I’d say “A Country Boy Can Survive” out here.
Bocephus recently sold his Springville, Tennessee home after first putting it on the market for a whopping $3.3 million back in 2022 – but the fact that it’s off the market that does not stop me from drooling over it.
The 1,566-square-foot, five-bedroom, eight-bathroom is a traditional-style farmhouse that was custom built for Hank Williams Jr. over two decades ago, and backs right up to the Big Sandy Unit of the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge. And with Hank being an avid outdoorsman, this was the perfect home for him to hike and boat on.
In addition to the Wildlife Refuge being at his fingertips, his expansive 33-acre backyard ensured that he had plenty of private hunting and fishing land.
The massive home features a pull, detached garage, and a barn/shed all on the property, and with the location being just shy of an hour outside of Nashville, it is the perfect escape from city life without being fully unplugged. Some other home highlights include:
“6,000 square foot full-size basketball court with bath, saltwater pool with an automatic pool cover, pool house with bath, media room, 2 master suites, 14×14 gun vault, workshop, screened in porch.”
The home’s interior featured dark oak accents and an open floor plan, which made it ideal for a family. Of course, the listing images from the time of the sale feature many elements of bringing the outdoors inside, highlighting some mounted game that Williams Jr. hunted over the years and highlighting lots of earth tones.
The home was listed at $3.275 million in 2022, and the price dropped to $2.8 million in 2023 before the listing was removed. It then went back on the market again this month, and sold almost immediately.
If you know anything about the Nashville real estate market I am sure that this property would go for much more today as the city expands to surrounding areas rapidly.
I can only imagine the stories Bocephus has from his rowdy friends coming over to this plantation home.
Firing Civil War Cannons In His Backyard With Johnny Cash
Hank Williams Jr. is what you would describe as a cannon himself.
But did you know the “Country State of Mind” singer actually collects true blue, historical cannons? I’m talking 1800s military collectibles – a whole slew of them that he’s managed to accumulate as mementos, and they’re definite conversation starters.
In rare footage of Hank from an Audience Network special, Bocephus walked the cameramen around his private collection and shared a few stories about his hobby:
He described a cannon he called a 10-pound-Parrott to the group:
“You could put this through somebody’s kitchen window 1,000 yards out here. The Civil War had ‘em real accurate, that’s why it was so awful…”
And for Hank the history behind the weapons is really what draws his interest, as he’s expanded his collection to include several pieces of unique war history:
“I have Robert Parrott’s appointment papers to West Point, signed by John C. Calhoun, the Secretary of War. And Parrott was a really famous cannon inventor.”
And when it comes to his unique pastime, it turns out that some of his “rowdy friends” shared the same interests, including the one-and-only Johnny Cash:
“Ya know, Johnny Cash, you talk about someone that loved history. We would get out, and he loved metal detecting. He loved it.
When I was fifteen years old, he would come over to the house and I had a cannon in the front yard. And I mean a real cannon – a real U.S., three inch rifle, Civil War cannon. And I grew up around all these guys doing these reenactments and stuff…
So we put the charge in there… and we pack it really hard with this newspaper, so that when it goes off it’ll just jump in the air and roll back like crazy… you think it’s going to come apart, you know.
Man did he love that. So we would do that… And the neighbor would ring, ‘Mrs. Williams, hello, this is Mr. Akins next door, would you mind asking Randall if he could point that barrel in a different direction, ALL the books in my living room are on the floor. Thank you.’
Yeah we rattled Franklin Road, me and Johnny, let me tell you.”
Hank chuckled throughout the story and then got sentimental thinking about his kinship with Johnny Cash:
“He was one of the only guys that knows about this stuff like me. He was from the right time, the right era.”
Hank even gifted the “Ring of Fire” singer with his own cannon, a rare Nashville Confederate built cannon that Johnny kept for over twenty years. After Johnny’s passing, Hank received a call from his son sharing that Johnny had specified for the cannon to be given back to Hank after his passing. Hank shared the story and his reaction to having the cannon regifted to his own collection:
“Let me tell you folks, I was really speechless.”
Hank Williams Jr. Makes TV Debut
Taking it back to the beginning.
Much like the name Dale Earnhardt and his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the racing world, when you think of country music, it’s hard not to immediately think Hank Williams, as well as his son, Hank Williams Jr.
