Mother's Best Little Ol' Boy

     I've been thinking about biography, especially  as I've recently completed (another!) revision of my picture book biography on country singer, Hank Williams. Usually a biographer needs a "platform", meaning some sort of background on the subject, but I am not a music historian or an expert on southern living, or anything of the sort. My interest in Hank started as a fan.

     Many years ago, a friend lent us a bootleg copy of Hank's fifteen minute morning radio shows for Mother's Best Flour, recorded in the early 1950s. Of course I had heard of Hank Williams and listened to some of his songs before, but these radio shows blew me away. My imagination went wild listening to that soulful voice and thinking about a rural housewife hearing it, perhaps as she went about her chores in the early morning. I loved the folksy humor, and the ads for Mother's Best, "for all your bakin' needs". And that voice, singing those songs of love and loneliness! Clearly, this boy needed an understanding heart.

    I listened to all of Hank's songs, over and over, read the lyrics, and every book about him I could get my hands on, as well as articles, websites, and histories of the south and music. Everywhere I went his songs seemed to be playing in the background, on movie soundtracks, heard on the radio in recordings by modern singers, by music groups at country fairs and in clubs. I realized just how influential he still is.

     Although many picture book biographies had been written about jazz artists, I found few about country musicians, and none about Hank specifically. I thought he was someone for children to know, not only because of his icon status in American culture, but also because of the saga of his rags to riches story, and the genius of his songwriting. I flew to Nashville to visit the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, Franklin Road, and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

    The more I delved into Hank's story, the more I realized he was not just one thing or another, he was a complex human being. A lover of reading, and a school dropout. An angry man and a sensitive genius. A falling down drunk and a spiritual believer. He left few letters, diaries or interviews. At the end of the day, his voice only spoke to me from the lyrics that he wrote. "I can't help it if I'm still in love with you" "I'm so lonesome I could cry" "Why don't you love me like you used to do?" "Praise the Lord! I saw the light!"

    The challenge for a biographer is to find a subject's "truth". Yet some research is conjecture, opinion. One person calls him a loner, the loneliest fellow ever met, another claims him as a great friend. Few people are liked by all, or appreciated by all. Was Hank the mega star, leaving his fanswaiting because he was too drunk to show up at a performance? Or the folksy friend singing jingles about that gal of his and her cakes and pies, asking the boys to gather round for hymn time? Hank was only twenty nine years old when he died, perhaps too young to have yet been only one way or another.

    Is it possible to ever really know another human being, even those closest to us? Some lives cause such impact they are still discussed years later. The best a picture book biographer can hope for is to try to reach the emotional core of a person.