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I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself. "I saw that the overcoat and blanket that had been covering Hank had slipped off," Carr told yet another reporter. When he tried to move his hands, they snapped back to the same position the hotel porters had arranged him in. More than half of the 66 recordings he would make under his own name (he also released a string of religious-themed recordings under the name Luke the Drifter) were Top Ten country and western hits, many of them reaching number one, including Cold, Cold Heart, Your Cheatin Heart, Hey, Good Lookin, Jambalaya (On the Bayou), and Ill Never Get Out of This World Alive. His extraordinary Lost Highway peaked at number 12. Hank Williams was an aspiring country music singer when he first met Audrey Williams. As the titles of some of Williams' songs suggest, heartbreak and turmoil were never that far from his life. Carr and Williams checked out of the hotel at around 10:45p.m. Hotel porters had to carry Williams to his vehicle, an Olympic Blue 1952 Cadillac Series 62 convertible, as he was coughing and hiccupping. He attributed the decision to Williams' declining career: "Most of his bookings were of the honky-tonk beer joint variety that he simply hated. The song, backed by "Kaw-Liga", was No. [45] Sheppard later told Williams that she wanted to move to Montgomery with him and start a band together and help him regain his radio show. [97] His funeral was said to have been far larger than any ever held for any other citizen of Alabama, and the largest event ever held in Montgomery. Cookie Settings/Do Not Sell My Personal Information. was honored with a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album. Liquored up and abusing morphine, he collapsed in a hotel room in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1951, Williams fell during a hunting trip in Tennessee, reactivating his old back pains and causing him to be dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. Wiki User. He purchased the DSC title for $35 from the "Chicago School of Applied Science"; in the diploma, he requested that the DSc was spelled out as "Doctor of Science and Psychology". His funeral was held the next day, Sunday Jan. 4, 1953, at Montgomerys City Auditorium. Alternate titles: Hiram King Williams, the Hillbilly Shakespeare. His performances were acclaimed when he was sober, but despite the efforts of his work associates to get him to shows sober, his abuse of alcohol resulted in occasions when he did not appear or his performances were poor. In addition, her relationship with Williams' mom proved complicated. The Montgomery Auditorium, located at the intersection of Perry and Monroe Street, "Long forgotten Montgomery auditorium to see new life", "Convict Says Williams Depressed Singer Said Possible Suicide", "Name is Forged to Prescriptions, Expert Says", I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_of_Hank_Williams&oldid=1137643276, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from December 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Insufficiency of the right ventricle of the heart, January 4, 1953 at Oakwood Annex Cemetery in, January 1, 1953 in Oak Hill, West Virginia, This page was last edited on 5 February 2023, at 18:47. Hank Williams became one of America's first country music superstars, with hits like "Your Cheatin' Heart," before his early death at 29. That day, Williams could not fly because of an ice storm in the Nashville area; he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to the concerts. If he came to this conclusion (of suicide), he still had enough prestige left as a star to make a first-class production of it whereas, six months from now, unless he pulled himself back up into some high-class bookings, he might have been playing for nickels and dimes on skid row. [29] In 1937, Williams got into a fight with his physical education teacher about exercises the coach wanted him to do. Hanks first and second wives watched from the front pew. [81] A relationship with a woman named Bobbie Jett during this period resulted in a daughter, Jett Williams, who was born five days after Williams died. He told Hill that his mother was interested in talking to him about his problems and her need to collect Elonzo's disability pension. [73] That same year, Williams had a brief extramarital affair with dancer Bobbie Jett, with whom he fathered a daughter, Jett Williams. His son, Hank Williams, Jr., a successful country performer in his own right (like Williamss grandson, Hank Williams III), sang Williamss songs in the film biography Your Cheatin Heart (1964). Regardless, Carr said he next drove to "a cut-rate gas station". Instead of performing, Williams died 70 years ago today, on Jan. 1, 1953. The song resonated with music fans, as well as executives at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, who invited Williams to perform. His mother adopted Jett, who was made a ward of the state after her grandmother died and then adopted by another couple. Most of the material was written by Williams himself, in some cases with the help of Fred Rose and his son Wesley. