Chords for Sam Williams Talks About The Pressure from His Grandfather, Hank Williams

_ _ _ [F] Bobby Tombra.
So cool.
Stay there.
All right.
You became _ _ close with with the Hank Williams
family.
You've talked about Merle Kilgore, Hank Jr.
_ You were the first were you the first
person you were one of the first people that that responded when Hank Jr's daughters, Holly
and Hillary were in that terrible automobile wreck.
Yeah, I remember it was Holly's birthday
and I was with them the night before and I remember Hillary saying, you know, I just
have a really bad feeling about going down to Louisiana.
They were headed to their _ grandfather,
their mother's dad's funeral and just a horrific car accident.
Hillary actually had over 30
surgeries and she just released a brand new record too.
But but I yeah, I've just it's
[G#] been really interesting.
I've just it seems like I just meet another generation of the
family and _ you know, and the guest that I brought today, I'm just so proud of him.
I
remember my first memory of him was in Merle Kilgore's office.
I was in there one day and
then Hank Jr.
and his wife came in and she was expecting him.
And then I saw him through
the years.
I mean, we were never close, but I would see him.
I remember when he was eight
years old, his sister and I took him to a concert [G] and I remember him coming to the hospital
[F#] and I would see him at the Opry with Holly.
And then all of a sudden _ on social media,
he's putting up videos, he's writing songs and we just kind of connected and [G] we've done
a few shows and he recently signed a major publishing [E] contract and he has a video that's
out right now on CMT.
And I just think there's just great things that's going to be coming
his way.
I never saw Hank Sr.
in person, but I've seen enough pictures that when I
look at Sam Williams, [G]
I see what Hank Williams must have looked like.
Yeah, I've got a lot
of the features you can't really hide.
The ears, it's not that my ears are very big,
they just kind of point out a little bit I feel like.
And that's how his were and I thought
it might have washed away by the time I had a baby, but nope, my baby's ears go right
out just like mine.
[N] How old are you Sam?
I'm 21 years old.
Everybody.
So when Jamie
Johnson sang that song earlier today, I was like, oh man.
Enjoy that.
I was like, I got
to lose some of this stress, man.
And he's already really writing great songs.
Well,
that's what I've been told.
Yeah.
Thank you.
So I can just hardly imagine and I don't think
any of us in this room what it must be like to be _ the grandson of the patron saint, really
if there is one of country music, Hank Williams, and then Hank Jr.
being your father.
Is that
a burden to bear?
Is it a blessing?
Is it somewhere in between?
Well, I guess it just
depends on what day you would ask me.
I would not say it was a burden at all because I,
it gives me opportunities like this.
And I'd like to thank Bobby just for inviting me to
do this because I tell him I wouldn't be here without you.
And he's like, oh yeah, you would.
And I'm like, no, I really actually wouldn't be.
_ _ I don't know. _
I'm not as, I'm not as like
musically inept as some people might think.
They might think that I was like two or three
years old.
My dad's sticking me in guitar lessons and whatever.
I actually don't play
it.
But after I had a child, I kind of realized, I'd always knew that I could write and I realized
I'm going to have to do something or I'm going to live off daddy's money for a long time.
So I started writing songs and it just started to pour out and that it was natural for me.
But it is, it is odd because _ my grandfather had a lot of issues, you know, just personally,
as we all know.
Not just with drinking, but, you know, just being sure of himself and being
confident about things.
And I deal with those same things.
And a lot of the parallels that we
have aren't just with music or, you know, personality there, you know, with struggles
with things like that.
But I would never consider it a burden of any kind.
I feel grateful to have
the connection that I have with him and Audrey.
Well, I saw your dad struggle with being put on
stage when he was extremely young.
I toured with him a lot and I saw that.
And I saw people get mad
at him because he wasn't his father, didn't want to do things the way that Hank Senior did them.
And it was a burden.
It became at times a burden for Hank Junior.
Of course, he put that all behind
him and went on and has had a fantastic career.
