Hank Williams' recording career spanned only a few short years, 1946 through 1952, but Williams has lived on in the songs he gave the world and the power of his voice. Williams took the Appalachian cry of country music and made it popular across the nation, crossing over to the pop charts with 1949's "Lovesick Blues." But he was really the first country "outlaw," the first crazy wildman, the first one to really set the already established country music industry on its ear. Despite his popularity, the Grand Ole Opry fired him due to his excesses; and Hank himself, suffering from crippling back pain (many today speculate he may have had spina bifida), drank to excess and took many different prescribed painkillers, including morphine. He burned himself out before his thirtieth birthday, dying in the back seat of a Cadillac on his way to a New Year's Eve concert in Canton, Ohio. He was officially declared dead on January 1, 1953. His last recording was, ironically, "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive."
Hank Williams Sr. didn't live to see the legacy he left, but the torch burns on. "Old Hank" has touched everyone in country music. Every singer alive today, no matter what genre they sing, owes it all to Hank. His "Cold, Cold Heart" remains one of the most recorded songs in all of music.
