![]() ![]() The Hank Williams Birthday Bash in September, the New Year’s Celebration commemorating the passing of Country Music first superstar and the Museum’s Anniversary in February each year. So, it was done! For the past 8 years we have made our way back to the beautiful city of Montgomery to attend the majority of Hank Williams events. I told her that I had been a life-long Hank Williams fan and asked if we, too, could become life-time members. I enquired and she said that was for folks who had become life-time members of the Hank Williams Museum. By the time that we made it to Hank’s 1952 Baby Blue Cadillac, I noticed name plates on the boarding fencing protecting this piece of musical history. Her love and care for Hank Williams, his family, the Drifting Cowboys and their lives, which were chronicled in each room of this beautiful museum, was shown so elegantly with love and compassion. Beth told every story as if it was the first time that she ever told it. to entrust with the Hank Williams legacy. It didn’t take 30 minutes to know that Beth Petty was the perfect person for her father Cecil Jackson and Hank Williams Jr. would be knowledgeable of Hank Williams facts and if they take care of the memory of Hank Williams. I must tell you, one of my biggest concerns in coming to the museum was if the people working at the museum. She took us throughout the museum describing different Hank Williams pictures, newspaper clippings, clothing and instruments. We were met by Kaw-Liga and then by the museum’s curator Beth Petty. When we opened the door for the first time to the Hank Williams Museum it was if we were transported back to 1951. We got out of our vehicle on Commerce Street near the Hank Williams Museum, I could hear Hank’s voice echo towards the river’s edge. So, the long overdue journey to the sleepy Southern city which crowds the banks of the Alabama River, Montgomery, almost felt like I was back “home” in Sweet Home Alabama. I even sang at an empty Ryman Auditorium in the exact spot Hank sang from so long ago. Like so many others, I sat at his grave and sang my heart to my musical soul mate. When my wife and I were married in 1975 our honeymoon was to Montgomery and then on to Nashville just to walk in some of the same places as Hank. Hank was my moral compass and he never led me astray. At an early age, Hank’s music taught me about love, hurt, happiness, death and the need for a Savior. I have been singing Hank’s songs ever since. I learned to play guitar from (3) Hank Williams song books and all of the Hank Williams records my Mom had or would buy for me. As a young boy and even up to now, I could never gain enough information about the man, his life and his music. My Mom was an avid Hank Williams fan and while others heard bed time stories and lullaby’s, I was listening to the music of Hank Williams. "Even though the Hank Williams Museum opened in February of 1999, I didn’t make my first visit to this musically historic site until September 2011. ![]()
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