Randall Hank Williams (born May 26, 1949), known professionally as Hank Williams Jr. or Bocephus, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style has been described as a blend of rock, blues, and country. He is the son of country musician Hank Williams and the father of musicians Holly Williams and Hank Williams III, and the grandfather of Coleman Williams. He is also the half-brother of Jett Williams.
Williams began his career following in his famed father's footsteps, covering his father's songs and imitating his father's style. Williams' first television appearance was in a December 1963 episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, in which at age fourteen he sang several songs associated with his father. Later that year, he was a guest star on Shindig![1]
As Williams struggled to define his own voice and place within the country music genre, his style began slowly to evolve. His career was interrupted by a near-fatal fall while Williams was climbing Ajax Peak in Montana on August 8, 1975.[2][3] After an extended recovery, he rebuilt his career in the country rock scene.[4] As a multi-instrumentalist, Williams' repertoire of musical instrument skills includes guitar, bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, banjo, dobro, piano, keyboards, saxophone, harmonica, fiddle, and drums.[5] In 2020, Williams Jr. was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.[6]
While he was a child, Williams was influenced by a number of contemporary musicians who visited his family and taught him various musical instruments and styles. [citation needed] Among these figures of influence were Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Earl Scruggs, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Williams first stepped onto the stage and sang his father's songs when he was eight years old.
In 1964, Williams made his recording debut with "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", one of his father's many classic songs.[8]
He provided the singing voice of his father[9] in the 1964 film Your Cheatin' Heart.[10] He also recorded an album of duets with recordings of his father.[9]
A change in appearance and musical direction
Although Williams' recordings earned him numerous country hits throughout the 1960s and early 1970s with his role as a "Hank Williams impersonator", he became disillusioned and severed ties with his mother.
By the mid-1970s Williams began to pursue a musical direction that would eventually make him a superstar. While recording a series of moderately successful songs, Williams began a pattern of heavy drug and alcohol abuse. Upon moving to Alabama, in an attempt to refocus both his creative energy and his troubled personal life, Williams began playing music with Southern rock musicians including Waylon Jennings, Toy Caldwell, and Charlie Daniels. Hank Williams Jr. and Friends (1975), often considered his watershed album, was the product of these then-groundbreaking collaborations.
On August 8, 1975, Williams was nearly killed while mountain climbing in southwestern Montana. While climbing Ajax Peak on the continental divide (Idaho border) west of Jackson, the snow beneath Williams collapsed and he fell almost 500 feet (150 m) onto rock, causing multiple severe skull and facial fractures.[11][12] Williams spent two years recovering, re-learning how to talk and sing, and undergoing 17 surgeries to repair his skull and reconstruct his face. The accident was chronicled in the semi-autobiographical, made-for-television film Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story. To hide his scars and disfigurement from the accident, Williams grew a beard and began wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The beard, hat, and sunglasses have since become Williams' signature look.[citation needed]
In 1977, Williams recorded and released One Night Stands and The New South, and worked closely with his old friend Waylon Jennings on the song "Once and For All".[citation needed] In 1980, he appeared on the PBS show Austin City Limits during Season 5, along with the Shake Russell-Dana Cooper Band.[citation needed]
Between 1979 and 1992, Williams released 21 albums—18 studio albums and three compilations—that were all certified at least gold by the RIAA. Between 1979 and 1990, he enjoyed a string of 30 Top Ten singles on the Billboard Country charts, including eight No. 1 singles, for a total of 44 Top Ten singles, including a total of 10 No. 1 singles, during his career.
In 1982, he had nine albums simultaneously on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, all of which were original works and not compilations. In 1987–88, Williams was named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. In 1987, 1988, and 1989, he won the same award from the Academy of Country Music. The pinnacle album of his acceptance and popularity was Born to Boogie.
During the 1980s, Williams Jr. became a country music superstar known for catchy anthems and hard-edged, rock-influenced country. During the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s, Williams' songs constantly flew into the number one or number two spots, with songs such as "Family Tradition", "Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound", "Old Habits", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "Born to Boogie", and "My Name Is Bocephus".
The hit single "Wild Streak" (1987) was co-written by Houston native Terri Sharp, for which Williams and Sharp both earned gold records. In 1988, he released a Southern pride song, "If the South Woulda Won". The reference is to a notional Southern victory in the Civil War.
His 1989 hit "There's a Tear in My Beer" was a duet with his father created using electronic merging technology. The song was written by his father, and had been previously recorded with Hank Williams playing the guitar as the sole instrument. The music video for the song combined existing television footage of Hank Williams performing, onto which electronic merging technology impressed the recordings of Williams, which then made it appear as if he were actually playing with his father. The video was both a critical and commercial success. It was named Video of the Year by both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Williams would go on to win a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.
In 2000, he provided the voice of Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer. In 2001, Williams Jr. co-wrote his classic hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" after 9/11, renaming it "America Can Survive". In 2004, Williams was featured prominently on CMT Outlaws. In 2006, he starred at the Summerfest concert.
