Customer Reviews

Hank Williams: Snapshots From The Lost Highway

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4 star:		(1)
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If it was 25 pages longer, I would have given "Snapshots" five stars! It's a wonderful treasure trove of fascinating, previously unseen photos, interviews, first person narratives and long-lost song lyrics. If you're a Hank Williams fan, you know what an impressive researcher is Colin Escott. His earlier bio of Hank stands as the most complete picture we're likely to have of a singer who, almost without fail, gave complete heart and soul in the recording studio. Finally, we have a book that attempts far more than a grim post-mortem on Hank's well-documented personal miseries. This is a celebration of Hank Williams: musician and performer. Wait until you see all the incredible photos of Hank and the Drifting Cowboys on stage, playing to excited, packed houses in places as far flung as San Jose and Ottawa. By all accounts, Hank was the most charismatic live performer of his time. Many of the hand-written scraps of unpublished song lyrics are very moving, especially "I Wish I Had A Dad." If only Hank had been given enough time to put the words to music and record them, his string of classic hits would have, without doubt, continued. I am not a starry-eyed admirer. I realize that Hank was abusive to his wives, often cruel and secretive. (By the way, photos here show what a teenaged knock-out was Hank's second wife, Billie Jean.) The "hillbilly Shakespeare" lived most of his brief adult life as a tortured, late-stage alcoholic. But "Snapshots" takes care to balance the picture, too. It depicts Hank Williams as millions of record-buying fans saw him: an enomorously gifted singer/songwriter and electrifying showman. I hope that Colin Escott and Kira Florita keep searching for hidden treasures: "More Snapshots From The Lost Highway" would be welcomed by this reader! Also needed is a single volume that details (as much as possible) all of Hank's live perfomances, TV and radio appearances, such as Mark Lewisohn's "Complete Beatles Chronicle" and the book on Elvis' live perfomances, "King On The Road." Please buy "Hank Williams: The Original Singles Collection...Plus" (CD), Escott's biography and "Snapshots From The Lost Highway." Escott and Florita are "settin' the woods on fire"!

In assembling 1998's 10-CD The Complete Hank Williams, Kira Florita and Colin Escott found far more material than their box set's book could contain. As a result, they put together this book, a behind-the-scenes look to hold his devotees spell-bound.

Fans who've read Escott's biography Hank Williams will treasure the new material: an extensive collection of informal photos, long-sealed court depositions, the accounting ledger with the $30,000 payoff to his naïve teenaged bride Billie Jean to abandon her claim to his estate, etc.

Among the handwritten copies of 30 unpublished songs and song fragments ("I Wish I Had A Dad," "The Broken Marriage") is "Then Came That Fatal Day" found on the floor of the Cadillac where he died en route to a December 31, 1952, concert. The newly revealed lyrics capture his love-hate relationship with his first wife, Audrey. Meanwhile, a draft of "Cold Cold Heart" accompanies Hank's and Audrey's conflicting accounts as to whether it was "inspired" by an abortion.

Numerous details emerge in the book, like Billie Jean's humor, and Hank's problems with excess measures in song lines. Letters from his publisher/co-author/editor Fred Rose (a recovered alcoholic who tried to curb Hank's substance abuse) find Rose trying to help the volatile marriage to Audrey while - like many others - harshly assessing her.

Audrey, who died in 1975, was an ambitious woman who attempted plenty of spin on her exhusband's legend, but she was probably right in saying, "If some woman, equally as strong as I am, had not come along, there never would have been a Hank Williams. He did not want to live when I met him."

It's an intriguing cast of characters, which build upon the already colorful Hank Williams legend. Check it out today!

I have been an avid C&W fan since the late 40's;and although I have admired the many other great stars throughout the years ,none better defined this music than the the way Hank did. He did it all ,and in a large degree,by himself. In any area ,be it: songwriting,costumes,variety,gospel,heartbreak,lonlieness,love,inovation,tours,fighting the establishnent,personal life,longevity,an interresting personality,pop ularity,humility,you name it, he excelled and was the one who set the standard for the other stars to follow.I am sure most of them would agree.
If my memory serves me well ,Hank had several songs on the top 10 a year after his death; and we still see books like these coming out 50 years after his death. One can only imagine what he would have produced if he had lived a normal lifespan.
This book is excellent in every respect and also a great companion to Escott's other equally fine effort Hank Williams S - The Biography.If my memory serves me correctly,Hank had several songs in thev top 10 a year after his death and book of this quality still coming out 50 years after his death.

