Everyone loves a good ghost story and there are some good ones surrounding the man known as the Father of Modern Country Music, Hank Williams.

Coincidence?…that Hank’s single, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive,” was his current single and was climbing the country music charts when he died at the age of 29 on New Year’s Day in 1953.

Premonition?…that Hank wrote a song that would become a gospel classic, “I Saw the Night,” and he was reported to have said to Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl shortly before his death, “I don’t see the light no more, Minnie.”

 

 

(Hank’s famous music notes stage costume on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville)

Coincidence?…that Hank’s widow, Billie Jean, married country star Johnny Horton and became a widow a second time in less than 8 years when Horton was killed in a 1960 car crash…or that Horton also had a premonition before his last concert when he turned to his manager and said, “Chief, I feel I’m gonna die.”…or that the last place Johnny Horton played was the Skyline Ballroom in Austin, Texas, the last place Hank Williams played before HE died.

Strange?…that Alan Jackson did the music video for his 1992 hit song, “Midnight in Montgomery” in one take but it had to be filmed again because there was an unexpected and unexplained shadow in one of the scenes filmed during a full moon among headstones in a cemetery. The song was about a singer who visits Hank’s grave and encounters Hank’s ghost.

Bizarre?…that there’s another song about someone who meets Hank’s ghost. David Allan Coe’s 1983 hit “The Ride” is about a man who picks up a hitchhiker that turns out to be the ghost of Hank Williams…or that Gary Gentry, one of the writers of the song, claimed he demanded Hank show himself to help write the song and he saw Hank sitting on the couch in his living room…or that, legend has it, when Gentry first sang “The Ride” at the Grand Ole Opry, he reached a point in the song where he sings Hank’s name and the power at the Opry went out right at that moment.

You don’t have to believe them, but there are a lot of stories involving many other country music stars and ghosts or spirits or premonitions or reincarnation or other instances of supernatural encounters. But around Halloween, they make for some interesting stories for the country music fan.