COUNTRY MUSIC SINGER

"King of the Hillbillies."

Hank Williams's promoters called him "King of the Hillbillies." He was an illiterate country-music songwriter and guitar player who was more popular than any musician in his field had ever been. He rarely failed to have at least one record on the list of top-ten hits in its category during the last two years of his life—such songs as "Your Cheatin' Heart," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Lovesick Blues," and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive"—and they all reflected his torment. Singing them night after night was more than he could endure. He was twenty-nine years old when he died on New Year's Day 1953.

Background.

A psychiatrist called Hank Williams "the most lonesome, the saddest, most tortured and frustrated of individuals." He had learned to play guitar at age six from a black street singer named Teetot whom he had met while working as a shoeshine...