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A solo acoustic concert by Hank Williams Jr. at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on Tuesday night (Dec. 6) raised $75,000 for the organization. Williams noted that many of the artifacts from the Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy exhibit would stay with the museum and its [...]
With extensive coverage from the national media and more than 180,000 downloads of his new recording of “Keep the Change,” Hank Williams Jr. is gaining plenty of attention in the aftermath of his split with ESPN’s Monday Night Football. The controversy began Oct. 3 during an interview on Fox News’ [...]
Hank Williams Jr. has written a song criticizing Fox & Friends, but he’s returning to the Fox Network on Tuesday (Oct. 11) for an appearance on Hannity in the aftermath of his split with ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Williams will also appear Tuesday on ABC’s The View. The controversy began [...]
Hank Williams Jr.‘s opening segment for ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecast will be initially filled by former Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders and Detroit-based soul singer Jimmy Scott and the Selected of God gospel choir. Williams and ESPN parted ways this week after he made derogatory comments about President [...]
Hank Williams Jr.‘s famous catchphrase — “Are you ready for some football?” — will no longer be featured on ESPN’s Monday Night Football telecasts, but the singer and the network disagree on who made the decision. The decision was announced Thursday (Oct. 6) amid a controversy that began Monday during [...]
Biography
Randall Hank Williams (“Bocephus” was his late father’s fond nickname for him) was born May 26, 1949, a month before Hank Sr.’s landmark first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, and he was 3 when the elder Williams died. At 8, he went on stage as Hank Williams Jr. with his father’s songs, voice and mannerisms. He debuted on the Opry at age 11 and at 14 made his first hit record, a rendition of his father’s “Long Gone Lonesome Blues.” A year later, he sang all the songs on the soundtrack of Your Cheatin’ Heart, Hank Sr.’s film biography. In his teens, he learned piano from Jerry Lee Lewis, appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and performed for crowds of 20,000 people.
In 1969, he and Johnny Cash teamed up at Detroit’s Cobo Hall for the largest-grossing country show to date, and in 1970, Williams signed the biggest recording contract in the history of MGM Records. But as much as he loved his father’s legacy, he had grown weary of cloning his father and wanted to pursue his own musical identity.
In the early 1970s, Williams adopted a Southern rock side, easily heard in the 1975 album Hank Williams Jr. and Friends. That same year, he nearly died from falling off a Montana mountain and endured numerous surgeries to keep him alive. After moving to a new record label in 1979, he issued his signature classic, “Family Tradition,” which referenced his famous father and their shared love for the wild side. He remained a staple of country music radio in the 1980s with hits like “Texas Women,” “Dixie on My Mind,” “All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down),” “A Country Boy Can Survive” and “Born to Boogie.” He won the CMA’s entertainer trophy in 1987 and 1988. In 1989, he won his first (and only) Grammy for the duet with his father, “There’s a Tear in My Beer,” which borrowed Hank Sr.’s vocals from a vinyl record.
When the radio hits slowed down in the 1990s, Williams found notoriety by singing the opening theme for ABC’s Monday Night Football. Alan Jackson turned Williams’ song “The Blues Man” into a Top 40 hit in 2000. In 2006, he released a single-disc hits album, That’s How They Do It in Dixie: The Essential Collection.