Williams was sacked by the Grand Ole Opry in August 1952 after he started drinking at a show in Pennsylvania and didn’t stop, missing his booking in Nashville. He returned to Shreveport, settling across the river in Bossier City and hastily marrying Billie Jean, another “tough cookie”, according to Sullivan. “I’ve heard sailors cuss in the army but I’ve never heard a woman talk like that…” His friend was shocked by his condition when he returned. “He was an absolute ghost,” says Sullivan. “I bet he didn’t weigh 100lbs. He was completely wasted.”
In dreadful shape, and damaged professionally by the publicity surrounding his Opry no show, there was still little evidence that Williams’ artistic talents were deserting him. He had three No 2s and two No 1s in 1952, while his last studio session in September included the classic “Your Cheatin’ Heart”. There were even signs that he might start taking better care of himself. “A week before Christmas he came in and he looked like he’d gained a little weight,” Sullivan recalls. “He said he was eating three square meals a day, and said: ‘I’m going to be all right, Hoss.’”
As ever, the music seemed to know something he didn’t. His last single was “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive”, a humorous novelty song made eerily true in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 1953, as Williams headed for a gig in Canton, Ohio. Filled to the brim with chloral hydrate and alcohol, slumped in the back of a Cadillac driven by a stranger, somewhere between Knoxville and Oak Hill, West Virginia, his heart gave out.
Nearly 60 years later that long, low, lonesome whistle continues to blow clear and true. “Hank jumped off early,” says Price. “But his train rolls on.”
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