Of course ol’ Hank is iconic as anybody to every pick up a guitar and sing country music, but ol’ Bocephus was, and still is, quite the powerhouse himself.
Throughout the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s, nobody was cranking out music like Hank Jr., sometimes putting out two or three albums in a single year. He’s a five time Entertainer of the Year winner (both ACMs and CMAs), Grammy winner, and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
He recently released a blues project, Rich White Honky Blues, which debuted at #1 on the Country, Americana, and Blues charts. A bluesman at heart, Hank Jr.’s father Hank Williams Sr. was taught to play guitar as a small child by a bluesman named Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne, so this project was a return to his roots.
But speaking of his roots, let’s take it all the way back to the early ’60s when Hank Jr. was just 14 years old. In 1964, Hank Jr. made his first television appearance of his career on ABC’s The Jimmy Dean Show. Already standing over 6 feet, the youngster performed a number of his dad’s hits, including “Long Gone Lonesome Blues.”
When Jimmy introduced Hank Jr., he called Hank Sr. his favorite songwriter:
“My favorite songwriter, I think I would have to say Hank Williams. He wrote with a lot of heart, he was a fine performer… we are delighted to have his son with us, and we’d like you to give a nice, warm welcome to Mr. Hank Williams Jr.”
Written and released by Hank Williams in 1950, “Long Gone Lonesome Blues,” was his second-career #1 single on the Country & Western Charts. Hank Jr. would release a cover himself in 1964, and that would go on to peak at #5 of the chart.
And the rest is history…
The Pressure To Be Like His Father
I can’t imagine the pressure that comes with being a famous person’s child.
Especially when the famous person passed away at a young age, and the child is expected to fill the parent’s shoes and continue the legacy, just like Hank Williams Jr. had to do. As most know, Hank Williams passed away when he was only 29-years-old due to a long battle with alcohol and drug abuse, when Hank Jr. was only three-years-old.
As soon as Hank Jr. turned five, he was pressured by his mother, Audrey Williams, and the rest of the country music world to become exactly like his father, and become the next Hank Williams. In an ABC 20/20 segment with Barbara Walters back in 1987, Hank Jr. detailed the struggles he faced while always being compared to his father growing up.
“It was always ‘Your daddy went through this stuff, and you’ll have to go through it. We have to go through these things (booze and drugs)’ ya know… depression, that’s a big sport to a lot of these people I think. It was just drilled into me a lot.”
He discussed how he was already playing shows and covering his father’s songs at an incredibly young age:
“I was on the road when I was eight. When they came to see an eight to 10 year old it wasn’t for his wonderful voice, it was because he was the son of Hank Williams.
They were trying to give me a drink when I was 10 or 12, you know saying ‘Hey give ol’ Hank a little drink here,’ the old steel player and everything.”
He was then asked if anybody ever told him he wasn’t supposed to drink and take pills, and he responded:
“No, the road wasn’t ever like that. I grew up quick… I was in the hospital several times, all the way out. The pills, you know, the whiskey, and the whole thing. I was really rolling in it.
I thought I was gonna die a couple times and it scared the heck out of me.”
He also weighed in on the pressure he felt from fans to be like his father, and if it didn’t sound exactly like his father sounded, he would take heat for it:
“They’d be like ‘Sing Hey Good Lookin’,’ and I’d just be like, ‘well I just sang it, you were just so drunk you didn’t hear it or I’m just gonna do this other one.'”
“Oh you little sore, your daddy would have…”
“So that didn’t go over too good… I punched one of ’em, in Salt Lake City and boy that felt good. It was driving me crazy.
I had a psychiatrist tell me he said, ‘Hey you’ve been living, talk like, act like, be like, sing like your daddy, your lifestyles exactly like his, and you’re gonna be gone too.’
I said ‘To hell with this, I’m not putting up with this crap.'”
That’s when he decided at the age of 26 to go a completely different direction with his country music career, and become his own person, transforming into the Hank Jr. we all know and love, taking his influence from the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles.
He began to pursue a different sound that mixed together southern rock, the blues, and country music all into one. Nevertheless, it truly is hard to fathom the amount of pressure he felt on the daily growing up to become a spitting image of his father… but despite that pressure, he emerged a legend in his own right.
