Monday, September 27, 1999
Hank Williams Jr. senior crowd pleaser
BY CHRIS VARIAS
Enquirer contributor
Hank Williams Jr. will never escape the shadow of his late, great daddy. He doesn't want to; in concert he talks about Hank Sr. even more than he talks about Monday Night Football.
Each show tests Mr. Williams' ability to deal with his legacy. Some shows he babbles to boredom about it. Other times, like at the Cincinnati Gardens Friday night, he turns his daddy's music into boogie-rock bliss.
He tipped his black cowboy hat to the old man early and often during the show, which lasted just under an hour-and-a-half. It began with a medley of two of Hank Sr.'s proto-rockers, “Mind Your Own Business” and “Move It On Over.” His southern-boogie guitar leads pushed along the tunes. Later, in a high-speed version of Hank Sr.'s “Kaw-Liga,” he put down the guitar and picked up a fiddle, on which he sawed away to the crowd's delight. When finished, he carelessly threw the instrument up in the air. A rodie struggled to run under it and barely made the catch. It was one of Mr. Williams' many irreverent moments.
Mr. Williams always changes his lyrics in concert, updating them topically. On the other hand, his world view — one of a backwoods rebel who hates city life and the country-music establishment as much as he loves liquor, fishing and southern rock — never changes.
During “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down” he commented on George Jones' boycott of the Country Music Association awards last Wednesday. “Old George Jones, I'm glad to see, showed his (rear) to the CMA,” Mr. Williams sang. In “A Country Boy Can Survive” he noted that he does not share the concerns of the “computer-man,” singing “I live out in the woods, you see, Y2K don't mean a thing to me.”
One of the highlights was when his seven-man band cleared out and it was just Hank and his acoustic guitar. He played song after song, including “Ain't Misbehavin',” “There's a Tear in My Beer,” “Lost Highway,” “Country State of Mind,” “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” and “Dixie on My Mind.”
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Hank Williams Jr. senior crowd pleaser
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