Elvis speaks…

I’ve often thought it is interesting that Lucinda and Hank share last names and that — I can’t put it any better than Elvis — she shares “Hank’s kind of economy for just the right amount of words and in exactly the right order.” It is a great description for both of their songwriting.
It’s even more interesting when you add Lucinda’s father, Miller Williams, a poet, into the ruminations…. As a further digression, here’s a choice excerpt from an interview with the father, where he notes the shared last name (http://www.jimnewsom.com/PFW05-MillerWilliams.html):

….but one of his favorite memories is an evening spent with country music legend Hank Williams.

“In 1952,” he remembered, “I was teaching at McNeese State College in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Lucinda was just on her way in the womb. He and the Drifting Cowboys performed at McNeese and after it was over, they were up on the stage by themselves—the audience was gone and they were putting their instruments away. I stepped up onstage, and he looked at me and said, ‘Yeh?’ I said, ‘Mr. Williams, my name is Williams and I just wanted to tell you you’re the best there is.’ And he said, ‘Anywhere around here to get a drink?’

“In those days you could get a drink at an Esso station; they had booths. I said, ‘Yeh, just a few blocks down the street.’ He said, ‘Tell my driver where,’ and I did.

“We went in my car, and he sat facing the door so he could see when his driver came in. He ordered some beer. It was my first college teaching job and though I was an instructor, I thought of myself as a college professor—I was only 22—and I said, ‘Well, I think I’ll have a Scotch.’ Because that’s what college professors drink.

“So I had a Scotch and he had more than one beer; we were just chatting about all sorts of things. His driver showed up, so he stood up and walked past me in the booth. He put his hand on my shoulder, looked down and said, ‘you oughtta drink beer, Williams, ‘cause you got a beer drinking soul.’ And I haven’t had a Scotch since!

“He died right after that in that same car, about two weeks after we met. [Hank Williams died on New Year’s Day, 1953.] And Lucinda was born on January 26th.”