Higher Calling-Part Four

Good Ole Hank

For some, music comes just about as natural as feeling the wind on your face. You know it when you hear it, many say. It can start with a toe tap. Some take their gift and nurture it with practice, education, immersing oneself in the study of advanced techniques. Nothing wrong with education of that nature. It, too, is a higher calling. Then again, not talking prodigies, as they usually find their own way. 

In step with music, there’s a higher calling that comes in the form of living life on its own terms. Aware that whatever your lot in life, who you are and what you do are all that matters. That notion won’t be found in a textbook. Comes in the form of chance encounters, happenstance of a different bend, an adventure there’s no way to prepare for. You hear a sound close to your heart and feel compelled to follow it, find it, become part of it.

Not sure the first time I heard Hank Williams. I do recall sitting by myself in a front room in my aunt and uncle’s house in Roanoke, Virginia. There was a record player, nothing fancy, with long playing, 33 ⅓ stereo sound, high fidelity vinyl recordings stacked nearby. I pulled out one particular record and stared like a wide-eyed child at a collection of Hank Williams’ Greatest Hits. I knew Hank’s music, along with plenty of other country music. I’m talking country back when it was Ernest Tubb, Porter Waggoner, Conway Twitty, even Eddy Arnold leading the charge.

Something about ole Hank, though, that bent the rules on entertainment. What he sang about, whatever the song, it was all so brutally honest. Accordingly, the music was beyond genuine and believable not only to the singer, but anyone who happened to hear him sing. His music spoke to me of tears, laughter, love, loneliness, longing and all those human conditions inside each of us. He was universal in his mark, although I doubt he was trying to prove a thing to anyone.

For some, it doesn’t come easy, that sweet spot is elusive. Some are guided by angels, some search and never get there. As for Hank, just one step after the other with his gut and sheer will to keep him going. Whatever it was, he was driven, determined to harness the higher calling coursing through his veins.