The Sounds of Country Music

Yesterday, I was thrilled to learn that Hank Williams had received a Pulitzer Prize! The country legend was praised for "his craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life."

I couldn't agree more.

I went to sleep each night to the sounds of country music when I was a child. Radio station WCKY came to us all the way from Cincinnati, Ohio, which seemed a continent away back then. Sometimes it came in as clear as a bell; other times it faded in and out, depending on the weather between Western Kentucky and Cincinnati, I suppose.

That was before we got our first TV, so Mother and Daddy spent their evenings reading various books and Time, Look and Life magazines, often reading tidbits aloud to each other. The radio sat on the end table next to Daddy's worn swivel rocker, and I think it played until they went to bed. But I had no way of knowing for sure. I was fast asleep by then.

It was always summertime back then, it seems. And after Pitty Pat, Mary Ellen and I ceased our nightly whispering and giggling, we drifted to sleep to the sounds of country music, frogs croaking in the swamps nearby, our parents' soft murmurings drifting from the living room, the fluttering of the leaves in the old Cottonwood trees just outside our bedroom window.

Hank Williams was everyone's favorite, and I loved the sad ones: Your Cheatin' Heart, I Can't Help It If I'm Still In Love With You, I'm So Lonesome I could Cry, Take These Chains From My heart. His mournful voice came from deep within his soul, his music like sad and lonely people trailing along behind.

I still love the sad ones, and my all-time favorite is Cold Cold Heart.

I'm listening to it now. And far, far away, I hear my parents' voices, frogs croaking, and the fluttering of the leaves in the old Cottonwood trees just outside my bedroom window.