Trivia / Hank Williams

• Black Sheep Hit: The name "Hank Williams" is synonymous with masterful songwriting and plainspoken singing, but his biggest hit was "Lovesick Blues" (16 weeks atop the country chart, as well as crossing over to the pop chart in an era when that was rare for a country song), which was a Cover Version of a song written in 1922, before Williams was even born, and based around a Jimmie Rodgers-like yodeling vocal gimmick.
• Breakthrough Hit: "Move It On Over" was his first big hit on the country chart in 1947, and "Lovesick Blues" was his first of eleven #1 country hits two years later.
• Creator Couple: Both of his wives, Audrey and Billie Jean, were part of his performing entourage (not at the same time, obviously), with Audrey playing bass and joining him for occasional duets, and some of the tension in their marriage came from Audrey wanting more of the spotlight; she's even been compared to Lucy Ricardo (by her grandson Hank Williams III, no less). Notoriously, Hank Sr. married Billie Jean during one of his shows.
• The Merch: Even before he began his recording career, he would sell booklets of his song lyrics at shows.
• Short-Lived, Big Impact: One of the definitive examples. He recorded his first song when he was 23, and only recorded around 90 songs before he died at 29, but in those six years he basically reinvented the entire genre of Country Music, and is still regarded as one of its most important artists even more than a century after his birth.

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