Article: Hanks for the memory; Hank Williams devotee Mike Gerrard goes to Alabama on the trail of the godfather of country music.

Byline: MIKE GERRARD

HANK used to sit on these steps," she told me as we approached the house. Not much of a statement but it sent a shiver through me. I was in a place I thought I'd never be. When the country legend Hank Williams was a boy, he would sit on these steps in rural Alabama and play the comb and paper, his first musical instrument. When I was a boy in the north of England, the music of Hank Williams permeated the council house I grew up in, thanks to my father.

At that age, I just liked the sound and the bright yellow labels on the MGM 78s. You have to live a little to know why songs like Your Cheatin' Heart and I'm So Lonesome-I Could Cry ...

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