Song 531: This week the playlist features Cold Cold Heart by Hank Williams, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I got to hear and relish this CnW gem during my elementary school days, thanks to the country music collection that my father's Ohio relatives had compiled. On the yearly family summer visits in the late 1950s, my aunt and uncle gave me complete freedom to choose the LPs I wanted to listen to, and since they had a couple of greatest hits 33s that featured timeless classics like this cut, I’d spin those albums on the turntable a lot, and I quickly got to know and appreciate the resounding legacy of Hank Williams, who had died well before my second birthday. This marks his 6th appearance on this list, with Honky Tonkin' (Song 301) being the first, and Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Song 471) being the most recent, previous to this one. At some point, as the 1960s unfurled, I got to see a TV movie about HW, which made me respect him even more. Last week's song was written by Tom Paxton, and in researching the piece I learned about his role in the singer/songwriter phenomenon which unfolded in the 1960s, but I also think Mr. Williams played a major part in laying the groundwork for that trend as well. I would say that now, almost 7 decades after this hit climbed the country charts, in the year of my birth, it's still true that if you run and hide from life, doing so just ain't smart, as Hank figured out a long time ago.
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