Trivia / Hank Williams Jr.

• Breakthrough Hit: Even though his actual breakthroughs came in the mid-1960s, with songs like "Long Gone Lonesome Blues" (a cover of one of his father's songs) and "Standing in the Shadows" (where he speaks about being compared to the elder Hank), and many of his early songs are included on "various artists" compilations, just about everything prior to the late 1970s is ignored or forgotten, at least as far as radio and the mainstream is concerned (1969's "Cajun Baby", probably the closest he came to his later style in his early years, gets a smattering of spins). The anthemic "Family Tradition", one of the biggest country hits of 1979, is often considered to be his real breakthrough.
• Chart Displacement: His catalog of #1 hits doesn't include his Signature Song "A Country Boy Can Survive" nor other signature hits such as "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" or "Family Tradition".
• Dueling Works: His 1978 Outlaw Country Music Cover Version of "I Fought the Law" came out around the same time as The Clash's Punk Rock take.
• One-Hit Wonder: Not him, obviously, but many of his collaborators have been:
  • "Mind Your Own Business" was the only country music entry for Tom Petty (obviously not a one-hit wonder otherwise) and the only chart entry for evangelist Reverend Ike.
  • "Young Country" featured a gaggle of up-and-coming talent on backing vocals. While everyone else on the song was at least somewhat successful, that success did not translate as well for Butch Baker or Dana McVicker, who have no Top 40 hits otherwise. (McVicker was later a backing vocalist for Travis Tritt.)
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: In 2011, his partnership with ESPN's Monday Night Football ended immediately after he said some less-than-flattering things about then-President Barack Obama. Williams did return to ESPN six years later.
• Similarly Named Works: In 2010, both he and Darryl Worley released thematically similar anti-Barack Obama songs called "Keep the Change". Williams' daughter Holly also released a song by that name a year prior, but hers was a Break Up Song instead.

---