Really, I did meet him once. I've been trying to remember exactly the year. I know it was between 1974 and 1976 for sure. Likely it was the summer of 1975 at the South Roxana, Illinois Homecoming.
So, if you don't already know, the Homecoming is really a carnival with rides, games and nightly entertainment. In South Roxana it is held at Dad's Club Park and usually lasts for four days. Thursday through Sunday. I can narrow down the date because I know that I was at least in the 6th grade and most likely I was in one of the early years at Junior High School.
I used to have a newspaper route and that summer, among other performers, we had Robbie Robbins come to our Homecoming. I didn't meet him. He sang a bunch of old country songs and several of his dad's hit songs. That would be Marty Robbins, for those people who may be reading this that are uniformed about 1950's music.
He put on an enjoyable show. He sang well and the older folks really liked to hear all the old classic country songs. They were kind of a fickle bunch though and I heard the comment pop up that "he's pretty good, but he just can't hold a candle to his father."
What does all this have to do with Hank Williams Jr. you may be asking? Well the very next year, just after I passed on my newspaper route to somebody else, (that's another reason I can sort of place the date.) we had Hank Williams Jr. come to our little town to perform. I remember thinking that it was odd and kind of neat to have two performers so close together who had famous fathers. My dad got kind of excited because he figured that Hank Jr. would sing a bunch of his dad's old tunes. Back then that was what Hank Jr. was known for doing.
Sure enough, he did a show much like Robbie Robbins did. Several old time country songs. A few of his dad's old tunes. He had a pretty fair crowd that turned out to see his show. He had the same kind of polite, yet fickle audience that turned out the year before. The same comment went around the crowd about not holding candles to his dad. It was a time for change for Hank Jr. He was on the St. Louis radio station, WIL 92FM earlier in the week doing an interview for promoting some of his upcoming songs and answering questions about his past career of rerecording his dad's old tunes. He had apparently had something like 50 records out. None doing so well. He was getting some flack about his new songs that he was recording in recent times. Some criticism about leaving his roots and things like that.
At the Homecoming, listening to the show, I decided to walk to the parking lot to get something from our station wagon that we had at the time. The music was winding and the announcement made that they would be back after a short break. From behind me, off to my left, a voice called out, "hey kid!"
I was pretty sure that nobody else was around but I did the traditional look around and responded with the classic, "who, me?"
"Yeah, you. Come over here." the young man assured, "come on over, I don't bit."
It was, of course, Hank Williams Jr. As I approached the 'dressing room.' and I use that term with all apprehension because it was really the little concrete block storage room that Dad's Club used to put their lawn equipment. It had no glass windows, just iron bars to keep vandals out. It usually was wind blown with dried leaves, cob webs and whatever else the weather blew in. For this occasion though, it was cleaned up quite nicely. It actually looked livable.
"What do you think of the show?"
"It's OK." I responded. In the mid-1970's country music was far from cool. I listened to it because it was what my dad listened to.
"Tell me what you really think." Hank told me.
So we talked a little. I told him that it really was OK for the kind of place he was playing and for being country music and all. It just wasn't my kind of thing. "What is your thing? What music do you listen to?" he wanted to know. We talked a little about Lynard Skynard, BTO, ZZ Top, the Eagles and a few others.
I forget how it cameout but I mentioned the comments that folks had made about his not holding candles. He got a little upset and I was afraid that he might get mad at me. I managed to calm the waters a little by pointing out that this same audience had said the same for other performers. They like te old songs but there is just no pleasing some people. He had asked what I thought about the old tunes. They were all new to me but thatI also hadn't heard any of his tunes on the radio except for the new ones that had the old, fickle crowd turning up their wrinkled noses.
"What do you think about the new songs?" he wanted to know. From what little I knew that people who made it big in music or show business might have did OK to copy a particular star, but they didn't become a star in there own right until they did their own thing, with their own style. I tried to comment that if his dad were still alive that doing his songs would be fine for him but even he might have done something different by now.
Mentioning the late Hank Williams touched off another nerve. Jeesh, me and my big mouth. What I had meant to point out was that music and styles are always changing. Rock and Roll of today, (the 1970's) was not the same thing it was ten or twenty years ago, and it won't be the same in the next ten or twenty years. People like Lawrence Welk, (at the time still was alive and doing a regular TV show) kept playing the same old tunes or redoing modern bubble gum stuf in the style of the old music. His audiences kept getting older and grayer and the younger crowd was becoming more and more absent from his audience. All he could hope for was that he would die off before his audience did.
Hank Jr. calmed down and saw the point that I had intended to make. whew.
His break was coming to an end. I still hadn't made it to the station wagon for what ever it was that I was going for. As we were parting ways I told him that he could play some of his new songs but the older folks will probably fold up their chairs and go home for the night, where they will keep griping that he don't sing as well as they like. But who cares. If they want the old songs that they have heard for the past thirty or forty years, they have their old record collections to play. What will likely happen though is that a new crowd will show up. Play some of your new songs and you will pull in all the kids off the rides. The park will be empty except for right out there in front of the stage.
As I walked back to sit next to my parents, Hank and the band came back on stage. Hank took the mike and announced, "We're going to do something a little bit different now..."
He did. The old folks packed up their chairs and walked out with noses posed high in the air. The rides and games nearly emptied. I have never seen a crowd at the stage as big as the one their that night.
Now, I don't claim that it was me who set Hank Williams Jr. on a new career direction. He was already headed that way. Maybe he already had planned to kick it up a little on the second half of his show that night. On the other hand, if he had any doubts, or needed a measure of reassurance, I'm just glad he had the time to talk to a 12 or 13 year old kid.