Hank Williams

USA, 1937–1953

American country singer and songwriter (1923-1953). His plain, first-person songwriting on records such as 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' became a model for country writers and for songwriters outside the genre.

MusicRoots documents 2 artists who influenced Hank Williams and 22 artists Hank Williams influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Hank Williams?

• The Carter Family — The Carter Family's recordings were foundational for Hank Williams, who grew up listening to them on the radio.
• Jimmie Rodgers — Jimmie Rodgers was Hank Williams' primary model — the blue yodel and autobiographical honesty Williams built upon.

Which artists did Hank Williams influence?

• Buffalo Springfield — The band printed its own list of debts on the sleeve of Buffalo Springfield Again (1967), and Hank Williams is on it — the country strain that runs under their folk-rock.
• Grateful Dead — Country was Garcia's first music, not a later detour — it surfaces in full on Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.
• Creedence Clearwater Revival — Williams's country roots feed the swamp flavour and autobiographical directness of Fogerty's lyrics.
• The Band — The country half of The Band's blend came in through Levon Helm, raised on Grand Ole Opry broadcasts in the Arkansas Delta.
• Bob Dylan — Dylan called Hank Williams's songs his school of songwriting.
• Jerry Lee Lewis — Lewis first heard Hank Williams on the Louisiana Hayride in 1948 — the country heart beneath his rock'n'roll.
• Van Morrison — Hank Williams gave Morrison the country-folk strand that runs through his songwriting.
• Buddy Holly — Holly began as a country act steeped in Hank Williams's repertoire — the melodic base under his rock and roll.
• Johnny Cash — Hank Williams was Cash's other country cornerstone — the lonesome directness and moral weight Cash carried, and whose songs ('I Walk the Line' lineage, covers of Hank) run through his catalogue.
• Leonard Cohen — Cohen placed Williams above himself in the tower of song — 'a hundred floors above me' — his stated country songwriting root.
• Roy Orbison — Orbison grew up singing Hank Williams — the country foundation beneath the operatic rock balladry.
• Dion — Dion developed a deep love of country music, especially Hank Williams — the plainspoken songwriting under his later folk-blues turn.
• Brenda Lee — Lee's Southern country grounding — Hank Williams above all — was the foundation she took into rockabilly and Nashville pop.
• Gene Vincent — Vincent grew up on the Grand Ole Opry — the country of Hank Williams, fused with gospel and blues into his hard rockabilly.
• Jackson Browne — Hank Williams's plainspoken country songcraft was part of the roots Browne drew from.
• Linda Ronstadt — Ronstadt drew on the country of Hank Williams — a root of her country-rock and interpretive range.
• Percy Sledge — Sledge absorbed the heartbreak of country singers like Hank Williams — the ache under his Muscle Shoals soul.
• Willie Nelson — Hank Williams is the songwriting standard Nelson started from.
• Townes Van Zandt — Hank Williams is the plain, short country song Van Zandt wrote against and out of.
• Cake — Hank Williams's plainspoken country songcraft feeds Cake's dry, twangy Americana streak.
• Patsy Cline — Hank Williams's raw honky-tonk emotion was a foundational influence on Cline, whose heartbreak ballads carry his country songcraft into the pop era.
• Dolly Parton — The other half of the style she had absorbed before she was a teenager — the plain first-person lament, sung straight.