It's not always sunshine and rainbows following in the footsteps of your parents. I think most folks either think what their parents do is so cool and aspire to be like them when they grow up, or they have the opposite reaction and strive to be anything they aren't. However, when your name is
Hank Williams Jr. , you might not understand what following in your parent's footsteps looks like because he was doing it long before he could fully comprehend it. Performing his first show at eight years old and recording by the time he was fourteen, Williams Jr. was thrown into the country music world as a mini Hank Williams Sr. Following in his father's footsteps was not as fun for Williams Jr. as one might think. Aside from finding it difficult to break away from his dad's classic country sound so he could define himself as an outlaw of the genre, he spoke on David Letterman that it sometimes closed doors solely because of his last name. Sitting down with the talk show host to promote his album
High Note in 1982, Williams Jr. was more than candid about the highs and lows that came with being a country music prodigy's son.
"Hank Williams Jr., that name gets you started real good in some ways, and it also closes some doors in other ways. I played my first show when I was eight years old, recording for MGM at fourteen. And it was fun for the little boy to do Hank Williams, but it was hell for the man. So, at about 20 or 21 (he realized it closed doors)..." Letterman backtracks a little, starting with when Williams Jr. was called upon to keep the sound of his father alive after he passed. Since Williams Jr. was so young, he gladly accepted this duty and wanted to perform in honor of his father.
"You know, they wanted any part of him that they could get back. I didn't have music on my mind very much. I'd go out and do these shows. I wasn't too serious about it at eight. Fourteen, sixteen we did MGM 'Your Cheatin' Heart,' that was a gold album. Then after some marriages and divorces and things like that, then I got serious. I started writing some of my own things." Although Williams Jr. can note that it was his idea to get on stage and impersonate his father, he recalled one specific moment in his career when he felt like it was getting too out of hand. He was not being treated as an individual artist.
"I had a manager later on where it was exploited to the point of like... daddy's original band and make records with his voice over mine. It got a little out of hand there." While Bocephus tells Letterman he believed he was carrying on his "Family Tradition" in his early career after a few of his father's friends shined the light on ways of his past, and when it clicked that no one cared to hear his music, he began to resent his father. But that did not stop Williams Jr. from continuing to put on shows. Once he stopped performing his father's tunes, there was a decline in the number of folks who stayed for his shows, but that faded as a new group of country music listeners began to love his rocking outlaw sound. Williams Jr. tells Letterman that he shed his father's persona by continuing to grace the stage and not giving up.
"Writing songs and doing shows and showing off. Hoping for some people like Marshall Tucker Band, The Allman Brothers, Waylon Jennings... to another audience. That's what helped me... Johnny Cash... all my old rowdy friends." Given his commercial success, there was an audience that loved Hank Williams Jr. for being Hank Williams Jr., and that group was able to separate his sound from his father's. While there is no doubt that getting a foot in the door is easier when you are linked to a late icon, it does not always mean that you will have creative freedom or won't be challenged in different ways. Hank Williams Jr. shines a light on his feelings in older interviews, which makes you appreciate his dedication to his craft even more and makes you want to fire up his catalog. Although Bocephus might have resented parts of his career and how his father unknowingly influenced it, Hank Williams Jr. never disowned his roots and was always willing to talk about how he grew from it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4E-jyKo6fI
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