Going back almost a month to my Country Music article, as well as the Nashville series I wrote last year, I've been mulling over a lot of things lately. Specifically, I've been trying to figure out a way to write 2,000 words about how I don't get Hank Williams...but even with that thesis statement, I can't elaborate for more than a paragraph or two.
Sure, he's highly influential...but he's exactly of his time. His overall tone and sound are exactly what you'd expect from a 1940s country artist. He's memorialized and venerated due to his short career, that's all cool and good, but I don't understand the reverence and sanctity that are held around his name. Again, that's all on me. I lack the context of being involved in mainstream country in a pre-Hank world, and simply cannot appreciate the changes that he and his popularity brought to mainstream country.
The closest analog that I have context for is the paradigm-shifting song, Cruise, by the band Florida-Georgia Line and the cataclysmic impact that it had on mainstream country, ushering in an unprecedented era of "bro country." But, that was a moment...that's a tangible shift, catalyzed by the ebbs and flows of mainstream country swirling back towards a contemporary/pop sound, but influenced by the hip-hop and rap music that bro country singers listened to growing up in the 90s.
The reverence and sanctity idea comes from the hundreds of songs mentioning Hank Williams throughout the years. Canonized in lyric, Hank Williams is sometimes sung about as a ghost or spectral apparition, other times he's merely referenced. For someone like me who never experienced life before Hank, the impression that I got was thank Hank were absolutely untouchable; or that there were a respect that nobody could do diligence to Hank's singing, so covers of his songs weren't allowed in good company. Whether there was any of this sort of gentlemens' agreement or not, I can't say. But, references to other country singers were almost encouraged, and covers were warmly welcome. How many songs talk about ol' Waylon and/or Willie, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, etc.?
Or, perhaps that was it - most of my exposure to Hank Williams during my formative years came from references to the man, not his own works. Whatever original Hank Williams recordings I'd hear were either on Grandma's old cassette tapes, or an occasional request on Country Gold Saturday Nights. Maybe "untouchable" was a bad word to use, and should've been replaced with "rare" or "unobtainable," since it was on such rare occasions that I'd actually heard him sing. Because I only knew Hank Williams from references, and had very little idea of how good he actually was, I lacked the context of having a steady baseline for his good, bad, or average works...I'd only ever heard the best of his best. The best of the best, from the greatest of the great was my starting point, so if the singers I admired canonized him, I simply could not fathom the epicness of Hank Williams. My brain would simply melt if I could properly comprehend Hank Williams. Effectively, my 'not getting' Hank Williams was a pure result of my own preconceived notions. I expected SO so much from hearing this man sing, that when I heard someone who sounded just like Ernest Tubb or Hawkshaw Hawkins, my expectations were not met.
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