‘The Hillbilly Shakespeare’. He died on New Year’s Eve 1952 on the way to another concert in the back seat of his Cadillac, wrecked by speed and alcohol. Hank Williams was only 29 years old, but he already had an impressive oeuvre to his name: usually sad repertoire, about broken love, a son who calls another man ‘daddy’, or about someone who has been thrown out of the house and seeks comfort in the doghouse.
Williams had learned his first guitar chords from Tee-Tot, a black street singer and teetotaler, and had the talent to put his miserable life to lyrics and music in songs like ‘Cold, cold heart’ or ‘I am so lonesome I could cry’.
His own interpretations were often heartbreaking, and artists such as Tony Bennett and Jo Stafford also saw the greatness of the songs of the man known as the “Hillbilly Shakespeare”.
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