Hank III

Shelton Hank Williams III was born December 12, 1972, in Nashville, TN. As the grandson of Hank Williams and the son of Hank Jr., he was country music royalty before he ever sang a note. But he didnt immediately follow his forebears musically, choosing instead to bang around the Southeast, playing drums in punk and hardcore combos and smoking prodigious amounts of weed. It was the outlaw spirit of his lineage, alive and unwell and floating in the bong water. By 1996, steep child support payments and his thirst for Mother Nature had forced Hank III onto to the straight and narrow, and he signed a contract with Music City giant Curb. The label issued Three Hanks: Men with Broken Hearts, which brought the voices of all three generations of Williams men together via the ghastly miracles of modern technology. It was about as far from what Hank III wanted as he could get and signaled the beginning of his stormy relationship with Curb. Williams was in a tight spot. While his name, face, and uncanny vocal resemblance to his grandfather almost guaranteed him a thriving country audience, he had no patience for Nashvilles squareness and rigid control. He and his Damn Band could wow a crowd with a spot-on set of gorgeous country balladry and spirited honky tonk. But III could just as easily shift gears into screeching, Black Flag-style punk rock with his hard-rocking combo Assjack. He was the kind of anomaly enormous record companies couldnt stand — eminently marketable, yet defiantly unpredictable. Curb issued Hank IIIs proper debut in September 1999. Entitled Risin Outlaw, it presented 13 rough-hewn country numbers colored by Hanks honky tonking vocals. And while he played his share of country gigs to support it, Williams also appeared at the 2001 Vans Warped Tour alongside punks like Rancid. The irascible III also dismissed Outlaw as a label-controlled fiasco almost immediately after its release. After a few years of touring and trying like mad to be released from his Curb contract, III returned to wax in early 2002 with Lovesick, Broke & Driftin. While Outlaw had featured material from outside writers, the new LP was all Hank III but for a previously released cover of Bruce Springsteens Atlantic City. He also produced, recorded, and mixed it by his lonesome in just two weeks.