Photos from the Hank Williams Museum and Bitcoins of Trivia

I have at least a couple connections to the influential singer/songwriter Hank Williams. Few people know he was born Hiram Williams, which jumped out at me because I had a great uncle in Eastern Kentucky named Hiram. In addition to owning the general store, he was the mayor and (if I recall) the police department of Bear Track, Kentucky, population 36. He also played a pretty mean banjo.

A second link to the name Hiram: my parents attended, and met at, Hiram College near Cleveland in the years previous to my birth in September 1952. Four months later, the world lost a great one when Hank Williams died in Oak Hill, West Virginia on New Years Day, 1953.

Hank Williams' songs were about real life, often dealing with fairly universal human feelings -- joy, sorrow, lonesomeness, heartache and other variations of the blues. His brief life -- just over 29 years -- intersected with all the greats of country music of his day, and influenced countless others ever after. 

His robin's egg blue Cadillac, of which he was proud,
and where he died, in Oak Hill, WVa

Photographer Gary Firstenberg spent some time at the Hank Williams Museum this past week and was gracious enough to send these photos from both the museum and the cemetery where Williams was laid to rest.

I'd planned initially to write a blog post about William's influence on another great singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. The Nobel Prize he received in 2016 was "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Hank Williams was certainly a part of that tradition.

Having read Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One a couple times, you can't miss the tribute he paid to Hank Williams as a giant of country music in the 1950s. Dylan's fame centered around his own songwriting, but as every Dylan fan knows he's not shy about singing other people's work. Here's a link to 11 Hank Williams songs performed by Dylan.

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Hank Williams' story makes me sad in many respects. He suffered much and died young. On the other hand, it shows how much one can accomplish in a short time if one is committed to his or her craft and calling. 

On the other hand, his music so lifts the spirit, even when when he's moanin' the blues. "Jambalaya" and "Hey, Good Lookin'" capture the joyful side of living. "I Saw the Light" -- which he recorded in 1948 -- is another transcendent tune that we continue to sing to this day.

Here's an unusual bit of trivia that I was unaware of about this man. He was born with spinal bifida occulta, a rare birth defect of the spinal column that may have caused him to suffer lifelong back pain. This possibly contributed to his alcoholism and addiction to pills. 

 In 2003, Hank Williams was ranked second

in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music, 

behind only Johnny Cash. 

Here's a rare live recording of Hank Williams

Thanks again to Gary Firstenberg for the photos and to Beth Petty at the museum

for giving him permission to take these liberties. 

The Hank Williams Museum is located at

118 Commerce Street in Montgomery, Alabama

Learn more at the Museum Website.