Hank Williams Immortalized By Hall Of Fame – Today In Country Music History [VIDEO]

1998  The Legend Immortalized

The Country Music Hall of Fame unveils a bronze statue of the late Hank Williams on the 75th anniversary of the singer's birth. At the ceremony are his children, Hank  Jr. and Jett, who meet for the first time.

Hank Williams’s legend has long overtaken the rather frail and painfully introverted man who spawned it. Almost single-handedly, Williams set the agenda for contemporary country song craft, but his appeal rests as much in the myth that even now surrounds his short life. His is the standard by which success is measured in country music on every level, even self-destruction.

Hiram Williams, came from a rural background. Hank was born with a spinal deformity, spina bifida occulta, that would later have a deleterious impact upon his life. Nashville music publisher Fred Rose invited Hank to supply songs for Molly O’Day, and that contact led to Rose offering Hank the chance to record for Sterling Records in December 1946. On the basis of the public response to those records, Rose was able to place Hank with MGM Records, and his first MGM release, "Move It on Over," was a hit in the fall of 1947.

Rose tried hard to get Hank out of Montgomery, but the best he could get was an opening on a relatively new radio jamboree, the Louisiana Hayride, in Shreveport. Hank moved there in August 1948. Hank moved to Nashville in June 1949 and swiftly became one of the biggest stars in country music. Increasingly, he decided to stand or fall with his own songs, and, after the success of his own “Long Gone Lonesome Blues” in the spring of 1950, virtually all of his hits were his own compositions.

Just before Christmas 1952 Hank took a leave of absence from the Hayride and returned to Montgomery to rest. On December 30 he left for two bookings in Charleston, West Virginia, and Canton, Ohio, but died en route. He may have died on December 31, 1952, in the back seat of his chauffeured Cadillac, and was pronounced dead early on January 1, 1953, in Oak Hill, West Virginia.