Hank, Audrey & Family, Drifting Cowboys

Hi. I'm Dale Vinicur & this is my first blog...

Ever since Lycrecia Williams (daughter of Hank Sr. & Audrey Williams; sister of Hank Jr) & I wrote a book together about her parents called Still In Love With You I have been helping her defend her mother (& her stepfather, too) against all sorts of lies & misrepresentations.

Even after our extensive research & hundreds of hours of interviews with Lycrecia herself, the family, closest friends, & fellow artists who knew & loved Hank & Audrey best (to fill in things Lycrecia wouldn't have known as a child - she was 11 when Hank died) & then published Still In Love With You in 1989 - still... respected writers & country music historians like Colin Escott & Chet Flippo continue to portray Audrey, her relationship with Hank, & sometimes even Lycrecia, in a prejudicial way.

This is not subjective reporting/biography & some of it is plain made up by people who weren't there... from the imaginary conversations between Hank & Audrey in Flippo's book, to a scene in Escott's recent PBS Hank bio where a musician buddy insulted Audrey & it was left uncut.

Lycrecia was there for the PBS showing & wanted to walk out. Stuff like that hurts. She is formally retired from appearances now - basically tired after all these years of always having to defend her mother & her relationship with Hank against people who did not even know them.

I was an English literature major in college, love history, & have always been partial to biography.

After this experience, though, I really am only interested in biographies that either rely on someone's diaries, letters, etc. or are written by a close family member or associate with no ax to grind. I don't want to fill my head with someone's made-up version of someone else's life - unless they call it an historical novel.

So having said all that...

I came to know Audrey Mae Sheppard Williams through her daughter, her sisters, & her closest friends. Miss Audrey was born 2/28/23 & died 11/4/75.

In 1984 I had moved to Nashville from Silver Spring MD, where against all big-city suburban odds I had become a devout country music fan. Willie Nelson started it all for me & soon he had introduced me to the music of Hank, ET, Ray Price, Merle Haggard, George Jones, & the other mothers & fathers of country music.

Around this time I heard my first Hank Williams album - & was surprised to find out I knew every song by heart... I had never been a country fan before but obviously Hank's songs were not just country, but American music.

I wanted to know more about Hank, who died so young & tragically, so I read the few books available & thought I understood him - a sad & lonesome genius singer-songwriter with a bitch for a wife.

But then I met Lycrecia, we became friends, & that all changed.

The way she talked about her parents opened up a whole new world to me about both Hank & Audrey. The Hank/Daddy she knew was smart, funny, & a genius at getting the most out of a few words... mother Audrey was a devoted, no-nonsense mom, smart - especially in business - also creative, generous, & definitely a woman ahead her time.

Problem was, Audrey & Hank were both alcoholics...

Hank started drinking when he was 14... by the time he & Audrey met when they were 19 he was already a problem drinker...

Audrey never drank until after the divorce & Hank's death in 1953 (they were 29). She died of alcohol-related illnesses 23 years later. Despite their divorce & Hank's brief remarriage, they are buried side by side on a hilltop overlooking Montgomery AL - Hank Jr & Lycrecia saw to that.

People like to blame Audrey for everything that went wrong, including Hank's drinking... remember now, he was already an alcoholic when they met at age 19... but then a fight (real or instigated) is always a good reason to go out & get drunk. (I learned that from my good friend Bernice Turner, who with her husband Doyle played in Hank's band & lived with them in Hank's mother's boardinghouse in Montgomery in the mid-1940's. The Turners have worked in the addiction/recovery field their entire lives.)

People put Audrey down for making Hank stay away when he was drunk... but she was only protecting her children (Lycrecia saw Hank drunk once - ever) + Hank's behavior could be unpredictable (as a matter of fact, shooting a gun was the last straw that led to divorce).

Some people say (& even write) that Audrey constantly begged Hank to let her sing although she had a terrible voice. But from the beginning, Hank loved her & thought she was beautiful & was proud of her & wanted her on the stage next to him - taught her how to play a little bass & sing some back-up vocals. That seemed to work great for them & everyone else until Hank got big & Audrey ended up mostly staying home in Nashville with the children, worrying whether anyone was doing her job of keeping her husband straight out on the road.

People forget that Hank, Audrey, Lycrecia, & baby Hank Jr (Randall Hank) were just a family... a family with untold pressures & problems to go along with the money & fame... with a lot more trouble waiting right around the corner.

So - Hank gets drunk, they fight... the flames of jealousy are falsely fanned... Hank has surgery for back problems worsened by many hourse riding in a car + a recent fall off a horse... they divorce, Hank - in constant physical & psychic pain - remarries a beautiful young woman just to piss Audrey off... then he dies - on New Year's day, January 1, 1953 in the back seat of his baby blue Cadillac convertible on the way to a show. He is intestate, someone else is his legal widow, plus there is another issue of a possible out-of-wedlock child.

To say Audrey was devastated by all this is an understatement. She never recovered from his loss. He had called & was coming home - Lycrecia remembers the call - then he was gone - forever.

The lawsuits began soon after & have never stopped - 50+ years later.

She had Hank's son, his memory, & his songs, so Audrey forged on. Soon, the world had a new singing star named Hank Williams - Jr this time. She started a music publishing company, a record label, a booking agency (with partner then-unknown Nashville agent Buddy Lee), a talent search, a traveling cavalcade of country music stars, a film production company, to name some of her projects. She had been tireless in helping the world find Hank Williams Sr & she was tireless about Hank Jr's career & the songs his daddy left behind. She & Jr hung out with Sam Phillips of Sun Music, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Hollywood moguls & stars, & politicians across the nation. Her influence in the music business & beyond was formidable & international. She threw great parties & she liked handsome young men, especially if they could sing & write good songs.

Lycrecia & Hank Jr adored their mother. She was a tower of strength, beauty, & success. She gave them whatever they wanted, was kind yet firm, fun-loving, good-natured, reliable & sensible - that is, until she began to drink seriously & especially after she added prescription painkillers to the mix.

In the last year of her life - after a long legal battle, she lost all Hank's royalties she was awarded in the divorce to Hank's legal widow, her mother was dying of cancer, the IRS was about to take her house (they had already claimed her chalet in Gatlinburg in the Smokies), & Hank Jr had just fallen off a mountain in Montana & barely escaped with his life. Her physical health had deteriorated rapidly in recent years & her relationship with her beloved son was strained... alcohol, prescription painkillers, & something called co-dependency, which wasn't a widespread idea back then, were taking their toll.

Audrey died alone one night in bed in the house she & Hank bought in '49, sometime after Lycrecia checked on her, just hours before the IRS was due to claim the house.

Lycrecia had been quietly moving furniture, silver, & other things out for the past couple of days to avoid losing everything like they had in Gatlinburg to the IRS; Audrey had stayed in bed & sworn to shoot anyone who came to take her house.

"They'll never take me out of this house alive." she told Lycrecia & her close friends.

Before there was a Betty Ford center in Southern California, Audrey dreamed of an alcohol recovery center in Nashville in Hank's name (with longtime friend Bernice Turner). She departed this world in 1975, but the dream lives on... visit us on the web at http://www.audreysdream.org

Also - forgot to mention the western wear store Audrey opened on Commerce Street in downtown Nashville in 1951 called Hank & Audrey's Corral... visit the online corral & shop for mostly Hank & country music related books, art, music, & more (sales all benefit Audrey's Dream Inc) at http://www.hankandaudreyscorral.com

Thanks for listening

:)Dale Vinicur