Hank Williams, "Honky Tonk Blues"
Honky Tonky Blues, purchase
I lived ‘down
South’ for a number of years, but I hated Southern music, or “Country” as it
should be properly named. Wouldn’t even entertain it. Granted, I was down there
when Grunge was bitch-slapping the popular music scene and Nirvana was sitting
atop a new Olympus.
Country music
was the stuff the sorority girls who wouldn’t give me a second glance were
listening to. My general impression of country music was of those girls heading
to Walnut Creek Amphitheater in straw cowboy hats, mini skirts and boots. Or
rednecks in pickups.
I defined
country music by the those who listened to it, with no understanding or knowledge
of the roots and history, the depth or multitudinous of genres and styles, and
I failed to read its influence on almost everything else I was listening to.
But, to be fair, my strongest impression of ‘country’ music
at that time was Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee”, which made brave but strange
reference to ‘hootchie coochie’, among other things my misplaced northern soul
just couldn’t cotton to…
Which is too
bad, as I feel I came to a grand tradition pretty late, and have been trying to
make-up ground for a long time.
Luckily, I found
Hank Williams, listened to more than the radio hits of the Allmans, and Lynyrd Skynyrd; I found Cash—but we all did, at some
point. I found a lot of good stuff, mostly through what I was already listening
to and following the influences of bands in the alt-country scene that I’d
learned to love, like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and The Jawhawks. It is strange, in
retrospect, how much I loved those bands yet still took such a circuitous route
to country music.
However crooked,
or slow, I did find my way.
And I can’t
think of a better song to fit this month’s category of “South”, than Hank
Williams’ “Honky Tonk Blues”.
The song is
perfect: a strutting, ramble-rhythm, fiddles in the back pushing the melody,
the purring shimmy of the pedal steel and Williams’ inimitable lamenting
warble—I can’t call it a yodel. That voice was the veritable personification of
pain and misery, light coming though it like a half-empty whiskey bottle on the
windowsill. To say he yodeled would be to diminish the palpable spirit he
brought to song. That voice, a transcendent, plaintive howl, personifies in a
single instance, the searching earnestness of all his pain, misery, mischief,
and occasional happiness. Some might hear Williams pull that ‘country shit’ and
think, no, not for me. But, they are missing out on what amounts to pure
poetry.
“Honky Tonk
Blues” is exactly what it is: a shuffling lament of leaving the country for the
big town, and wanting nothing more than to get back home. It’s ‘country mouse,
city mouse’, a tale told and retold. It’s William’s warning about straying too
far from what you know, but then, when you take Williams’ hard luck myth and
real life blues, all of his songs are some kind of warning. Hank ‘s legend
sometimes outshines the simple, sad elegance of his music. But songs like
“Honky Tonk Blues” are pure magic, and do more than cast a spell. Rather, his
music spells out the blueprint for country music. He reminds me of all the stuff I missed when I
was down South, and make me want to get back as soon as I can. Honky Tonk
blues, indeed.
