Why can't people stop making stuff up about Hank? The truth is out there and it is dramatic, tragic, inspiring, and insane enough without having to invent something.

Here's how:

Go to the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery Alabama (118 Commerce Street) and ask Beth or her dad Cecil about Hank. Cecil grew up in Montgomery and actually knew Hank. This is the official Hank Williams Museum and you'll discover the real Hank there among his personal belongings, old films and photographs.

Read "Still In Love With You," Hank's stepdaughter Lycrecia's story of her parents. She was 11 1/2 when Hank died. Her little brother Hank Jr. was 3 1/2 and barely remembers his daddy. Lycrecia and Hank were as close as any father and daughter could be. In Lycrecia's memory, their all-too-brief life together as a family was more fun and good times than anything else. What Lycrecia couldn't have known as a child was filled in with stories from family members, close friends, and fellow entertainers. Meet the REAL Audrey Williams... the woman Hank dearly loved from the moment he met her until his dying day... the mother who raised one of the finest women anyone will ever know - Lycrecia Williams Hoover... the smart cookie who was responsible for helping turn her husband and later her son into world renowned superstars. Hank was coming home to his family when he died. The whole, true story is in this book.

Read Don Helms' memoirs "Settin' the Woods on Fire." Don and Hank were like brothers. They met and started playing music together when they were teenagers. Don was waiting at the auditorium in Canton Ohio when he heard that Hank had died en route to the show. There was much more than tragedy in their relationship, though. Read about the pranks, the jokes, the silly times of Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys.

Read "Dear Mama Williams (Sympathy Cards and Letters to the Hank Williams Family)." These were the actual cards and letters sent to Hank's mama Miss Lillie and his wife and children when he died. Takes you back in time to January, 1953 and the deep love and connection Hank had with his fans - young and old, male and female, rich and poor, black and white.

Read "Ramblin' Man: Stories from the Life of Hank Williams" by Brian Turpen, a real-life detective who has spent many years researching some of the smallest details of Hank's personal and professional life, such as: the baby brother Hank never knew, his love for baseball, his brief times as a college man and working in the Mobile shipyards, and so much more. Real and down-to-earth.

Visit Hank's childhood home and museum in Georgiana, Alabama. See for yourself where he came from.

Spend an afternoon in the "Family Tradition" exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville (through 2011). It is a wonderful journey into Hank's family life, which inspired his songs and what little happiness he found on this earth. Hear recorded interviews with Hank Jr. and his children, Lycrecia, Don Helms, Bernice Turner, and others who knew and loved Hank best. See rare scrapbooks kept by Audrey through the years and much, more more. Not to be missed!

Listen to the "Mother's Best" recordings. These were the 15-minute segments Hank, Audrey, and the Drifting Cowboys recorded for Hank's early morning radio show in Nashville to be played when he was out on the road. They were actually thrown away some years ago, but were retrieved from the trash and after a long legal battle, are now being released by Time-Life. They are PRICELESS records of Hank's quick wit and repartee with Audrey and the Drifting Cowboys. Listen to these and ALL Hank's music. But first read Lycrecia's and Don's books at the very least so you won't be misled by what other writers have written as if it were fact.

Once you've done all this, you'll know that Hank was
1. Much more than the drunk he is made out to be (and did not write his songs under the influence.)
2. Not a heroin addict... whatever dangerous drugs he  took were prescribed either by a medical doctor or by a fraudulent doctor named Toby Marshall who shadowed Hank through his last months.
3. A funny, smart, and tender-hearted genius, and certainly NOT illiterate, but an avid reader of poetry, comic books, magazines, and newspapers.
4. A wonderful father to Lycrecia who loved her as his own child.
5. Deeply in love with Miss Audrey until the day he died.
6. The writer of his own songs, even if Fred Rose helped him polish them up a bit.

I PLEAD with all of you would-be Hank poets and biographers out there across the United States and around the world. Do your homework before you put out some article that is full of half-truths or total fabrications picked up from some unreliable source. I read a lot of untrue and unsettling things some fans and so-called "historians" write about Hank and Audrey. It is very disturbing to the family and those who were close to the family.

If you love Hank, as I'm sure you do, you OWE him the courtesy of writing the truth about him. This might require some research and work on your part to separate out fact from fiction, but that is a responsibility shared by all serious writers.

If something you have heard or learned sounds scandalous, it probably is. You can always pick up one of these books to check your facts or call the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery at 334-262-3600.

Sincerely,
Dale Vinicur
Co-author with Lycrecia and Don Helms
Partner with Lycrecia in Audrey's Dream
Blogger


The books mentioned above can all be purchased at http://www.hankandaudreyscorral.com