The Ballad of the Top Ten: Ballad of Hank Williams (#5)

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Apparently we’re in a battle with Seattle for seeing who can be more drizzly and foggy. At least I can watch a sunny beach on You Tube. I can also brighten up your day with another song that has “the ballad of” in the title. (Well, everybody’s day but Linda’s, ‘cause this is country. ) And waddaya know, somebody else you’ve heard of!! #5: Ballad of Hank Williams - Hank Williams Jr. & Don Helms The Pressure Is On is one of Hank Jr.’s more successful albums, featuring the hits “A Country Boy Can Survive” and “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down.” My interest in the album was at the end of the LP, where Williams got Drifting Cowboys steel guitar player Don Helms to “tell us how it really was when you was workin’ with Daddy.” So, to the tune of “The Battle of New Orleans” (which is why Jimmie Driftwood was credited as co-writer), Helms spilled the beans. HILARIOUSLY. Helms detailed the grueling touring (“packed eight-deep in a Packard limousine,” “and every 20 minutes some of us had a fight”) and the scheming of the business (“he told Hank he wanted half of everything he made or he’d have to tell [Hank’s ex-wife] Audrey about some women Hank had laid”). (The “he” in question, the “owner of the Opry,” was Jim Denny, who infamously told Elvis to “go back to driving trucks.”) It is kind of sad to be a side man with an unsure future (“he fired my ass, then he fired Jerry Rivers”), but Helms and Williams made it sound so stinking funny, even to the point at the end where Helms reminded Bocephus that HE fired Helms as well…to which Williams replied, “Oh, well, it’s a family tradition.” Ballad of Hank Williams Written by Don Helms and Jimmie Driftwood Recorded by Hank Williams Jr. & Don Helms From The Pressure Is On, 1981 And he fired some people that he didn’t even know: