Three generations of Hanks

Okay, folks, I'm crossing over to country for a day as I reminisce this week about musicians and groups who had some of the biggest early influences on my listening tastes.

For country, it has to be Hank Williams.  But why stop there?  Why not carry that "famly tradition" all the way through with Hank Williams Jr., and Hank Williams III.

Listening to Hank Sr., became a way of life for me going back about as far as it did for me listening to The Beatles.  It involved listening to his greatest hits, the kind of stuff that took country music into a different world.

And then Hank Jr., was pushed into trying to be a "clone" to his daddy after Hank Sr., passed on, only to find that it just wasn't his style.  I spent a few rowdy times of my own in later years listening to Bocephus too, telling how country boys survive.

Just to keep those rowdy Williams ways going, there's been the "country punk" of Hank III.  He's taken that rowdy pioneering spirit of his daddy and his daddy's daddy and blazed some trails himself.

I like musical trailblazing.