In April 2009, Williams released a new single, "Red, White & Pink-Slip Blues", which peaked at number 43 on the country charts. The song was the lead-off single to Williams' album 127 Rose Avenue. The album debuted and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Also in July 2009, 127 Rose Avenue was announced as his last album for Curb Records.[14]
On April 10, 2006, CMT honored Williams with the Johnny Cash Visionary Award, presenting it to him at the 2006 CMT Music Awards. On November 11, 2008, Williams was honored as a BMI Icon at the 56th annual BMI Country Awards. The artists and songwriters named BMI Icons have had "a unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers".[29]
In 2015, Williams was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. On August 12, 2020, Williams was selected to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.[6]
Personal life
His daughter Katherine Williams-Dunning, the only one of his five children to not pursue a music career, died in a car crash on June 13, 2020, at age 27.[30] His son Shelton performs as Hank Williams III; his other children include Holly Williams[31] who is also a musician, Sam Williams, also a musician,[32] as is his grandson Coleman Williams (Hank III's son), who performs under the sobriquet "IV". His wife Mary Jane Thomas died on March 22, 2022, aged 58, after complications from a medical procedure.[33][34] On September 9, 2023, Williams married his long-time friend since 2003, Brandi. The couple became engaged on Mother's Day of that same year.[35][36]
Politics
Williams is a registered Republican and been politically involved with the party for decades. In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, he rerecorded his song "We Are Young Country" to "This is Bush-Cheney Country". On October 15, 2008, at a rally in Virginia Beach for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, he performed "McCain-Palin Tradition", a song in support of McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin.[37] He has contributed to federal election campaigns, mostly to Republicans, including Michele Bachmann's 2012 presidential campaign. However, he has donated to some Democrats in the past, most notably Jim Cooper and John S. Tanner.[38]
In November 2008, Williams considered a run for the 2012 Republican nomination as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee for the seat held by GOP incumbent Bob Corker, although his publicist said regarding Williams "no announcement has been made".[39] Williams ultimately did not run.
2011 Fox and Friends controversy
In an October 3, 2011, interview with Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, Williams discussed a June golf game where President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner had teamed against Vice President Joe Biden and Ohio Governor John Kasich, saying the match was "one of the biggest political mistakes ever". When asked why the golf game troubled him, Williams stated, "Come on. That'd be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu ... in the shape this country is in?" He also said that the President and Vice President were "the enemy" and compared them to "the Three Stooges". Later, anchor Gretchen Carlson said to him, "You used the name of one of the most hated people in all of the world to describe, I think, the president." Williams replied, "Well, that is true. But I'm telling you like it is." As a result of his statements, ESPN dropped Williams' opening song from its Monday Night Football broadcast of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus the Indianapolis Colts and replaced it with Ken Block and Andrew Copeland of Sister Hazel singing the national anthem.[40][41]
Williams later said his analogy was "extreme – but it was to make a point", and "some of us have strong opinions and are often misunderstood ... I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me – how ludicrous that pairing was. They're polar opposites, and it made no sense. They don't see eye to eye and never will". Additionally, Williams said he has "always respected the office of the president ... Working-class people are hurting – and it doesn't seem like anybody cares. When both sides are high-fiving it on the ninth hole when everybody else is without a job – it makes a whole lot of us angry. Something has to change. The policies have to change". ESPN later said it was "extremely disappointed" in Williams' comments, and pulled his opening from that night's broadcast.[42]
Three days later, ESPN announced Williams and his song would not return to Monday Night Football, ending the use of the song that had been part of the broadcast on both ABC and ESPN since 1989.[43] Williams expressed defiance and indifference on his website, and said he was the one who had made the decision. "After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision," he wrote. "By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run."[44] Williams' son, Hank Williams III, stayed neutral in the debate, telling TMZ.com that most musicians, including his father, are "not worthy" of a political discussion.[45]
After his song was pulled from Monday Night Football, Williams recorded a song criticizing Obama, ESPN and Fox & Friends, titled "Keep the Change". He released the track on iTunes and via free download at his website.[46] The song garnered over 180,000 downloads in two days.[47]
Williams continued to make his opinions of Obama known and during a performance at the Iowa State Fair in August 2012, he called Obama a Muslim telling the crowd, "We've got a Muslim president who hates farming, hates the military, hates the U.S. and we hate him!"[48][49]
^ abBurns, Ken. "Hank Williams Jr. Biography". PBS. Retrieved July 7, 2023. He began the slow rebuilding of his career, this time entirely in the Southern country-rock genre.
^ abHarrington, Richard (December 16, 1992). "Recordings". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
^Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Artist Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved April 22, 2022.
^ abcWebb, Todd (December 7, 1984). "Hank Williams Jr. Rocks Norman Crowd". Oklahoman. Retrieved July 7, 2023. Williams returned the welcome with an inspired set of country-style rock 'n' roll at its best. [...] a full-speed-ahead set of no-holds-barred rock, blues-rock, and rockabilly rock so intense that Williams himself was forced to partially disrobe near the end of the show.
^Malone, Bill, ed. (February 2014). "Williams, Hank Jr.". The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. University of North Carolina Press. p. 383. ISBN978-1469616667.
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