With a population of fewer than 2,000, Georgiana is a town most travelers barely notice as they whiz past it on I-65 heading to and from the Gulf Coast or New Orleans. Surrounded by thick pine woodland and bisected by a set of railroad tracks, you wouldn’t expect this sleepy burg to be a pilgrimage site, but that’s exactly what it is for country music fans. It was on the streets of tiny Georgiana that a young Hank Williams learned the skills that helped make him one of country’s biggest stars. Williams was born in the area in 1923 and grew up in a Georgiana boarding house run by his mother. As a youngster he encountered a black musician named Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne, who took the eager youth under his wing and taught him the nuances of the different styles of music he played on the streets of town. After becoming a star years later, Williams said that “Tee-Tot” was the only real music teacher he ever had. Today the boarding house Hank grew up in is a museum, and the grounds around it are the site of an annual gathering that celebrates the legacy of one of country music’s most enduring legends, who died on New Year’s Day 1953 at the age of 29.
Hank Williams Festival
May 20-21
Hank Williams Music Park in Georgiana will take on the feel of an old-time country fair for the 32nd incarnation of the Hank Williams Festival (www.hankwilliams festival.com). There will be an arts and crafts area, a food court serving carnival fare and, of course, plenty of live country music emanating from the main stage as well as in impromptu picking sessions on the grounds. The main event is the “Country Music Opry” on Saturday night, modeled after the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and featuring Opry stars such as Jim Ed Brown. Hank’s daughter, Jett Williams, will host the Opry portion of the festival and perform her own set of music. Another highlight will be the opportunity to meet and hear performances from the surviving members of the Drifting Cowboys, Hank’s backing band. Pee Wee Moultrie, Clent Holmes and Braxton Schufert have made appearances at past festivals and fans relish the chance to hear music performed by these men and their firsthand accounts of what it was like to tour and work with the country icon. Tickets for the festival are $15 for Friday (gates open at 3 p.m.) and $25 for Saturday (gates at 8 a.m.) or $30 for both days (advance purchase required, call 334-376-2396 by May 19). Your ticket includes free admission to the Hank Williams Boyhood Home and Museum, which contains many relics from the singer’s life inside the house where he honed his musical skills and often heard the midnight train whining low from the nearby tracks.
Montgomery
Williams is also closely connected to the state capital of Montgomery, where his family later moved and he first performed on live radio shows. It was after he made a splash in Montgomery and on the honky-tonk circuit that Nashville took notice of the young singer. Though he eventually moved to Music City, Williams often returned to Montgomery, which became his final resting place. His funeral service was held in a city auditorium that couldn’t hold the 20,000 people who showed up, many of them African-Americans, a fact that underscored Hank’s wide-ranging appeal in the segregated South. His grave site — another pilgrimage spot — is located in the Oakwood Annex Cemetery, and a life-sized statue is downtown across from the auditorium where his funeral service was held. The Hank Williams Museum (www.thehankwilliams museum.com) is near the statue and houses an extensive collection of Williams’ memorabilia, including the 1952 baby blue Cadillac he died in while heading to a 1953 New Year’s gig.
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