Hank Williams’ final show—Austin, TX, December 19, 1952

Way back in 1976, college diploma in hand, I was barely making a living by driving a delivery car in Austin. I saw and experienced a lot of the city I would not have otherwise, including an old honky-tonk called the Skyline Club on the north side of town. At the time, I knew nothing of its history, certainly not that it was the site of Hank Williams’ last public performance. This is made more meaningful in that it occurred 10 days after I was born, on December 9, 1952.

Countless articles and books—I just finished one—have been written about the life and music of Williams, who took on the alter ego of “Luke the Drifter.” Since I do not fancy myself a music writer, I will not try to duplicate any of that. I will merely say that his status as an icon in country music is well deserved. Some of the tunes he wrote and sang have a timeless quality to them. A criminally short list would include “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love with You,” “I Saw the Light,” “Settin’ the Woods on Fire” and “Jambalaya.”

Williams, a poor hillbilly from Alabama, had a thick southern accent. For this reason alone, some people may regard him as uncool. Perhaps at one time, I would have done the same (as if I do not have an accent myself!) but I know better now. He was a musical genius who had a great voice and could render a heartfelt song like nobody else. Unlike Elvis Presley, who followed soon after him and eclipsed him in a sense, Williams wrote most of his own material. Before I moved to Korea, I had a Hank Williams tape that I played while driving in my car and could not help lustily singing along.

Now it must be acknowledged that Williams, who dropped out of school early, was not verbally articulate. He left no lengthy and revealing interviews. Due to a deep inferiority complex, he sometimes barked at people who he thought looked down on him and his music. Furthermore, he was a hopeless alcoholic whose problems were compounded by spina bifida, which caused him to become hooked on painkillers. Williams’ career, fully ascendant in 1949, 1950 and 1951, was in a downward spiral by 1952 as the Grand Ole Opry fired him, he was playing in increasingly smaller venues, he was going through a bitter divorce, and his finances were in shambles. As often as not, he failed to show up for gigs or he was so drunk that he could not play. Sometimes he went onstage, insulted his audience and walked. Such was the state of things when he embarked on a tour of Texas in December of that year.

No longer traveling with his own band, Williams played with house bands in Victoria, San Antonio, Dallas, Snook and Austin. The San Antonio show was a disaster as the crowd booed him off the stage. Warren Stark, owner of the Skyline Club, surely knew of Williams’ shaky reputation, and voluntarily went to Snook and brought him to Austin. Although accounts vary as to what happened, they seem to agree that it was a successful night. The low-slung roadhouse had a capacity of 250, and yet 800 and possibly more fans crowded the place. Williams, fairly sober and eager to please, gave a three-hour show in which he did his most famous songs along with some gospel tunes. Of course, nobody there knew he had less than two weeks to live and that they had witnessed his last concert.

[In keeping with the numerous murky aspects of Williams’ life, one story often told is that he did not actually finish his show that night. He went backstage, passed out and was taken to Austin’s Brackenridge Hospital. His baby-blue Cadillac remained in the parking lot of the Skyline Club.]

There was, however, one more performance of sorts. On December 28, 1952, Williams was at the American Federation of Musicians’ annual meeting in Montgomery, Alabama. Sitting in the audience eating a steak, he was asked to go up on stage and sing a few songs, which he agreed to do before returning to his dinner. Three days later, the greatest country music singer of all time died in the back seat of his Caddy as a hired driver was taking him to a gig in Canton, Ohio. Williams, stoked up on alcohol, morphine and chloral hydrate, suffered a heart attack. He had lived just 29 years. Some 250,000 people attended his funeral in Montgomery in early January 1953.

As for the Skyline Club, it closed in 1989. When Williams played there, it had been in a remote area a couple of miles outside the city limits. Austin has long since gobbled up it and more, and a franchise drug store occupies the land upon which the Skyline Club once sat.