Customer Reviews

Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have no hesitation in recommending this DVD -- it's probably the best documentary produced about a country artist so far. Hank's life is told intelligently through expert commentary and interviews with Hank's friends, Drifting Cowboys (eg Don Helms), family (eg Hank Jr, Hank III, Lycrecia and Jett), contemporary country artists who knew him (eg Ray Price, Billy Walker, Charlie Walker, Big Bill Lister), his second wife, Billie Jean, and people like Charles Carr. The producers have included parts of Hank's appearances on the Kate Smith Show -- and thankfully haven't overdubbed commentary over the soundtrack, so we get to hear, for example, Anita Carter singing with Hank -- as well as fascinating snippets from home movies. Thankfully, the producers have used this type of first-hand material rather than, for example, shooting album covers and having the usual lineup of modern-day Nashville stars telling us how important Hank Williams is to country music (all too often used in other documentaries).

Thanks to the producers for an intelligent and fascinating insight into the life of one of the all-time country music greats.

This may be a good documentary, but if you're looking for footage of Hank singing, this dvd will probably only irritate you. Makes me darn near sociopathic. Even when they have video footage of a performance, they can't resist overdubbing everyone's opinions of his life. Idiots. Almost as bad is when they have the audio and video, and they don't bother to sync them even closely. I just want to see and hear Hank sing. This was frustrating.

In my opinion the great 20th century American songwriters were Bob Dylan, Cole Porter, Woody Guthrie, and Hank Williams. His stature is acknowledged in this film in part by the failure to bring this point home. The filmmakers clearly assume that anyone watching the film is aware of Hank Williams importance not just in country music, but in music period. The debate is not whether he is the premier country songwriter, but who the second most important writer is. There is a lot of talk of the Great American Songbook, comprised by the work of figures like Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Irving Berlin, but it is also true that there is a Great American Country Songbook. And Hank Williams wrote it. He may also be the most influential country singer as well. George Jones and Lefty Frizzell are usually regarded as the greatest of all male country singers, but neither has influenced other singers in quite the way Williams has. Other singers listen to Jones and Frizzell, but they sing like Hank Williams.

The only weakness of the film is that doesn't quite communicate the bleakness of Williams's life as glimpsed through the various biographies. I've read two biographies on Williams (including the one by Colin Escott, whose book provided the basis for the screenplay that Escott assisted on) and both convey far more than the documentary the remarkable emptiness of Williams's life. He was simultaneously a very simple and enormously complex individual. He had astonishingly few interests or obsessions apart from music, religion, women, drinking, comic books, and fishing, yet he produced a body of work that is clearly the achievement of a genius. His songs are perhaps the most passionate that have ever been written. Although I rank Dylan, Porter, and Guthrie as his equals as writers, none of them contained much in the way of passion and heartache. None of those three could have penned lines such as:

It's hard to know another's lips will kiss you
And hold you just the way I used to do
Oh heaven only knows how much I miss you
I can't help it if I'm still in love with you

The film does make very clear that Williams was deeply unhappy, but a book can do a better job of portraying this by depicting a host of unpleasant incidents, whereas the documentary is restricted to only a few. In the biographies I have read Williams's life emerges as one of grim unpleasantness.

The film does a great job of hitting all the highlights in Williams's career. There is a great deal of archival footage and photos, along with a fair amount of tasteful period recreation. It also gives a good impression of Williams's music as a whole, with one major exception: very little of his gospel music is included in the documentary nor is it even hinted at. But his explicitly religious recordings are among his most personal and affecting work.

Williams's demise is dealt with in tasteful manner. Although it is tragic that he died so young, it is unlikely that he could have lived much longer under any circumstances. Even without the binge drinking and the drug abuse that resulted from attempting to deal with the intense suffering caused by his back problems (as the film points out, medical experts feel that he suffered from undiagnosed spinal bifida) he never looked healthy in any of the photos or film footage one sees.

I strongly recommend this to anyone who doesn't know much about Williams's life. He is clearly the dominant figure even today in country music and the absolutely stunning number of great songs he wrote are familiar even to those who are unaware that Williams wrote them. History is made as much by people who shape a culture as by those who shape a nation's politics, and by that standard Williams is one of the great figures in American history. I can imagine no better introduction to him than this film.

