Alone, and lonesome, at the top of his genre

One of the surprises of last week's announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes was a special posthumous citation of Hank Williams for his "pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life."

In a public career that lasted just six years, from 1946 to 1952, Hank Williams took country music to new heights of popularity. Until his time, country music, then called "hillbilly," was regarded as a quirky genre that appealed only to slightly disreputable rural types - "poor white trash" in the minds of many. Williams changed all that.

Although there had been popular country musicians before him - Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb - none had Williams' impact. Drawing upon traditional country music, white gospel, and Southern black blues, he was heavily influenced as a young boy in Alabama by a black street musician, Rufus Payne, known as Tee Tot. Williams created a type of country and Western music that dominated the format until recent years, when the genre went pop.

Over the course of six years, Williams recorded 129 songs and 11 million-selling singles, including such standards as "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Cold, Cold Heart," "Jambalaya," and "You Win Again" - this at a time when selling a million records was rare. He made 36 appearances in the country music top 10.

Williams became the first country singer and composer to consistently cross over into popular music. His songs were recorded successfully by such entertainers as Rosemary Clooney, Frankie Laine, and Tony Bennett, and even by black singers such as Tommy Edwards - whose version of "You Win Again" was a bigger hit than Williams'. In recent years, artists as different as Gram Parsons, John Fogerty, and George Thorogood have recorded Williams' songs.

Williams' continuing impact can be gauged by the fact that he sold as many records in 1998 as he did in 1953. He even won a Grammy Award in 1999, 46 years after his death. Few popular musicians approach that level of durability.

Hank Williams was the first singer elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame when it opened. Remarkably enough, he was also named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, as a testament to his influence on rockabilly, a forerunner of rock and roll.

What was it about Williams that enabled him to remain so popular a half-century after his death?

First, Williams was a superb songwriter. His music and lyrics remain fresh and original, even when he was reworking the traditional themes of country music: failed love, lonesome trains, religion, drinking, etc. He had a gift for writing deceptively simple yet evocative lyrics.

His "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" not only has an easily remembered melody, but its lyrics approach poetry: "The silence of a fallen star/ Lights up a purple sky./ And as I wonder where you are,/ I'm so lonesome I could cry."

Second, like all great country singers, Williams exuded sincerity. His voice had a nasal twang that was pure country and often imitated. When he sang a song, whether it was sad or happy, it sounded like no one else before or since.

Finally, Williams defined the public image of the country singer for generations - as hard-living and hard-drinking. He was kicked off the Grand Ole Opry for being drunk and was notorious for failing to make scheduled appearances in the last months of his life.

Until recent years, country music featured a string of bad imitations of Williams' lifestyle. Williams' talented son, Hank Williams Jr., has been criticized for drinking and drug use, of which one of his songs said, "It's a family tradition."

On the night of Jan. 1, 1953, in the back seat of a Cadillac somewhere in West Virginia, Hiram King "Hank" Williams died of a heart attack brought on by a combination of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse. He was 29.

For the nearly 60 years since, country music has been looking for the next Hank Williams. It hasn't found him.