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. On . If Williams had lived, it's not entirely certain that the Nashville music community, so eager to shed its hillbilly roots, would have continued to embrace Williams' music. At cafes across the South, the paper added, his songs blared over radios as news of his death spread. Hank Williams was just 29-years-old when he died, but had lived quite a life in his short years. There was desire, burden, fear, ambition, reverse after reverse, bitter disappointment, joy, success, sympathy, love for people. His mother stated that she bought it with money from selling peanuts, but many other prominent residents of the town claimed to have been the one who purchased the guitar for him. He returned to perform in KWKH and WBAM shows and in the Louisiana Hayride, for which he toured again. However, his plaintive, bluesy phrasing was unique and became a touchstone of country music. From The Montgomery Advertiser. However, much of what led to his non-sobriety is exactly what made his music as good as it was. Williams' mother had claimed that he was dead. [58] He brought together Bob McNett (guitar), Hillous Butrum (bass), Jerry Rivers (fiddle) and Don Helms (steel guitar) to form the most famous version of the Drifting Cowboys, earning an estimated $1,000 per show (equivalent to $11,400 in 2021) That year Audrey Williams gave birth to Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.). Because Williams may have left no will, the disposition of the remaining 50 percent was considered uncertain; those involved included Williams' second wife, Billie Jean Horton and her daughter, and Williams' mother and sister. In 2011, Williams' 1949 MGM number one hit, "Lovesick Blues", was inducted into the Recording Academy Grammy Hall of Fame. Carr talked to Williams for the last time when they stopped at a restaurant in Bristol, Virginia. After the failure of his audition, Williams and Audrey Sheppard attempted to interest the recently formed music publishing firm Acuff-Rose Music. Tributes to Williams took place the day after his death. Williams was an American singer-songwriter and musician regarded as one of the most significant country music artists of all time. Later that year he received his first recording contract, with Sterling Records; however, it was on the start-up label MGM that he had his first hit, Move It on Over in 1947. In the 1970s, he created his own musical identity, combining country with Southern rock and blues. A year later he was entering talent shows and had his own band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys. Fearful that disc jockeys and jukebox operators would hesitate to accept these unusual recordings, Williams used this alias to avoid hurting the marketability of his name. [94] He also wrote that Williams had been severely beaten and kicked in the groin recently (during a fight in a Montgomery bar a few days earlier), and local magistrate Virgil F. Lyons ordered an inquest into Williams' death concerning a welt that was visible on his head. He made his radio debut at age 13; formed his first band, Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys, at age 14; and early on began wearing the cowboy hats and western clothing that later were so associated with him. [46], In 1945, when he was back in Montgomery, Williams started to perform again for the WSFA radio station. Advance ticket sales totaled $3,500. On the evening of Dec. 30, 1952, the restless, rail-thin 29-year-old tossed and turned in bed at his home in Montgomery, Ala. Advance ticket sales totaled US$3,500 (equivalent to US$35,714.9 in 2011). Hank Williams, Sr. was an American singer-songwriter and musician who had a net worth equal to $100 thousand at the time of his death after adjusting for inflation (approximately $10 thousand in 1953) Finally, after not hearing from the singer for two solid hours, the driver pulled the car over in Oak Hill, West Virginia, at 5:30 in the morning. "[36], On March 19, Marshall declared that he felt Williams was depressed and committed suicide by taking a higher dose of the drugs he had prescribed. [7] Because of an ice storm in the Nashville area that day, Williams could not fly, so he hired a college student, Charles Carr, to drive him to the concerts. Here are more vintage images and stories of Alabamas past. That all changed in 1949 with the release of "Lovesick Blues," a throwaway rendition of an old show tune he'd pushed to tape at the end of a recording