Hank Williams Jr.

Hank Williams Jr. was born Randall Hank Williams on May 26, 1949, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father nicknamed him Bocephus (after Grand Ole Opry comedian Rod Brasfield's ventriloquist dummy).[9]

After his father's death in 1953, he was raised by his mother, Audrey Williams. While he was a child, a number of contemporary musicians visited his family, who influenced and taught him various music instruments and styles.

Among these figures of influence were Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Earl Scruggs, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Williams first stepped on the stage and sang his father's songs when he was eight years old. In 1964, he made his recording debut with "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", one of his father's many classic songs.[10]

Williams attended John Overton High School in Nashville, Tennessee, where he would bring his guitar to music class and play for pep rallies and performances of the choir. Williams provided the singing voice of his father[11] in the 1964 film Your Cheatin' Heart.[12] He also recorded an album of duets with recordings of his father.[11]

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 heavy pattern of both 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 in a mountain-climbing accident in southwestern Montana. While climbing Ajax Peak on the continental divide (Idaho border) west of Jackson, the snow beneath him collapsed and he fell almost 500 feet (150 m) onto rock; he suffered multiple skull and facial fractures.[13][14] The incident was chronicled in the semi-autobiographical, made-for-television film Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story. He spent two years in recovery, having several reconstructive surgeries in addition to having to learn to talk and sing again. To hide the scars and the disfigurement from the accident, Williams grew a beard and began wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The beard, hat, and sunglasses have since become his signature look, and he is rarely seen without them.

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".

In 1980, he appeared on the PBS show Austin City Limits during Season 5, along with the Shake Russell-Dana Cooper Band.

Williams performing at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California, 2006

In 1976, Rolling Stone wrote that Williams' "mainstream country material has always been among Nashville's best".[15] Williams' career began to hit its peak after the Nashville establishment gradually—and somewhat reluctantly—accepted his new sound. His popularity had risen to levels where he could no longer be overlooked for major industry awards.

He was prolific throughout the 1980s, sometimes recording and releasing two albums a year. Family Tradition, Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound, Habits Old and New, Rowdy, The Pressure Is On, High Notes, Strong Stuff, Man of Steel, Major Moves, Five-O, Montana Cafe, and many others resulted in a long string of hits.

Between 1979–92, Williams released 21 albums—18 studio albums and three compilations—that were all certified at least gold by the RIAA. Between 1979–90, 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 Southern victory in the Civil War. The song proposes a southern holiday honoring Elvis Presley. Williams would run for president of the South. He would place the capital in Montgomery, Alabama, honoring his father, Hank Williams, with his image on the $100 bill.

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.

He is well known for his hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" and as the performer of the theme song for Monday Night Football, based on his 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight". In 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994, Williams' opening themes for Monday Night Football earned him four Emmy Awards.

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.

He has also made a cameo appearance along with Larry the Cable Guy, Kid Rock, and Charlie Daniels in Gretchen Wilson's music video for the song "All Jacked Up". He and Kid Rock also appeared in Wilson's "Redneck Woman" video. Hank also had a small part of Kid Rock's video "Only God Knows Why", and "Redneck Paradise".

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.[16]

His daughter Katherine Williams-Dunning died on June 13, 2020, in a car crash at the age of 27.[17]

In an October 3, 2011, interview with Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends, Williams referred to a June golf game in which 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 the national anthem.

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.[24]

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.[25] 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."[26] 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.[27]

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.[28] The song garnered over 180,000 downloads in two days.[29]

Williams continued to make his opinions of President 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!" [30]