The name's Hiram, and I was born in Mount Olive, Alabama almost a hunnerd and one years ago..... I was the third baby born to Jessie Lillybelle (Lilly) and Elonzo Huble (Lon)... My older brother, Ernest Huble, died two days after his birth in 1921. My sister Irene was born the next year, then me, my turn, born in 1923.
My grandpappy fought in the Civil War on the Confederate side, then he was captured, joined the Union side. Dad was a railroad engineer until World War I broke out.. he was drafted, spent a year in the service, but, had a terrible fall, breaking his collarbone and a took a severe blow to his head.
When I was born, they determined I had spina bifida occulta and that caused me a lotta pain over the years. When I was three, mom played the organ in the Mount Olive Baptist Church and I'd hop up on her lap and join in on the singin'. Got my first harmonica when I was 6, so, my family actually ended up calling me "Harm".. .but my friends called me 'Herky' or 'Skeets'.
We moved a lot, what with dad chasin' jobs and all.. then, he started having facial paralysis when I was 7... they sent him to the VA hospital in Pensacola.. he stayed there 8 years, so I was pretty much grow'd up by the time he came home.
Momma had a boarding house in Georgiana, AL and around that time, my aunt Alice taught me how to strum some basic guitar chords. It was tough times, what being in the Great Depression - in fact, momma also worked in a cannery and if that and the boarding house wasn't enough, she worked as a night shift nurse at the local hospital. The boarding house burnt down, and we lost everything. A US Representative named Hill helped mamma to get dad's disability pension - so she was able to buy another boarding house for us to live in.
If you're keepin' up, that's a lotta life already and by now I'm only eight. Hey, that's ok 'cause mamma bought me my first git-tar then, a second hand one for $3.50. I'd grab my git-tar, follow ole Rufus 'Tee-Tot' Payne around town - he was a street performer.. he'd gimme lessons, and in return, mamma would fill his belly with good eats.
When I was fifteen, I had a little disagreement with my PE teacher about some exercises, we actually got into a fight.. mamma wanted the school board to fire him... they wouldn't, so we up and moved to Montgomery, AL. I never saw Rufus again. I guess later in life I had some pretty good luck in music, but ole Rufus is really the only training I ever had. Well, him, and Aunt Alice and those basic strums..
Age 15, I won $15 in a talent show at the Empire Theater singing my first ever original song, WPA Blues.. Long about that time, I changed my name from Hiram to _____. (Sorry, you may know by now, but if I toldya that, it'd gimme away.)
Daddy came home for a short, mamma said "nope, I'm in charge now.".. he stayed for my birthday then went back to the medical center. Me and Smith "Hezzie" Adair started a band called '______ and Hezzie and the Drifting Cowboys - and we'd play any, everywhere they'd have us - clubs, gatherings, and at the local dancehall, Thigpen's Log Cabin.
Mamma became our manager, I dropped outta High School so we could travel and play, and we went clear to Georgia and down to the Florida Panhandle. World War II hit, and it brought good and bad for me. Due to my back, I was medically disqualified to serve, but, they took all the resta my bandmates. Got replacements.. but.. I kinda liked to drink, that caused problems and many of them quit.
I'd had a radio show in Montgomery, but they fired me for the drinkin', and.. one time backstage at one of my concerts, I met Roy Acuff (he was a hero of mine) and he told me, "You've got a million dollar voice son, but a ten-cent brain."
Life was kinda a whirlwind. I gotta job at a shipyard in Mobile, transferred to Portland, Oregon, did the same thing there.. soon back home to Alabama.. Met a perty lady, Audrey Sheppard at a medicine show.. we both worked at the shipyard, lived at the same hotel in Mobile, before ya know it, there we were in a Texico gas station in Andalusia, AL, getting married by the justice of the peace.
In '46, at the recommendation of Ernest Tubb, I auditioned for the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville but they said "Nope". Did eventually get a 6-song record contract with Sterling Records, helped by Acoff-Rose Music. Acoff-Rose liked the songs.. got me a contract with MGM Records, had my first hit "Move It On Over." After that, I moved it on over to Shreveport, joined the Louisiana Hayride radio show, got me into living rooms in the entire Southeastern United States.. Ping-ponged between Louisiana and Eastern Texas performing.. then........
June 11, 1949, made my debut on the Grand Ole Opry.. I think they liked me.. I got six encores.. I could really never read music, but, I guess I could write songs and sing 'em ok - as, by the 50's, I was making $1000 a show. Fast and furious the next three years were..
Went on tour with Bob Hope.. signed a motion picture contract with MGM.. up to New York to be on Perry Como's show... March of '51, admitted to North Louisiana Sanitarium for alcoholism and my back.. out... I was squirrel huntin' with my fiddler, jumped a gully, didn't make it.. had a spinal fusion at Vanderbilt University Hosptital.. left "AMA" Christmas Eve..
As I'd mentioned, it was a whirlwind. Back to NY (twice) to sing on The Kate Smith Evening Hour.. a brief affair with dancer Bobbie Jett... (that brought us a daughter, Jett Williams).. Audrey, of course, divorced me, so, I wrote "You Win Again" and "I Won't Be Home No More."
I had a whole buncha hits that I'll tellya about in a sec.. but.. on August 11, 1952 I was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry for "habitiual drunkeness and missing shows." My back hurt! Years of that back pain, booze, and some prescription drug abuse - it all finally caught up with me New Years Day, 1953 as I transpired from heart failure in the backseat of a car near Oak Hill, West Virginia - I was on my way to a concert in Canton, Ohio.
Of course there was a lot more in there of my life, but that's a basic glance..
Mebbe you remember some of my songs............ I Saw The Light... Hey Good Lookin.. I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive.. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.... Cold, Cold Heart... Lovesick Blues.. (I Heard) That Lonesome Whistle... Your Cheatin' Heart.. Jambalaya.. Move It On Over..
Loveya, Hank
(Editor's note.. wow.. Sam Cooke, age 30.. Hank, 29.. and so, so many more BRILLIANT ones across music land gone way too early.. life is all about "If Only"......woulda, coulda, shoulda.. some we control, some, we don't. There ain't never a day that should go by that we take for granted. Sorry if that's preachin, I look at it more as "observing, and reasoning.")
Goodbye Joe, me gotta go, me oh my oh,
Love, Victurd
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