I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive: The Life of Hank Williams
By Dr. Steve Goodson
The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society welcomes its membership and the public to a presentation by Dr. Steve Goodson on the life and cultural impact of country icon and Alabama native Hank Williams on Sunday, January 24th at 3:00 PM EST (2:00 PM CST). This public presentation will be held online (due to the ongoing pandemic) via ZOOM. All attendees, both CVHS members and the general public, will need to send an active email address to the following address by 12:00 noon EST on that Sunday, January 24th, 2021: programs@cvhistoricalsociety.org. The moderator (Charles Powers) will respond to each email with specific directions on how to connect prior to the 3:00 PM meeting.
Steve Goodson was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in nearby Prattville. He received his B.A. in History from Auburn University at Montgomery in 1988, and earned his Ph. D in History from Emory University 1995. He has been teaching at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia, since 1996, having served as the Chairperson of the History Department from 2006 until 2018. Dr. Goodson became an avid fan of Hank Williams in his childhood; both his father and his brothers had attended many of Williams’ performances in person. Like the musician himself, Goodson also considers Montgomery his hometown and has a special fondness for the city and its culture and people. Steve’s father also had a personal collection of 78 rpm Hank Williams records that both he and his brothers would listen to frequently.
While still a senior at the Auburn University at Montgomery in 1998, Steve, along with his brother Gary, gave his first presentation on the life and legacy of Hank Williams. Many in attendance were so impressed that word soon spread to other colleges and universities in Alabama, and Steve and his brother were soon invited to give a similar presentation at Jacksonville State University. While he was still a graduate student, Steve contributed an article on Hank Williams to the Alabama Review, which was well-received and further established him as an expert on the country music legend. He continued to lecture and speak on Williams’ legacy throughout his graduate and post-graduate studies (and he has continued as a Professor at the University of West Georgia). He has authored a book entitled Highbrows, Hillbillies, and Hellfire: Public Entertainment in Atlanta, 1880-1930, published by the University of Georgia Press. Published in 2002, this book received the Georgia Historical Society’s Bell Award for best publication published that year. In 2014, Goodson became the co-editor of The Hank Williams Reader, published by Oxford University Press.
Goodson’s enthusiasm for the life and legacy of Hank Williams comes from his long-standing belief that the Southeastern United States has a rich history of artists, media personalities, and others who are often overlooked or otherwise not properly understood by the general public. He believes that the life journey of Hank Williams to country music stardom was a complex and richly detailed journey that encompasses many interesting details on life in rural Alabama in the early and mid 20th century. He has often noted the influence of African-American blues musicians on Williams’ artistry and career as an example of this complex cultural history that is often overlooked by the general public.
This online meeting will be the first of our four quarterly meetings in 2021. The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society has been in continuous operation since its founding in 1953. It is a membership-based organization with members from across the United States. The CVHS also has membership in both the Georgia Historical Society and the Alabama Historical Society. Each summer the CVHS leads a 5-6 day “bus tour” to various historical sites throughout the Southeastern United States departing from and eventually returning to Valley, Alabama. These trips have visited many prominent sites from the American Civil War, and the next upcoming bus trip (scheduled for June of 2021 if the COVID situation improves) will focus exclusively on the Muscogee (Creek) Indians and their prominent historical sites in the state of Alabama.
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