked Up”. He and Kid Rock also appeared in Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” video. Hank is also in a small part of Kid Rock’s video “Only God Knows Why.” He is also name-checked or referenced in numerous songs by modern-day country singers, including Kid Rock, Gretchen Wilson, Alan Jackson, Justin Moore, Trace Adkins, and Aaron Lewis.
In April 2009, Williams released a new single, “Red, White & Pink-Slip Blues,” which charted to number 3 on the country charts. The song was the lead-off single to Williams’s album 127 Rose Avenue.
Notable events
Williams donated $125,000 to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in Biloxi, Mississippi, on October 14, 2005.
On December 26, 2005, he opened Monday Night Football on ABC for the last time; the program moved to Disney corporate sibling, ESPN. Williams continues to open the show, however, ESPN pulled Williams' open from its October 3, 2011 telecast after he likened President Obama to Adolf Hitler during an interview earlier in the day on the Fox News Channel morning show Fox and Friends.
Williams visited with Randal McCloy Jr., the only lucky survivor of the Sago Mine accident, on Wednesday, January 11, 2006, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Williams traveled to the hospital after learning that McCloy was a fan of his music. “It just hit me like a ton of bricks because I had a big mountain fall in the 1970s, and they said I wouldn't live,” Williams told Pittsburgh TV station KDKA-TV. “It really, really affected me, and I said, ‘I've just got to go there and meet the family.’”
The Tennessee Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling stating that Williams and half-sister Jett have the sole rights to sell their father’s old recordings made for a Nashville radio station in the early 1950s. The court rejected claims made by Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother’s Best Flour Show, a program that originally aired on WSM-AM. The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include live versions of Williams’s hits and his cover version of other songs. Polygram contended that Williams’s contract with MGM Records, which Polygram now owns, gave them rights to release the radio recordings.
Williams opened for Super Bowl XL February 5, 2006, on ABC and was in the stands as a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.
On April 10, 2006, CMT honored Williams with the Johnny Cash Visionary Award, presenting it to him at the 2006 CMT Music Awards. Williams joins an elite circle of gifted performers to have received this prestigious mark of distinction, including Loretta Lynn (2005), Reba McEntire (2004), and Johnny Cash (2003).
In August 2006 a petition was started online to place Williams into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
He sold the majority of his compound outside Missoula, Montana, in 2007. He kept a small plot of land and now stays in his guest house when he is in Montana. He also resides in the small town of Paris, Tennessee, and owns a hunting cabin in rural Pike County, Alabama.
In 2008 Williams performed at the first annual BamaJam Music and Arts Festival in Enterprise, Alabama. On January 18, 2009, he performed in front of a sold-out crowd at Heinz Field before the 2009 AFC championship game.
On November 11, 2008, Williams was honored as a BMI Icon at the 56th annual BMI Country Awards. The artists and songwriters named BMI Icons have had “a unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers.”
Politics
Williams has been politically involved with the Republican Party. For the 2000 election, he redid his song “We Are Young Country” to “This is Bush–Cheney Country.” On October 15, 2008, at a rally in Virginia Beach for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, he performed “McCain–Palin Tradition,” a song in support of McCain and his vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
On November 20, 2008, Williams announced that he will run for the U.S. Senate in 2012 as a Republican party candidate, challenging incumbent Republican Senator Bob Corker. Williams was reported to have already consulted with Senator Lamar Alexander and former Senator Bill Frist, both Republicans from Tennessee.
On October 3, 2011, in a morning interview with Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends," Williams said that he thought Speaker of the House John Boehner playing golf with President Obama "would be like Hitler playing golf with (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu ... In the shape this country is in?" As a result of his statement ESPN dropped Williams' opening musical number from its Monday Night Football broadcast of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus the Indianapolis Colts.
Awards
2007 CMT Giants CMT
2007 Tennessean of the Year Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame
2006 Johnny Cash Visionary Award CMT Music Awards
2003 #20 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music CMT
1994 Composed Theme Emmy
1993 Composed Theme Emmy
1992 Composed Theme Emmy
1991 Composed Theme Emmy
1990 Video Of The Year TNN/Music City News
1990 Vocal Collaboration Of The Year TNN/Music City News
1989 Video Of The Year Academy of Country Music
1989 Music Video Of The Year Country Music Association
1989 Vocal Event Of The Year Country Music Association
1989 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals Grammy
1988 Entertainer Of The Year Academy of Country Music
1988 Video Of The Year Academy of Country Music
1988 Album Of The Year Country Music Association
1988 Entertainer Of The Year Country Music Association
1987 Entertainer Of The Year Academy of Country Music
1987 Entertainer Of The Year Country Music Association
1987 Music Video Of The Year Country Music Association
1986 Entertainer Of The Year Academy of Country Music
1985 Music Video Of The Year Country Music Association
1984 Video Of The Year Academy of Country Music
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