"louisiana swamp house". photograph by arrian binnings, 2004.
louisiana swamplands. photograph by mike boothes, 2004.
So. Shreveport, Louisiana is not exactly located in the heart of the Cajun swamplands, I am aware.
Or at least I am now, having looked it up on Wikipedia. Shrevesport is, in fact, Louisiana's third largest city and home to the "Louisiana Hayride" weekly radio show; which ran from 1948 - 1960 and helped launch the careers of Hank Williams and Elvis Presley, among others, and prompted the young Hasil Adkins to begin experimenting on chicken wire strung makeshift instruments back home in Boone County, West Virginia as a child.
Written by Hank Williams, Sr - 'Luke the Drifter' - in 1952, one year before his death in the back seat of a Cadillac somewhere on the road between Knoxville , Tennessee and Oak Hill, West Virginia.
Twenty-nine years of age, Williams had intravenously administered a cocktail of Vitamin B-12 and morphine. There was no whiskey beside him on that back seat. A few empty beer cans only. And the hastily scribbled lyric to an unfinished song.
▼ THE RESIDENTS: JAMBALAYA (ON THE BAYOU) from "Stars & Hank Forever: The American Composers Series, vol. II" LP (Ralph) 1986 (US)
PURCHASE STARS & HANK FOREVER REMASTERED
HASIL ADKINS ON ART DECADE