session. Hiram "Hank" Williams died on January 1, 1953, at the age of 29. Another researcher decided it could have happened at any of the gas stations near Mount Hope. [138], After Williams' death, Audrey Williams filed a suit in Nashville against MGM Records and Acuff-Rose. [29] Around two tons of flowers were sent. He died of a heart attack in a drug- and alcohol-induced stupor in the backseat of a car, probably in West Virginia, while being driven from Knoxville, Tennessee, to a concert in Canton, Ohio. ), He was racked by physical and emotional afflictions, and these coupled with his gift of song, made him kin to millions.. [48] With Williams beginning to be recognized as a songwriter,[49] Sheppard became his manager and occasionally accompanied him on duets in some of his live concerts. Celebrity Births Deaths and Ages Hank Williams Sr. His breakthrough moment came in 1949 with the release of Lovesick Blues, an old show tune that Williams parlayed into a chart-topping hit, an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and international fame. [6] The family's first child, Ernest Huble Williams, was born on July 5, 1921; he died two days later. What we do know is that Williams died when he was just 29 years old. A friend of the family denied his claims, but singer Billy Walker remembered that Williams mentioned to him the presence of men in the house being led upstairs. The Opry eventually fired him, and in 1952, he and Sheppard divorced. [109] When Downbeat magazine took a poll the year after Williams' death, he was voted the most popular country and Western performer of all timeahead of such giants as Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, Red Foley, and Ernest Tubb.[110]. [66] In 1951, "Dear John" became a hit, but it was the flip side, "Cold, Cold Heart", that became one of his most recognized songs. Hank jr. was three years old when his father died in 1959. It was something he apparently saw coming. Ernest Tubbs began the funeral with Beyond the Sunset and Red Foley and The Statesman Quartet sang Peace In The Valley.. Picking up the guitar for the first time at the age of eight, Williams was just 13 when he made his radio debut. In April 1948, he scored a second Billboard success with "Honky Tonkin.'". Elonzo stayed to celebrate his son's birthday in September before he returned to the medical center in Louisiana. Instead of performing, Williams died 70 years ago today, on Jan. 1, 1953. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, and the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1999. Police found empty beer cans and unfinished song lyrics in the Cadillac where Williams died. A doctor injected Williams with B12 and morphine and porters carried the legendary singer-songwriter to the car. "[25] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver coffin, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners. The pain and anguish that led him to drink could be heard in his songs. [77], During his last recording session on September 23, 1952, Williams recorded "Kaw-Liga", along with "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Take These Chains from My Heart", and "I Could Never be Ashamed of You". Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (each updated 1/26/2023). But along with this early success came increased erratic behavior from Williams, who often showed up at live performances drunk. A quick study, Williams learned how to play folk, country and, thanks to an African-American street musician named Rufus Payne, the blues. [24], There are several versions of how Williams got his first guitar. [105] Williams had 11 number one country hits in his career ("Lovesick Blues", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me", "Moanin' the Blues", "Cold, Cold Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive", "Kaw-Liga", "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "Take These Chains from My Heart"), as well as many other top 10 hits. Stars of the Grand Ole Opry were expected along with thousands of fans to bid farewell to Williams. Long plagued by alcoholism, Williams fell ill at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville on the last night of 1952. Despite his physical failings, Williams was cleared for more travel. His passing did not bring about the end to his stardom, however. His substance abuse problems continued to spiral out of control as he moved to Nashville and officially divorced Sheppard. They began to fill the auditorium hours before the afternoon funeral. [32] During the same year, he participated in a talent show at the Empire Theater. As if straight out of a country song, it was revealed decades later that Williams had fathered a daughter, Jett, who was born shortly after his death. