Randall Hank Williams (born May 26, 1949), known professionally as Hank Williams Jr. or Bocephus, is an American singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style has been described as a blend of rock, blues, and country. He is the son of country musician Hank Williams and the father of musicians Holly Williams and Hank Williams III, and the grandfather of Coleman Williams. He is also the half brother of Jett Williams.
Williams began his career following in his famed father's footsteps, covering his father's songs and imitating his father's style. Williams' first television appearance was in a December 1963 episode of 'The Ed Sullivan Show' in which at age fourteen he sang several songs associated with his father. Later that year, he was a guest star on Shindig!
Williams' style evolved slowly as he struggled to find his own voice and place within country music. This was interrupted by a near-fatal fall while climbing Ajax Peak in Montana on August 8, 1975. After an extended recovery, he rebuilt his career in the country rock scene. As a multi-instrumentalist, Williams' repertoire of skills includes guitar, bass guitar, upright bass, steel guitar, banjo, dobro, piano, keyboards, saxophone, harmonica, fiddle, and drums. In 2020, Williams Jr. was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Early life
Williams was born Randall Hank Williams 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 death in 1953, he was raised by his mother, Audrey Williams.
While he was a child, a number of contemporary musicians visited his family, who influenced and taught him various music instruments and styles. Among these figures of influence were Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Earl Scruggs, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Williams first stepped on the stage and sang his father's songs when he was eight years old.
He attended John Overton High School in Nashville, Tennessee, where he would bring his guitar to music class and play for pep rallies and performances of the choir.
Career
In 1964, Williams made his recording debut with "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", one of his father's many classic songs.
He provided the singing voice of his father in the 1964 film Your Cheatin' Heart. He also recorded an album of duets with recordings of his father.
A change in appearance and musical direction
Although Williams' 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 pattern of heavy 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 including Waylon Jennings, Toy Caldwell, and Charlie Daniels. Hank Williams Jr. and Friends (1975), often considered his watershed album, was the product of these then-groundbreaking collaborations.
On August 8, 1975, Williams was nearly killed while mountain climbing in southwestern Montana. While climbing Ajax Peak on the continental divide (Idaho border) west of Jackson, the snow beneath Williams collapsed and he fell almost onto rock. Williams suffered multiple severe skull and facial fractures and underwent 17 reconstructive surgeries, and spent over two years recovering and re-learning how to talk and sing. The accident was chronicled in the semi-autobiographical, made-for-television film Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story. To hide his scars and disfigurement from the accident, Williams grew a beard and began wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. The beard, hat, and sunglasses have since become Williams' signature look.
In 1977, Williams recorded and released One Night Stands and The New South, and worked closely with his old friend Waylon Jennings on the song "Once and For All".
In 1980, he appeared on the PBS show Austin City Limits during Season 5, along with the Shake Russell-Dana Cooper Band.
Country music career
In 1976, Rolling Stone wrote that Williams' "mainstream country material has always been among Nashvilles best".