THANKS HANK

The list is long - of musicians over the years who have moved me, and helped me to understand what it was I was feeling. In 1970 I was only ten; I had no "man to pick up after," "no egg to fry," but somehow, listening to WFIL, late at night on my single ear-bud transistor radio, Marilyn McCoo had the ability to make me feel her pain. 

As a child, I was a worrier with irritable bowels, and gassy stomach. At night I was a tooth grinder, and sleepwalker - during the day I was painfully shy, and often mistaken for a boy. I turned inward, and upward to my bedroom where I would listen to music, and draw. I didn't understand half of what I listened to, but was intrigued, and felt somehow these bottomless lyrics had been written with me in mind. Joni Mitchell told me that "laughing and crying were the same release," Neil Young "needed a maid," James Taylor was "a walking man," Cat Stevens "listened to the wind of his soul," Rod Stewart felt "no mandolin wind couldn't change a thing," and Nina Simone just "wanted a little sugar in her bowl." I eventually grew to understand these profound lyrics, discovered that drawing and music were one and the same, and that both calmed my nervous heart. 

One musician who has always been a constant - who has helped to validate and shed light on my feelings - is Hank Williams. He wrote plainly, and to the point - letting me know that after pain, there was happiness. Happiness and pain spin like his records. THANKS HANK. 

The above cartoon is from my illustrated cancer memoir called "Car Dealer's Daughter." This image of Hank Williams is an 18"x24" painting I did - just to keep my painting fingers limber and Hank's memory alive on one wall of my apartment. I worked from a 1949 black and white photo included in the "Complete Hank Williams" collection.