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. Marshall admitted that he had also prescribed chloral hydrate to his recently deceased wife, Faye, as a headache medicine. Williams and her son, Hank Jr., became estranged after he turned 18. The fall reactivated his old back pains. [68] In October, Williams recorded a demo, "There's a Tear in My Beer" for a friend, "Big Bill Lister", who recorded it in the studio. The local record shops sold out of all of their records, and customers were asking for all records ever released by Williams. His father actually died January 1, 1953, and of course Jr was 3 years old. The investigating officer in Oak Hill declared later that Carr told him that he had pulled over at the Skyline Drive-In restaurant outside Oak Hill, and found Williams dead. Both women had been using the description professionally. After Hawkshaw Hawkins and other performers started singing "I Saw the Light" as a tribute to Williams, the crowd, now realizing that he was indeed dead, followed them. [15] That evening, when the announcer at Canton announced Williams's death to the gathered crowd, they started laughing, thinking that it was just another excuse. [96] An estimated 15,000 to 25,000 people passed by the silver casket, and the auditorium was filled with 2,750 mourners. Keillor, Garrison. If a song can't be written in 20 minutes, it ain't worth writing. Hank Williams Sr. was 29 Years, 3 Months, 15 Days old. While he was medically disqualified from military service after suffering a back injury caused by falling from a bull during a rodeo in Texas, his band members were all drafted to serve. Due to Williams' excesses, Fred Rose stopped working with him. [32] The Cadillac in which Williams was riding just before he died is now preserved at the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. [135][136] The release won a Grammy Award for Best Historical Album. [83], On January 2, Williams' body was transported to Montgomery, Alabama, where it was placed in a silver casket that was displayed at his mother's boarding house for two days. The newlyweds spent Christmas 1952 with Williamss mother in Montgomery. Hank Williams had something that humanity universally needs -- a song with a heart-felt message.. [112] He was ranked second in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003, behind only Johnny Cash who recorded the song "The Night Hank Williams Came To Town". Later on, Williams recorded "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It", one of the songs that Payne taught him. [43] The recordings "Never Again" and "Honky Tonkin'" became successful, and earned Williams the attention of MGM Records. The album included unreleased songs. His life and career were the subject of I Saw the Light, a 2015 biopic, starring Tom Hiddleston as Williams and Elizabeth Olsen as his first wife, Audrey. [43] The book only listed lyrics, since its main purpose was to attract more audiences, though it is also possible that he did not want to pay for transcribing the notes. At 11:25 p.m., Hank Williams was arrested in Alexander City at the Russell Hotel for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Hank Williams Jr. was performing his father, Hank Sr.'s, songs on stage at age 8. His performances were acclaimed when he was sober, but despite the efforts of his work associates to get him to shows sober, his abuse of alcohol resulted in occasions when he did not appear or his performances were poor. He was severely injured after falling from a truck, breaking his collarbone and suffering a severe blow to the head. Also, the Drifting Cowboys were at the time backing Ray Price, while Williams was backed by local bands. Arthur Whiting was also a guitarist for the Drifting Cowboys. Hank Williams Sr. Williams, who wrote most of his songs himself, crafted direct, emotionally honest lyrics that had a poetic simplicity that spoke not only to fans of country and western music but to a much broader audience, as evidenced by the pop hit crooner Tony Bennett had with his cover of Cold, Cold Heart in 1951. GitHub export from English Wikipedia. In Knoxville, Tennessee, the two stopped at the Andrew Johnson Hotel. It included 10 songs: "Mother Is Gone", "Won't You Please Come Back", "My Darling Baby Girl" (with Audrey Sheppard), "Grandad's Musket", "I Just Wish I Could Forget", "Let's Turn Back the Years", "Honkey-Tonkey", "I Loved No One But You", "A Tramp on the Street", and "You'll Love Me Again". [102], Williams has been called "the King of Country Music" in popular culture. He purchased the DSC title for $25 from the Chicago School of Applied Science; in the diploma, he requested that the DSc be spelled out as "Doctor of Science and Psychology". One woman was carried out after she collapsed. In late 1951, he suffered a minor heart attack while visiting his sister in Florida. [93] Dr. Ivan Malinin performed the autopsy at the Tyree Funeral House. His