Hank Williams – “Lovesick Blues”

It was three days before Christmas in 1948 when Hank and Audrey Williams, Fred Rose, and Red Foley’s Opry band gathered for a three hour session in the E.T. Herzog Studio in Cincinnati. It had been more than a year since Hank had been in the studio due to a recording ban and Fred was desperate for something new to advance Hank’s career. They needed to produce a hit so big that the Opry could no longer ignore him.

Before the band even got set up, shouting matches erupted between Hank and Fred over a song called “Lovesick Blues.” Hank was determined to record the song and Fred was just as determined to not record it, deeming it pure crap. When Hank was told all the shortcomings of the song (it didn’t have a bridge, the original first verse was being used as a chorus, the original chorus was being used as the first verse, and it was full of difficult chord changes), he didn’t have any idea what they were talking about and declared, “I’ll tell you one damn thing, you might not like the song, but when I walk off stage and throw my hat back on stage and the hat encores, that’s pretty hot.”

Only after they had laid down the tracks that Fred approved of did they revisit the idea of recording “Lovesick Blues.” The steel guitarist, Jerry Byrd, whispered to the band, “That’s the worst damn thing I’ve ever heard,” and told Hank, “that’s terrible. You ain’t going to put this thing out, are you?” Fred didn’t want anything to do with the song and left the studio for a cup of coffee just before they started recording. Upon hearing the completed version, Fred told Hank, “My God, Hank, I still say that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

The rest is history. The recording sold 48,000 copies in its first two weeks and three months after its release, it rode the top of the country charts for four months. Fred never got over his misreading of the song. The Opry soon followed and on June 11, 1949, Hank Williams debuted on the Grand Ole Opry singing “Lovesick Blues” with an unprecedented six encores.

** Paraphrased from Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams by Paul Hemphill