A must for all Hank fans.... a great collection of photos...many of which you will not find anywhere else...many of manuscripts of his songs as he originally wrote them...a great coffee table book for all Hank fans!!

This book followed Colin Escot's biography. It seems that Hank Jr and other family donated most of the new pictures, documents, articles, etc, because they were so pleased with Escott's biography on Hank. I too am now
finishing this book and just after I read Escott's biography, which is very well written and researched. I would think even a casual fan of Hank Sr's would love having all of these pictures. It is really just a piece of art, a book to cherish along with the biography.

The pictures are priceless, the stories even more. I am so glad I have this book. You see Hank through the hazy black and white photos, and it is like you were there. This is like having a piece of Hank, a piece of the past.

THIS BOOK IS THE PERFECT COMPANION TO THE DVD HANK WILLIAMS "HONKY TONK BLUES" !!!

THIS IS THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE, MOST ILLUSTRATED BOOK ABOUT HANK WILLIAMS THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN, and I've seem plenty. It contains over 200 pages of material,it is rich in illustrations (Photos, document copies, handwritten song lyrics, etc. It covers Hank's life from childhood, all throughtout his life, and his career, and even his death and funeral, and events after his life.

The book contains a forward by Marty Stuart, and contains commentaries from Hank Jr. and Jett Williams.

It's very easy to read and follow along, because of the format in which it is presented. It is loaded with photos that illustrate and lead you through the text material.

For a more detailed review of the contents, please read my review of the DVD "Hank Williams Honky Tonk Blues".

If you are a Hank Williams fan or a fan of American Music History, you'll enjoy this one, I highly recommend it, and please get the Dvd also, (Hank Williams "Honky Tonk Blues"), the book and dvd go together perfectly.

very well edited and prepared. The photos say a lot. I thought there might be a bit more text, but that is probably for another Colin Escott book and I plan to buy it as well

This is an adequate pictorial biography composed by Colin Escott And Kira Florita of Hiram (Hank) Williams, though he had left very little written context besides his songs. He was thirteen when his family moved to Montgomery, Alabama. When he was fifteen, he was tall and had a grown-man's voice. He was basically uneducated as his handwritten letters to his mother show. The teenage Hank wore glasses. His mother, Lillie, went along on some of his early performances. Her domestic life was troubled.

Hank and Audrey were happy in 1944 when they were in their twenties. But his mother intruded as she and Audrey did not get along. They divorced in May, 1948, but reconciled and Hank, Jr. was born exactly one year later. In Nashville, they had a fancy house on Franklin Road (which I used to drive by in the Seventies) during the time he appeared on the Grand Ole Opry.

The 'Hillbilly Hit Parade' of 1947 showed Eddy Arnold had two in the Top 10, "I'll Hold You in My Heart" and "It's a Sin." Jo Stafford, a pop singer had a duet of 'Timtayshun' at #6; she later recorded Hank's song, "Jambalaya." His song "Move It On Over" was recorded first by Cowboy Copus and was in the #2 spot. In 1947-48, he appeared on WLAC in Nashville; Bob Lobertini were there in various capacities fifteen years later. He sang on "Hillbilly Jamboree" on WCKY in Cincinnati, Nick Clooney's station. I miss him still.

Hank could mesmerize an audience with his personality and the way he sang. He had a spine operation at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville in December, 1951 -- a year before his death, requiring stronger and stronger pain medicines to enable him to perform.

In January, 1952, they divorced again and he took up with Bobbie Lett, a former dancer but working as a secretary when she gets pregnant with his child. She'd been a pretty girl, but was very sedate when he met her there in Nashville. She'd previously been married to Monte Hale of cowboy movie fame out in California.

In June of that year, he married his second wife, Billie Jean, from Shreveport, Louisiana. He was back where he started at the 'Louisiana Hayride' from September to December), but this time he was the star attraction. He was not my type of singer but I did like his "Kawliga, the wooden Indian" song.

"Lost Highway" is just one of the enormous amount of songs he recorded. You can find a discography of all of his records in the book, SING A SAD SONG by Roger M. Williams and Bob Pinson. A good accompaniment to these two are Bill Koon's SO LONESOME.

Hank didn't really have time to be lonesome, as the pictures show he always had many people around him and many who cared. He was only twenty-nine, same age as Justin, when he died. God Bless Him.