Lovesick Blues

Oct 3, 2024 11:30 AM

Author:Paul Hemphill

Lovesick Blues

Hank Williams is not just one of America's greatest songwriters but also one of the most enigmatic - a raw poet from the rolling pine woods of south Alabama whose anguished lyrics were celebrated from the clamorous roadhouses of the Deep South all the way to Carnegie Hall. His tragic early death at the age of only twenty-nine, drunk and drugged, alone in the back seat of a Cadillac convertible on his way to a gig, ended a career that lasted only six years but went on to influence many of the greatest musicians in recent history.

Paul Hemphill has written a fascinating interpretative biography of Hank Williams, with the kind of soul and understanding that other books about him have lacked. Whence the pain and despair? Why the booze and pills? Where did his genius come from? How did he know everything he wrote about? These are the questions it seeks to answer.

Reviews

Hank Williams wrote the rock'n'roll rulebook. Moving...absorbing biography of 'the hillbilly Shakespeare'

—— Daily Express

A fabulous and tragic tale and Hemphill tells it well. Excellent

—— Scotsman

Moving and informative...Lovesick Blues is lean, distilled Hank

—— Herald

This biography does tough justice to a wrecked icon

—— The Times

[A] concise, startling biography...The connection between author and subject is what makes this book so rewarding

—— Publishers Weekly

This slim volume by Mr. Hemphill...is the only book I've read that is as exhilarating as the man's music

—— Allen Barra , New York Sun

Hemphill writes with real enthusiasm and provides a compelling take on one of the great tragedies of popular music

—— Record Collector

A considerable tour de force of musical and social analysis which will hold its own for some time to come

—— Norman Lebrecht

Harrowing... riveting... superb

—— Classic CD

The best biography of the composer available... has broken new ground by fusing biography with political analysis. A formal lesson to Western writers on post-1917 Russia, whether their subject is music or life itself

—— Andrei Navrozov

Superb ... This compassionate and very knowledgeable book is humbling in its understanding of how far an individual can be pushed by the coercive forces of a grotesque, perhaps insane, authority

—— Sydney Morning Herald

A monumental achievement

—— City Limits

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