Review by Booklist Review
Ribowsky has written several biographies of a wide variety of musical performers, athletes, and others. Here he does a creditable job with one of country music's giants, Hank Williams, whose meteoric career and booze-fueled death at 29 became a kind of template for the dissipated lives and early deaths of so many subsequent pop-music superstars. Although there have been several previous biographies (and at least two movies) about Williams' life, Ribowsky's may be the most revealing since Paul Hemphill's Lovesick Blues (2005). Ribowsky is particularly strong on Williams' early life, especially his relationships with his very influential and extremely problematic mother and with his first wife, Audrey, who was the inspiration for some of Williams' songs and also contributed significantly to the loneliness and heartbreak that came to define the singer's life and work. In the end, Williams lived a mostly horrible life and, by the time of his death in the backseat of a baby-blue Cadillac, had become a largely unlikable, if very talented, hero.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Country singer Hank Williams's story is already so well known that Ribowsky's (Dreams to Remember) entertaining, critical biography reveals no newly uncovered information about him. Nevertheless, Ribowsky is an engaging storyteller, and he tells Williams' story with such verve and humor-albeit with some over-the-top phrasing ("he was a dysfunction junction"; "Hank seemed like an afterthought lying carefree in a casket")-that Williams and his music come alive. He chronicles Williams's childhood in Alabama; his marriage to Audrey Mae Sheppard Guy, and their miserable but symbiotic relationship; his slow but sure rise to country music stardom on the Grand Ole Opry and WSM radio; his marriage to Billie Jean Eshliman; and his death in the back of his Cadillac on January 1, 1953, at the age of 29. Ribowsky offers cunning readings of Williams's songs: "Mansion on the Hill," he says, reflects a familiar Williams template that is "part croon, part hoedown, and a metaphoric lament of loneliness and the promise of a reward too far." Williams emerges from Ribowsky's powerful biography not only as the author of many familiar country and pop favorites, such as "Hey, Good Lookin'" and "Your Cheatin' Heart," but also as a man whose back pain drove him to drink and pills and whose soul was filled more often with gloom than with light. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
This biography of the young doomed king of country music delves deep into his roots in small-town Depression-era Alabama, following him through his compulsive drive to headline at the Grand Ole Opry (from which he was eventually fired) to his sad death from alcohol and drug abuse. Williams (1923-53) lived a contentious and passionate life, and Ribowsky takes the reader along for the ride through marriage, divorce, the chronic pain that left him vulnerable to quack doctors' prescription painkillers, battles over song rights, and the aftermath of his confused family legacy. The narration by Tom Perkins is comfortable, charming, and frank, inviting the listener to settle in and enjoy the roller-coaster ride. Verdict Recommended for fans of the artist, of course, and readers interested in a story that defined the rock and roll lifestyle of excess before rock and roll. ["Improves upon I Saw the Light and is probably the greatest biography yet. Highly recommended for all popular music collections": LJ 11/15/16 starred review of the Liveright: Norton hc.]-Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Everything he did was bad for his health: a sturdy biography of the unsteady icon of outlaw country avant la lettre.Luke the Drifter. The Hillbilly Shakespeare. Before Elvis came along, the King. Hiram King Williams (1923-1953) bore many names and monikers, as befits someone constantly on the move. When he became famous as a musician, being on the move was a requirement; Williams had to get from one gig to another, no matter how drunk or drugged he might be when he took the stage. But even early on, writes Florida-based music journalist Ribowsky (Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines: The Life and Music of James Taylor, 2016, etc.), Williams was used to life on the go, his father often traveling on his railroad job, sometimes a step away from the poorhouse. Born with a spinal defect, Williams channeled his pain into music but then, once the music was on paper or acetate, tried to move that pain farther along with an appalling diet of morphine, pharmaceuticals, and booze, all of which hastened his death. As Ribowsky notes, several templates were thus established, from death by prescription-happy doctor (Elvis, Michael Jackson) to country star as soused or pilled-up rebel (Johnny Cash, George Jones). The author is very good on the culture that surrounded Williams, enshrined by an Alabaman who told him, you do what you gotta do on Saturday night, then go to church on Sunday morning and make it all right with God. Though defiantly separatist, that culture, in Williams case, was laced with the blues and gospel as much as mountain music. Ribowsky covers the details of Williams untidy personal life without undue sensationalism, and if it lacks the intellectual depth of a Greil Marcus or the lived-in encyclopedism of a Peter Guralnick, his book is just fine for what it is, a decidedly warts-and-all portrait of a man more revered than listened to these days. Its not every 29-year-old who can pack enough into a life to warrant a 500-page biographyand a good one at that. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