salary was enough for him to start his own band, which he dubbed the Drifting Cowboys. [1] His alcoholism worsened in 1952. [95] That evening, when the announcer in Canton announced Williams' death to the gathered crowd, they started laughing because they thought it was just another excuse. It could be argued, in fact, that his early death only enhanced his legend. Williams' personal life took a major turn in 1943 when he met Audrey Mae Sheppard, who was the mother of a young daughter and had only recently left a messy marriage. "Ol' Hank" was just 29 years old when he died, the same age as English Romantic Poet Shelley when he drowned in the Gulf of . Entrance marker of the Oakwood Annex Cemetery in, Grave of Audrey (left) and Hank Williams (right) at Oakwood Annex Cemetery, Oklahoma investigation of Horace Marshall. Years of back pain, alcoholism, and prescription drug abuse severely compromised Williams' health. Father and son rarely saw each other over the next decade, with Williams' mother, who ran rooming houses, moving the family to Greenville and later Montgomery, Alabama. . The two were often rivals for Williams' time and attention. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. [38] The same day, the District Attorney's office declared that after a new review of the autopsy report of Faye Marshall, toxicological and microscopic tests confirmed that her death on March 3 was not related to the medication prescribed by her husband. [69] On November 14, 1951, Williams flew to New York with his steel guitar player Don Helms where he appeared on television for the first time on The Perry Como Show. Because a corpse was involved, Stamey called in radio officer Howard Janney. Carr was exhausted and, according to the police reports, nervous enough to invite suspicion that foul play had been involved in Williams' death. He was dismissed by the Grand Ole Opry because of his unreliability and alcoholism. Despite his relatively brief career, he is one of the most celebrated and influential musicians of the 20th century, especially in country music. 1 on the country charts for six weeks. Hank Williams, byname of Hiram Williams, also called the Hillbilly Shakespeare, (born September 17, 1923, Georgiana, Alabama, U.S.died January 1, 1953, Oak Hill, West Virginia), American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who in the 1950s arguably became country music 's first superstar. 29, January 1st 1953. As people across his native Alabama picked up their newspapers that day, they were greeted with the tragic news Williams had died. Williams was among the first class of artists inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961, and in 2010, the Pulitzer Board awarded him a special citation for songwriting. [86] Fitzgerald was interviewed, and he suggested that Lillie Williams operated a brothel at her boarding house in Montgomery. [19] Carr's account of how he discovered that Williams was dead outside Oak Hill is challenged by Dr. Leo Killorn, a Canadian intern at Beckley hospital, West Virginia, fifteen miles from Oak Hill, who claims that Carr drove up to the hospital and asked him to see Williams. On December 11, 1946, in his first recording session, he recorded "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul", "Calling You", "Never Again (Will I Knock on Your Door)", and "When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels", which was misprinted as "When God Comes and Fathers His Jewels". [16] Williams' father was frequently relocated by the lumber company railway for which he worked, and the family lived in many southern Alabama towns. I told Carr that Williams looked dead but I did not press the point when Carr explained that Williams had been given two sedatives, Kitts was quoted as saying. [113] In the 1980 Canadian film, Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave, Williams is portrayed by singer Sneezy Waters. [3] In October 1952, he married Billie Jean Jones. In 1952, he divorced Sheppard and married singer Billie Jean Horton. He acknowledged that in previous testimony he had falsely claimed to be a physician. [134] Gimarc contacted Williams' daughter Jett, and Colin Escott, writer of a biography book on Williams. The worker claimed that she sold Williams' notes to a representative of the Honky-Tonk Hall of Fame and the Rock-N-Roll Roadshow. [89] Dr. P. H. Cardwell injected Williams with two shots of vitamin B12 that also contained a quarter-grain of morphine. He was dead on arrival at an Oak Hill hospital, the front page of The Alabama Journal read. When new wife Billie Jean asked what was the matter, she claimed his. [127] His great-grandson Coleman Finchum, son of Hank Williams III, released his debut single credited to IV and the Strange Band in 2021. [11] Carr later drove on until he stopped for fuel at a gas station in