Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams - Couverture rigide

Hemphill, Paul

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0670034142 ISBN 13 : 9780670034147

Editeur : Viking Press Inc, 2005

Synopsis

Book by Hemphill Paul

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Hank Williams is not just one of America's greatest songwriters but also one of the most enigmatic - a raw poet from the rolling pine woods of south Alabama whose anguished lyrics were celebrated from the clamorous roadhouses of the Deep South all the way to Carnegie Hall. It was a wonder that Hiram ('Hank') Williams ever made it to adulthood at all. Unschooled, virtually fatherless, an alcoholic by his early teens and unlucky in love, Hank was destined for a life in the sawmills and the railyards until he began writing about what he saw and felt.

His songs ran the gamut - unrequited love, honky-tonking, loneliness - and they played as well in the fighting and dancing clubs spread across the American outback as on television's 'Your Hit Parade'. He was country, but he wasn't, dozens of his titles crossing over to the pop charts in a career that lasted only six years.

He died as he had lived: drunk and drugged, alone in the back seat of a Cadillac convertible, an outcast being chauffered through the snow and ice to play a gig on New Year's Day of 1953, gone at the age of twenty-nine. Paul Hemphill, born and raised in Alabama, has written a fascinating interpretative biography of Hank Williams, with the kind of soul and understanding that other books about him have lacked. Whence the pain and despair? Why the booze and pills? Where did his genius come from? How did he know everything he wrote about? These are the questions it seeks to answer.

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Hank Williams is not just one of America's greatest songwriters but also one of the most enigmatic­ - a raw poet from the rolling pine woods of south Alabama whose anguished lyrics were celebrated from the clamorous roadhouses of the Deep South all the way to Carnegie Hall. His tragic early death at the age of only twenty-nine, drunk and drugged, alone in the back seat of a Cadillac convertible on his way to a gig, ended a career that lasted only six years but went on to influence many of the greatest musicians in recent history.

Paul Hemphill has written a fascinating interpretative biography of Hank Williams, with the kind of soul and understanding that other books about him have lacked. Whence the pain and despair? Why the booze and pills? Where did his genius come from? How did he know everything he wrote about? These are the questions it seeks to answer.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Viking Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0670034142
• ISBN 13: 9780670034147
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 207