Hank, In short... Has changed Country music for good. He in my and many others' opinion has influenced almsot most Yesterday's & Today's Country Stars. Whether it was his songwriting Genius, his performance on stage, or his larger than life image.

This DVD was a real treat for me, since He is without a doubt my favorite.

I highly recommend any country fan to give it a fair chance.
After All The Man helped in making what country music is today.

Nawaf
PS: I was shocked to see the way his widow talked. Not your average decent Ma'am would talk.

This is the best documentary of Hank and it tells the truth.
It really was a lost highway he lived.
I gave it 4 stars out of 5.
The performances we see in the documentary is short cuts.
Why was not the whole performances included as bonusmaterial?
I would gladly paid more to get this included.

from Billboard.com:

New Film Brings Hank Williams To Life

"Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues," the first documentary devoted to the late country music legend. The DVD is an expanded 81-minute version of the hour-long feature that will air as part of PBS's "American Masters" series beginning June 23.

The film was directed by Morgan Neville, co-director of last year's "American Masters" feature on Muddy Waters, and written and produced by Neville and Colin Escott, author of the definitive book "Hank Williams: The Biography," just issued in a revised edition.

Neville's documentary features never-before-seen color home movies of Williams, as well as rarely-seen kinescopes of his early '50s television appearances. Many hitherto unseen photographs are also utilized.

The film is distinguished by interviews with virtually every important surviving Williams family
member and friend, including the singer/songwriter's second wife Billie Jean Horton, who granted her first on-camera interview.

Also on view are his son, country star Hank Williams, Jr., and grandson Hank III (who performs "Ramblin' Man"); his illegitimate daughter Jett Williams and stepdaughter Lycrecia Williams; pedal steel player Don Helms and several other members of Williams' band the Drifting Cowboys; his opening act and touring sidekick Big Bill Lister; honky-tonk vocalists Ray Price and Charlie Walker; and Louisiana Hayride announcer Frank Page.
-- Chris Morris, L.A.

This is a fairly well produced look into the life of country musics greatest singer songwriter. There are so few videos of Hank williams and this DVD offers only a few tidbits. Some of the interviews with his old bandmates and his son and grandson are priceless. Hank truly was an American Master!

Hank Williams was the greatest country music composer and one of the greatest American composers of the century. That is not an exaggeration. His body of work includes standards, hymns (little did I know that "I saw the light" was written by Hank; it seems to have been around forever in church), country, ballads, etc. He was the real deal when it comes to country music - not the blow-dry pretty boys and silicone girls that do country music today. He was an ok guitarist, a very good country singer, and an unbelievably talented composer. He (and most of his crowd (especially the women)) was white trash from Alabama - but with talent from heaven. What is clear from this documentary is that no one was taking care of Hank and that his two wives probably sped up his death through neglect and self-centerdness. His first wife was disowned by Hank jr. after years of impossible behavior on her part. His second wife comes across as a very unpleasant woman interested in no one but herself. Hank, crippled with pain, a bad heart, and grief over his home life, probably had more peace in death than he did with those around him in life. This is a well-done film with great film clips.

Just let me say three words:Outstanding ,Outstanding ,Outstanding!.

There is some really good stuff to view and listen too on this DVD. The amature movie shots are pretty good but when you get to the real stuff like Hank singing a duet with 19 year old Anita Carter on the Kate Smith Show the stuff is so exemplary that it's hard to contain! This vivid life of story of a Country Music Legend for 10 bucks will be the best spent money that a fan can put-up and get back a real piece of Honky Tonk History. No one who reads this will feel they have made a mistake by ordering this DVD (unless of course you are some waste of white hippie Beatles fan)!
"Enjoy" Joe Kopeck

This very well made documentary is an interesting insight into the life of the enigmatic and brilliant star Hank Williams.. The balanced and intelligent film offers many revealing anecdotes about him [ by surviving members of his band, his 2nd wife and others who knew him well ], but one is still left with little understanding of the man. One thing that is clear is that Hank Williams was a complex genius,..surely one of the greatest songwriting talents the world has known.. Curiously there exist no filmed interviews of Hank, the little footage of him live, shows us how much of his soul he poured into his performances..I would rate this doco 5 stars...A memorable and moving portrait of a great star and a simple era that has now disappeared for ever..