Oak Hill, West Virginia, where he discovered Williams seemingly asleep in the back seat. Lillie was unwilling to let him reclaim his position as the head of the household. Buy newspaper front pages, posters and more. They moved to a new house on the other side of town on Rose Street, which Williams' mother soon turned into another boarding house. [120] The same year, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best RecordingsPlus! Little did he know that the woman he would fall in love with would be the key to his success. The house had a small garden on which they grew diverse crops that Williams and his sister Irene sold around Georgiana. He had a message. In 1951, Williams fell during a hunting trip in Tennessee, reactivating his old back pains and causing him to be dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. His iconic status was amplified by his death at age 29 and by his reputation for hard living and heart-on-the-sleeve vulnerability. Williams' version became a huge country hit; the song stayed at number one on the Billboard charts for four consecutive months,[56] and gained Williams a place in the Grand Ole Opry. At this stage Williams began abusing alcohol, a problem that haunted him the rest of his life but that came about partly as a result of his attempts to self-medicate agonizing back pain caused by a congenital spinal disorder. Williams and Sheppard married in 1944. He won the first prize of $15, singing his first original song "WPA Blues". They later drove to Oak Hill in search of a hospital, stopping at a Pure Oil station on the edge of town. [33], As part of an investigation of illicit drug traffic conducted by the Oklahoma legislature, representative Robert Cunningham seized Marshall's files. While her son was not on the stage, his song I Saw The Light opened the show. The identity of her famous father remained a mystery to her until her early twenties. She cried out, Hes gone gone over and over as firefighters helped her out. His funeral took place on January 4 at the Montgomery Auditorium, with his casket placed on the flower-covered stage. Roy Acuff, along with a host of countrys biggest stars, performed I Saw The Light., MONTGOMERY, AL - JANUARY 4: Guitar themed flower arrangements adorn the gravesite of country singer Hank Williams as he is laid to rest at the Oakwood Cemetary Annex on January 4, 1953 in Montgomery, Alabama. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us! Best Known For: Hank Williams became one of America's first country music superstars, with hits like "Your Cheatin' Heart," before his early death at 29. He also wrote a number of religious songs under the pseudonym Luke the Drifter. Hank Williams died of drug and alcohol abuse at the age of 29. Williamss music itself was not especially groundbreaking, though he was a deft synthesizer of blues, honky-tonk country, western swing, and other genres. Audrey Williams asked Rose if her husband could sing a song for him on that moment,[51] Rose agreed, and he liked Williams' musical style. Under the name of Dr. C. W. Lemon he prescribed Williams with amphetamines, Seconal, chloral hydrate, and morphine.[6]. [16], The circumstances of Williams's death are still controversial. In June, he divorced Audrey Williams,[2] and on August 11, Williams was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry for habitual drunkenness. Red Foley, Roy Acuff, and Ernest Tubb, among others, sang Williamss gospel-influenced I Saw the Light at his funeral, which was attended by thousands. The result of the original autopsy indicated that Williams died of a heart attack. His mother was Audrey, and his step mothers were Bobbie Jett, who had his stepsister, and Billie Gean who was a widow just months after she married Williams, Sr. (Williams para.14). Among the hits he wrote were "Your Cheatin' Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry". What began with Williams writing material for singer Molly O'Day eventually gave way to a record contract with the recently created MGM label. As a boy, Williams was the musical protg of Rufus Payne, an African American street performer who went by the name Tee-Tot and busked on the streets of Georgiana and Greenville, Alabama. [9] Dr. P.H. [64][65] Some of the compositions were accompanied by a pipe organ. A. "Fan It" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band", recorded by Williams at age 15; the homemade recordings of him singing "Freight Train Blues", "New San Antonio Rose", "St. Louis Blues" and "Greenback Dollar" at age 18; and a recording for the 1951 March of Dimes. Widely considered country music's first superstar, Hiram "Hank" Williams was born September 17, 1923, in Mount Olive, Alabama. Long plagued by alcoholism, Williams fell ill at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville on the last night of 1952.