The Azalea Festival Main Stage is proud to introduce Randall Hank Williams, commonly known as Hank Williams Jr. on April 5th, 2019.
By the age of 10, Hank never had much in the way of a career choice. The choice wasn’t whether he’d sing, but what, how, and why. “Other kids could play cowboys and Indians and imagine that they’d grow up to be cowboys,” he wrote in his Living Proof autobiography. “I couldn’t do that. I knew that I would never grow up to be a cowboy or a fireman or the president of the United States. I knew I’d grow up to be a singer. That’s all there ever was, the only option, from the beginning.”
At the beginning, mother Audrey Williams worked to mold her son into a miniature version of his late father, and for 20 years he struggled, uncomfortably, to break the mold.
When he finally found his own sound and style, he reached sales plateaus that his father never dreamed of: 20 gold albums, six platinum albums (one of which has sold more than five million copies) and 13 chart-topping albums. He has been selling out massive venues for a longer period of time than his father spent on earth.
He has done more than honor his father’s legacy; he has extended it, enriched it, enhanced it and elevated it. “My name’s a reminder of a blues man that’s already gone,” he once sang. But the name “Hank Williams, Jr.” is much more than that.
“I’ve been a very lucky man,” he’s fond of saying, but Hank, Jr. has made his own luck, and made his own way. Given a chance to coast on his father’s songs and his father’s royalties, he found a new song to sing, and a new way to sing it.
Hank Williams Jr.’s extremely impressive resume has spawned 70 million albums sold worldwide, six PLATINUM albums, 20 GOLD albums, 13 No. 1 albums and 10 No. 1 singles. Marking 52 years since his first album in 1964, Hank Jr. released IT’S ABOUT TIME (Nash Icon Records) on January 15. In addition to the history-making “Are You Ready for the Country,” the project includes new tunes such as “Dress Like an Icon,” “Just Call Me Hank,” “It’s About Time,” and “The Party’s On” as well as re-recorded versions of classics “Mental Revenge” and “Born to Boogie” with Brantley Gilbert, Justin Moore and Brad Paisley on guitar. IT’S ABOUT TIME is Hank’s 37th album in his five-decade career. He continues to add accolades to an extremely impressive resume, which includes ACM Entertainer of the Year, CMA Entertainer of the Year and BMI Icon in addition to winning a GRAMMY and being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. As a touring artist, Hank was a pioneer in bringing arena rock production values to country music, and he remains one of the most consistent ticket sellers in music, period, as generation after generation gets turned on to one of the most dynamic live performers ever to take the stage.
Frank Foster is scheduled to open for Hank Williams Jr. at The Azalea Festival Main Stage.
Frank Foster embodies musical independence at its highest level. He not only has taken the road less traveled, but the road almost never traveled.
Acting as his own record label, management, booking agency and publishing company, he has managed to find success that some major label artists may never find.
This rural Louisiana native and former oil field man has taken his songs from the campfire to the coliseum seemingly overnight, all the while gaining a following of fans whose loyalty is unmatched. His musical journey started in 2011 with the release of his first album Rowdy Reputation.
To follow that up, in the late summer of 2012, he released his second album, Red Wings and Six Strings. Each and every song from both of those albums have become nightly sing-alongs at his shows.
Foster’s next 5 albums all debuted on the Billboard Country Charts. Southern Soul was released in 2013 debuted at No. 11. Rhythm and Whiskey was released in 2014 debuted at No. 4. His early 2016 release, Boots On The Ground, debuted at No. 7. Later in 2016, he released Good Country Music, which debuted at No.13.
In 2018, he released his seventh album, ’Til I’m Gone, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard Country Album Sales Charts giving Foster his highest mark yet.
He’s a singer, a songwriter and his own boss. He refuses to let anyone water down his kind of country music. If he lives it, he writes it; if he writes it, he sings it; if he sings it, he believes it. Frank Foster … a true original.