<DIV>Hank Williams died a legend in 1953. At the age of twenty-nine, felled by a lethal combination of alcohol and the pain-killers he had used for years to ease the chronic pain of a congenital spine defect, his untimely death seemed tragically apt for the man whose songs of loss and waste had held the heartstrings of America.<br><BR>Hank Williams was the first musician to lift country music out of the backwoods and into the popular music charts. He became the most influential country music singer and song-writer of the century, with heartfelt songs like 'Your Cheatin' Heart', 'Cold Cold Heart' and 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry', that have such undeniable emotional appeal that they transcend time, place and audience. Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have hailed him as a major influence, and his songs have been recorded by such diverse artists as Elvis Costello, The Carpenters and The Cowboy Junkies.<BR><BR>But few knew that Williams was privately suffering most of what he sang about so convincingly. Raised in Alabama in the most abject poverty, with an absentee father, a dominating mother, and an equally domineering first wife, he also had a crippling defect of the lower spine which was never treated and which eventually drove him to drugs and alcohol.<BR><BR>Chet Flippo's compelling biography is a fascinating tribute to a musician and his world; a history of country music encapsulated in one man's career.<BR></DIV>