Family Tradition Three Generations of Hank Williams : Sacramento ...

By?Susan Masino
Hal Leonard Corporation, $24.99,?256 pages

Hank Williams died at the age of twenty-nine, but his legend and music live on almost sixty years after he stole American?s heart with his bone-cutting lyrics. His only son, Hank Jr., originally forced into his daddy?s role, eventually found his own music and escaped his father?s shadow with the help of a near death experience. Hank?s grandson, Hank III, who looks and sounds so much like his grandfather he has been called the ghost of Hank, refuses to be molded into a stereotype, and instead produces music so out of bounds it can?t be branded by genre.

Masino?s writing incorporates sordid family stories so heart breaking it is no wonder the lonesome soul-sick songs sprang from these three Hanks. Intertwined with the interviews of family members, Masino threads quotes from other music greats who have been inspired by the Hanks, from singer-songwriters like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, David Allen Cole to Bob Dylan and other writers such as Stephen King who regards Hank III?s music as ?? real country: hollow of eye, pale of face, and bursting with the rhythm of the damned ??

This is a story of America?s most dysfunctional musical family and the music they make that reaches into our souls. Hank III seems to speak for all of them when he says, ?I could have taken the easy road, but the hard road is for me.?

Reviewed by?Casey Corthron

Source: http://sacramentobookreview.com/biographies_memoirs/family-tradition-three-generations-of-hank-williams/

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