PrintRemembering Hank Thompson
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Hank Thompson ca. 1950
courtesy Country Music Hall of Fame
Try to listen to one of Hank Thompson’s honky-tonk tunes without tapping your boots. Can’t be done. It’s probably that undeniable danceability that ensured his position as the “King of Western Swing.” Maybe it was his longevity, landing on the music charts in six consecutive decades. It could be his 28 Top 10 hits, the more than 60 million records he sold during his career, his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, or the approximately 250 shows he played each year during the height of his popularity.
Standing 6 feet 2 inches tall, wearing custom-made Nudie rhinestone suits and a congenial smile, the handsome Waco, Texas-born country star made as strong an impact on country music as he did on his audience. Thompson’s influence can be heard in the music of Brooks & Dunn, Lyle Lovett, George Strait, and Dwight Yoakam.
Henry William Thompson began playing the harmonica at an early age, winning several amateur talent competitions. His parents bought him a $4 secondhand guitar as a Christmas present when he was 10. By the end of high school, “Hank the Hired Hand” had found local fame performing on Waco radio.
During his stint in the Navy, Thompson honed his musical skills, performing for other military personnel in the South Pacific. While serving, he studied to be a radio operator and later spent a semester each at Southern Methodist University, The University of Texas, and Princeton University, focusing on electrical engineering. He abandoned a career in engineering, but his technical expertise helped him become the first country star to tour with a sound and lighting system.
courtesy Country Music Hall of Fame
After returning to Texas, Thompson released a few singles on a local label. These songs brought Thompson to the attention of Tex Ritter, who helped the fellow Texan and his Brazos Valley Boys land a recording contract with Capitol Records in 1948. Thompson then found immediate success, releasing such early hits as “(I’ve Got a) Humpty Dumpty Heart,” “Green Light,” and “Whoa, Sailor.”
His biggest hit, “The Wild Side of Life,” released in 1952, spent 15 weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard country charts, ensuring Thompson’s stardom and inspiring Kitty Wells’ response song, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”
Thompson didn’t invent Western swing, but he moved it away from its jazz roots and added some grit, stomp, and a healthy dose of boozing and heartache. The artist played his last concert in Waco, Texas, on October 8, 2007 — declared “Hank Thompson Day” by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Thompson died of lung cancer at the age of 82 on November 6, 2007 at his home in Keller, Texas. He remains a country music legend.