Bobby says, OK, you're starting to write.
What
kinds of things are you writing?
_ I try not to.
Sometimes it's a little bit hard having a
publishing deal now, _ but I really, truly just write whatever I feel.
_ I have a couple of songs with,
it truly is whatever I feel, not really based on a genre.
_ I've been writing with a lady named
Leslie Satcher.
She wrote Troubadour.
She's a lovely woman.
I love Leslie.
And we came into
a write last week and she had a line and it was like, and I'm a neon prince from a line of neon
kings.
And, you know, it was a cool kind of thing, but I was like, that's not really me.
And I don't
want to write that today.
So we didn't.
And I wrote a song about my sister Katie.
And I really just
like to write like what's on my heart at the time and try to take it slow so I don't ruin myself as
a songwriter so early on.
And I can really kind of organically develop and do it the right way.
What would you guys ask Hank Williams' grandson if you had the opportunity?
You've got the
opportunity.
What do you all want to know?
I'd love to.
You know, I went through the Montgomery,
through that museum down in Montgomery and it was really one of the first times I ever saw
Hank Senior, you know, on this little TV show that, and, you know, I just could not believe
the charisma that came out of this guy.
I mean, I heard everybody talk about Hank Williams, but
until I saw that really rare TV clip and that, I mean, it was like Elvis Presley kind of charisma,
but through that tour, they were saying that a lot of people didn't realize that it was that he had
some type of a meningitis or something.
What really got him?
It wasn't drinking.
It was another
thing.
It was what was it?
Spina bifida in his back.
So most people around where I grew up,
they don't know that.
They don't know that it was, wow gosh, he, you know, drank too much or
something, but that wasn't it at all.
Well, he had a, well, Bobby is the historian of country music.
It's not me, but he had always had spina bifida and that was before it was like diagnosed as a
disease and like, you know, known across America and had it diagnosed and believed that he was
just in a hunting accident.
Like I said, he was bird hunting or something and fell while they were
chasing after birds and hurt his back further than that.
So he'd been prescribed morphine and
things like that to deal with the pain because the pain was just unimaginable, I'm sure.
Little Jimmy Dickens actually told me, he said in that last year and a half,
there were times when Hank would fall down like on stage and he said, you know, he wasn't always
like drunk.
He said it was the spina bifida, the back trouble.
And you know, you got to think too,
how much he was traveling in a car.
I mean, thousands of miles with this problem with his
back and then coming in.
Not a tour bus.
Yeah, right.
Not like we get to tour now.
With four band members.
Right.
Weren't interstate highways either.
Right, exactly. _
What would you ask him?
What would you ask him?
_ Oh my goodness.
I don't know.
You caught me off guard.
I'm just wondering.
I don't want to be the one to
Yeah.
Ask all the questions, Paul.
I'd ask him to sing a song.
Yeah.
Well, I think that would be great.
You're going to do that.
All right.
William.
So yes, I am.
Yeah. _
_ _ I do want to tell you one thing, though.
All of the video clips I ever saw of Hank Williams, I never saw him in person.
And the pictures, just
that his eyes just told something.
They were just so deep.
And I was looking at his eyes earlier.
And I remember when a young Dean Dillon came up to me and he said, I want to meet you.
My name is
Dean Rutherford and I'm 18 years old and I write songs.
And I looked at him and I said, oh my God,
yes, you do.
Because he had that same look in his eyes.
Look at Dean Dillon's eyes.
But I think that
that had nothing to do with what I'd ask him.
But I just wanted to say that.
And I was standing there
in the break room looking at him saying, oh my God, yes, you do write songs.
Yeah.
Well, I like to say
sometimes I respect a lot of people that kind of have a like y'all from North Carolina.
I would say
that y'all have like a regional grit into your voice and how you were raised and things like that
and your style.
And for me, I don't have as much of a regional grit or like a, you know, musical
knowledge grit.
But I definitely have like a passed down emotional grit, things that just inherited
and things that from my life.
So I always say that much.
Thank you, Gene.