| I'll
explain by taking you back to 1966, the early years of
WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi. I
was not only a deejay at the sister radio station next door, but I
hosted the Saturday afternoon television dance program "Keesler
Teen Time", and co-hosted a weekday talk show with
Betty Dees, and anchored the nightly 10
o'clock news, so I definitely had in my head that I was a rising
young star.
Of course, WLOX was a brand new medium market station working on a small
market budget, so everybody had
to wear a lot of different hats, and that meant that as soon as my
dance party was over on Saturday afternoon, I had to step behind the
camera and become the cameraman and floor director for
"The Jim Owen Show", and to a
"rising young star" that somehow seemed demeaning, irritating,
and downright
embarrassing. I
wanted to just disappear into the woodwork, especially when
Jim Owen had special guest artists, and
that particular day, you could say the son of Hank Williams was pretty
doggone special. Then, all of a sudden, there was this well
dressed, glamorous looking lady with him who was suddenly taking
over my floor directing responsibilities,
giving orders like a seasoned first sergeant,
spewing directions like
some bossy know-it-all-broad, and there was her skinny young son all
decked out in a skin tight black leather outfit, cow-towing to every
word she said...."Man! This kid's never gonna make it," I
whispered into my headset mike to the show's director, Pete Martin, Jr., in the master control room...
....And then,
Jim Owen introduced "here's 17 year old Hank Williams, Jr.", who
stepped up to the mike and belted out his new MGM single "Standing In
The Shadows" and just kind of blew me away, while Pete fired back
into my headphones:
"I'll put my money on the kid, Joey!"
...So, after settling down
and brushing the chip off my shoulder, and accepting my embarrasing
situation, I finally had to admit that here was a
whole mess of talent brewing in that 17 year old. After the show was over, I invited Hank
and Audrey next door to the radio studio to tape an interview, and
that's when I
formulated a whole new attitude about the Williams family. She was no
common, pushy stage mother -- Audrey was one savvy, clever business
woman, who knew when, how, where to focus her son, and Hank, Jr. wasn't just being a Mama's boy -- he
was yielding to her direction out of a deep respect. Before that
interview was over, I discovered one of the nicest, most down to earth
guys I had ever met, and one that was rigidly focused for a kid ten
years younger than me.
Twenty years later, when my half-brother,
Bill Hano, was the drummer for the house
band at The Hank Williams Club in Panama City,
Florida, I had another brief encounter with
Ole Bocephus, and I was
astounded at the difference. Hank was infinitely more confident.
Now, he was the one -- the ONLY one -- in charge; seasoned, matured, even
a bit outrageous. Yeah,
Hank was that cocky, boastful outlaw we all have come to know and certainly
love.
I realized the once quiet demeanor that had
reverently yielded to his mother's strong personality, had only been a
youthful skin, one that he had readily shed as he'd come into
his own. No longer "Standing In The Shadow" of his father,
he was his own man, and one of the industry's most respected
musicians. People who had never known Hank, Sr. were suddenly
discovering him through his son's popularity, instead of the other way
around. But Hank, Jr's. legacy was not only the talent inherited
from his father, but the tenacity and fortitude instilled in him by
his mother. Hank Williams, Jr. is much more that what can be
seen in his videos or heard in his music, and his full recognition as
a performer has not yet been realized.
And me, I'm no longer a darned bit embarrassed to
say, "I was once a cameraman for the likes of Jim Owen and Hank
Williams, Jr." |
