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Randall Hank Williams (born May 26, 1949), better known as Hank Williams, Jr. and Bocephus, is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style is often considered a blend of Southern rock, blues, and traditional country. He is the son of country music pioneer Hank Williams and the father of Hank Williams III, Holly Williams, Hilary Williams, Samuel Williams, and Katie Williams.
Williams began his career by following in his famed father’s footsteps; singing his father’s songs and imitating his father’s style. Williams’s own style slowly evolved as he struggled to find his own voice and place within the country music industry. This trend was interrupted by a near fatal fall off the side of Ajax Mountain in Montana on August 8, 1975. After an extended recovery he challenged the country music establishment with a blend of country, rock, and blues. Williams enjoyed much success in the 1980s from which he earned considerable recognition and popularity both inside and outside the country music industry.
As a multi-instrumentalist, Williams's repertoire of skills include guitar, bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, banjo, Dobro, piano, keyboards, harmonica, fiddle, and drums.
From 1989 until October 2011, a version of his song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" was used as the opening for broadcasts of Monday Night Football.
Williams was born on May 26, 1949, in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father nicknamed him Bocephus (after Grand Ole Opry comedian Rod Brasfield's ventriloquist dummy). After his father’s untimely death in 1953, he was raised by his mother, Audrey Williams. While he was a child, a vast number of contemporary musicians visited his family, who influenced and taught him various music instruments and styles. Among these figures of influence were Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Earl Scruggs, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Williams first stepped on the stage and sang his father’s songs when he was eight years old. In 1964 he made his recording debut with "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," one of his father’s many classic songs.
Williams’s early career was guided, and to an extent some observers say outright dominated, by his mother who is widely claimed as having been the driving force that led his late father to musical superstar status during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Audrey, in many ways, promoted young Hank Jr. as a Hank Williams impersonator, even to the extent of having stage clothes designed for him that were identical to his father's, and encouraging vocal styles very similar to those of his father's.
Although Williams’s recordings earned him numerous country hits throughout the 1960s and early 1970s with his role as a "Hank Williams impersonator," he became disillusioned and severed ties with his mother.
By the mid-1970s, Williams began to pursue a musical direction that would, eventually, make him a superstar. While recording a series of moderately successful songs, Williams began a heavy pattern of both drug and alcohol abuse. Upon moving to Alabama, in an attempt to refocus both his creative energy and his troubled personal life, Williams began playing music with Southern rock musicians, among them Waylon Jennings, Toy Caldwell, Charlie Daniels, and others. Hank Williams, Jr. and Friends, often considered his watershed album, was the product of these then-groundbreaking collaborations. In 1977, Williams recorded and released One Night Stands, The New South, and worked closely with his old friend Waylon Jennings on the album Once and For All.
On August 8, 1975, Williams was nearly killed in a mountain-climbing accident. While he was climbing Ajax Peak in Montana, the snow beneath Williams collapsed and he fell almost 500 feet onto solid rock. He suffered multiple skull and facial fractures--his face was split vertically from chin to hairline, exposing the frontal lobes of his brain and requiring over two years of reconstructive surgeries to rebuild his face. To hide the scars and the disfigurement from the accident, Williams grew a beard and began wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The beard, hat, and sunglasses have since become his signature look and he is rarely seen without them.
Williams’s career began to hit its peak after the Nashville establishment gradually—and somewhat reluctantly—accepted his new sound. His popularity had risen to levels where he could no longer be overlooked for major industry awards. He was prolific throughout the 1980s, sometimes recording and releasing two albums a year. Family Tradition, Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound, Habits Old and New, Rowdy, The Pressure Is On, High Notes, Strong Stuff, Man of Steel, Major Moves, Five-O, Montana Cafe, and many others resulted in a long string of hits. In 1987 and 1988, Williams was named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. In 1987, 1988, and 1989, he won the same award from the Academy of Country Music. The pinnacle album of his acceptance and popularity was Born to Boogie. During the 1980s, Williams became a country music superstar known for catchy anthems and hard-edged rock-influenced country. During the late 1970s and into the early to mid 1980s Hank Jr’s songs constantly flew into the number one or number two spot. His songs like "Family Tradition," "Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound," "Old Habits," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Born to Boogie," and "My Name Is Bocephus." The 1987 hit single Wild Streak was co-written by Houston native Terri Sharp, for which Williams and Sharp both earned gold records.
In 1988 he released a Southern pride song, "If The South Woulda Won." The reference is to a Southern victory in the Civil War. The song featured modern Southern holidays, honoring Elvis Presley, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Patsy Cline. Hank Williams Jr. would run for president of the South. He would place the capital in Montgomery, Alabama. Honoring his father, Hank Williams Sr., with his image on the $100 bill.
His 1989 hit "There's a Tear in My Beer" was a duet with his father created using electronic merging technology. The song itself was written by his father, and had been previously recorded with Hank Williams playing the guitar as the sole instrument. The music video for the song combined television footage that had existed of Hank Williams performing, onto which electronic merging technology impressed the recordings of Hank Jr., which then made it appear as if he were actually playing with his father. The video was both a critical and commercial success. It was named Video of the Year by both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music. Hank Williams Jr. would go on to win a Grammy Award in 1990 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.
He is well known his hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" and as the performer of the theme song for Monday Night Football, based on his 1984 hit "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight." In 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994, Williams's opening themes for Monday Night Football earned him four Emmy Awards. In 2001 Hank rewrote his classic hit "A Country Boy Can Survive" after 9/11, renaming it “America Can Survive." In 2004, Williams was featured prominently on CMT Outlaws. In 2006 Williams starred at the Summerfest concert.
He has also made a cameo appearance along with Larry the Cable Guy, Kid Rock, and Charlie Daniels in Gretchen Wilson’s music video for the song "All Jacked Up." He and Kid Rock also appeared in Wilson's "Redneck Woman" video. Hank is also in a small part of Kid Rock's video "Only God Knows Why." He is also referenced in numerous songs by modern-day country singers, including Kid Rock, Gretchen Wilson, Alan Jackson, Justin Moore, Trace Adkins, and Aaron Lewis.
In April 2009, Williams released a new single, "Red, White & Pink-Slip Blues," which charted to number 3 on the country charts. The song was the lead-off single to Williams's album 127 Rose Avenue. The album debuted and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart. Also in July 2009, it was announced that 127 Rose Avenue would be his last album for Curb Records.
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