In His Final TV Appearance Before His Death, Hank Williams Shared the Stage With Carter Sisters
You can’t swing a stick in Nashville without hitting a country music artist — famous or aspiring — who doesn’t tip their hat to Hank Williams. And that’s been true for generations.
From Alan Jackson‘s “Midnight in Montgomery” to Kris Kristofferson‘s “If You Don’t Like Hank Williams” to David Allan Coe’s “The Ride,” dozens of songs and albums pay homage to the man from Alabama who liked his songs lovelorn and his suits spangled. So much heartbreak poured out in Williams’ lyrics and so many people called him hero that even the most die-hard country fan can forget: Hank never even made it to 30.
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Williams died on New Year’s Day 1953 at just 29 years old, with more than three dozen Top 40 hits under his belt. Just months earlier, on April 23, 1952, he made his final TV appearance on The Kate Smith Evening Hour, sharing the stage with Roy Acuff and the swooning Carter Sisters as part of a Grand Ole Opry showcase.
For the occasion, Hank decked himself out in his signature style, a white Stetson with a Nudie Cohn-designed sparkly, fringed shirt. For his first act, Hank performed his deeply personal, somewhat controversial No. 1 hit “Cold, Cold Heart.” Williams acknowledged the tune’s impact on his career, telling the audience that “it’s bought us quite a few beans and biscuits.”
Some of those biscuits came thanks to swanky crooner Tony Bennett, who was convinced to record a smooth pop version that also hit No. 1. Bennett loved to recount Williams phoning him to jokingly complain, “Tony, why did you ruin my song?” But the truth was, he’d play Tony’s version every time he spotted it on a jukebox.
Next, he duetted with an openly smitten Anita Carter — “over yonder on a bunch of straw,” as she was introduced by her positively coquettish sister June Carter — on his “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You).”
Despite Hank’s upbeat performance, folks on both sides of the camera knew that the star was in free fall. A drinker since age 11, in part to dull the pain of a spinal disorder that caused him lifelong pain, Williams took a fall during a 1951 hunting trip, sending his dependence on alcohol and pain pills into overdrive. His wife, Audrey, and their young son Hank Jr. (who would become a country music in his own right, along with Hank’s grandson, Hank III) left him. The Opry sent him packing, too. Williams was a young man, but his body and mind had taken all they could take.
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On his way to a New Year’s Day show in Canton, Ohio, Hank Williams’ heart finally gave out in the backseat of a powder blue 1952 Cadillac convertible, leaving legions of music fans wondering what might have been — and generations of would-be Opry stars hoping to tap into Hank’s legacy, if not his fate.
Coe’s plaintive 1983 tribute perhaps put it best: “Can ya make folks cry when you play and sing? Have you paid your dues? Can you moan the blues? Can you bend them guitar strings? Boy, can you make folks feel what you feel inside? If you’re big star bound, let me warn ya, it’s a long, hard ride.”
Remind 
Kings Of Country
March 2022
From outlaws Willie & Waylon to the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, we have every tear in your beer covered
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