Hank Williams Jr. • Interview and Performance, 2008
Special Programs
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1h 30m
Hank Williams Jr. visits the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to perform and answer questions about his life and career, his father’s legacy, and his family’s ongoing dedication to creative endeavors.
Recorded on March 29, 2008, the live program was held to mark the opening of the Museum’s 2008 exhibition “Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy.”
The son of Country Music Hall of Fame member Hank Williams, Hank Williams Jr. earned his first charting single—a cover of his father’s “Long Gone Lonesome Blues”—at age fourteen. Over the next five decades, he would chart more than one hundred times, with ten of those records reaching #1 on the “Billboard” country singles chart.
Only Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Ray Price, and George Strait—all Hall of Fame members—have logged more charting hits. In 2020, the Country Music Association announced that Hank Williams Jr. would join those artists and his father as a Country Music Hall of Fame member.
During the program, Williams talks about his experiences touring with Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings and starting to write his own songs. He performs a selection of those songs, including “A Country Boy Can Survive,” “All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down),” “Born to Boogie,” and “Dixie on My Mind,” along with “Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” “Ramblin’ Man,” and “There’s a Tear in My Beer”—songs by his father that he also recorded.
Hank Williams Jr. also performs “Hand Me Down,” a song he hadn’t yet recorded, inspired by a note and a guitar passed down from his father. His daughters Hilary and Holly Williams join him for performances of “The Blues Man” and “Family Tradition.”
FOR MORE
Explore the Museum’s public programs: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/plan-your-visit/exhibits-activities/public-programs/
Learn about current exhibitions: https://countrymusichalloffame.org/current-exhibits/
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