CREEMEDIA
YOUR CHEATIN’ HEART A Biography Of Hank Williams by Chet Flippo (Simon and Schuster) by Susan Whitall Rosanne Cash, Johnny’s firstborn and as I write, No. 1 on the country charts, was quoted in Esquire: “A lot has happened in country music since Hank Williams.”
CREEMEDIA
Where’s Hank?
YOUR CHEATIN’ HEART A Biography Of Hank Williams by Chet Flippo (Simon and Schuster)
by Susan Whitall
Rosanne Cash, Johnny’s firstborn and as I write, No. 1 on the country charts, was quoted in Esquire: “A lot has happened in country music since Hank Williams.”
Yeah...and the fact that country music survives despite decades of Hollywood Strings, cosmic cowboys, Kenny Rogers, mechanical bulls, Hee Haw, zoned-out L.A. session men, Kenny Rogers records, and much worse is a testament to its hillbilly grit. Listening to “Cold, Cold Heart” or “I’m So Lonesome 1 Could Cry,” I can’t believe that anyone thinks “Elvira” or even “Seven Year Ache”—pick any 1981 country hit—has a patch on it. Thirty years have gone by, but the “progression” of country music has been much slower—it’s more like a cyclic thing, with rock and pop coming in at five-year intervals to corrupt it, and with hillbilly roots being alternately, disdained and “rediscovered.”