via Shelton Hank Williams III’s Facebook page
It’s very very rare we hear anything about Hank Williams III these days, and even more rare to get a glimpse of the man himself. It’s not that he’s been completely incommunicado. On a fairly regular basis he’s on social media touting ’80s and ’90s punk and metal bands in his feed. He also piped up briefly when David Allan Coe died recently to pay his respects. There have been a few recent photos swirling out there on the internet of the very elusive country music heir taken by others, but you never know if you’re being too prying by reposting them.
But recently, the 3rd generation performer showed his face and piped up to tout throwback country artist Kelsey Rae Copeland. “The Patsy Cline/Loretta Lynn of the younger generation,” Hank3 said in a post on social media. Anyone who is familiar with Kelsey Rae Copeland and her music will not quibble with that assessment at all. She recently released a new song called “A Place In Time” written and produced by Copeland herself that illustrates this perfectly.
The photo of Williams and Copeland comes from Eastside Bowl in Nashville where metal band Pentagram recently played a show with The Obsessed. Similar to Hank3, Copeland is apparently a metal fan, which you can hear in the often dark hue of the lyricism of her otherwise Golden Era classic country sound.
Hank3 has been mostly dormant since his last tour in 2014. After finally breaking free from his contract with Curb Records, he released a succession of independently released albums, including his last full country album, 2013’s Brothers of the 4X4, and toured behind it into the following year.
Then after he was forced to move out of his home/headquarters/recording studio called The Haunted Ranch, and shortly thereafter his favorite dog Trooper died, he’s been almost completely out of the public eye, not releasing any new music or performing publicly.
In 2018, Hank3 did participate in a DevilDriver tribute to Outlaw Country. In 2022, he also released a ton of demos, scratch tracks, alternative takes, and other bits of audio on YouTube, including an entire experimental album called Grandiose Delusions.
Now would be as good of a time as any for Hank3 to return with the way throwback and traditional country is on the upswing. But anyone who knows Hank3 knows he marches to his own drum. Hopefully someday he will re-emerge permanently to help once again carry the legacy of the Hank Williams name and true country music forward.
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