Hank Williams

A “deftly written and ably researched” biography of the country music pioneer and the book that inspired the Tom Hiddleston film I Saw the Light (Newsweek).

“Our best look yet into Williams’s pained, piercing eyes. . . . Escott has peeled away the layers of legend.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

In his brief life, Hank Williams created one of the defining bodies of American music. Songs such as “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “Hey, Good Lookin’,” and “Jambalaya” sold millions of records and became the model for virtually all country music that followed. But by the time of his death at age twenty-nine, Williams had drunk and drugged and philandered his way through two messy marriages and out of his headline spot at the Grand Ole Opry. Even though he was country music’s top seller, toward the end he was so famously unreliable that he was lucky to get to a booking in a beer hall.

In this newly updated edition, Colin Escott adds the fruit of several years of impeccable new research to what was already the most full-blooded portrait of Hank Williams. With the benefit of recently discovered legal files, exclusive access to Williams’s autopsy, and new research on his final hours, Escott amplifies his definitive account—vividly detailing the singer’s stunning rise and his spectacular decline—and reveals much that was previously unknown or hidden about the life of this country music legend.

“Escott mixes careful reporting, a sympathetic viewpoint, and wry and occasionally cutting humor in a blend that makes for fast and interesting reading.” —Boston Globe