Punk Reviews

Hank Williams, 29 years old

Evidence that the old timers lived hard too, Hank Williams, arguably one of the greatest songwriters ever, was pronounced dead on January 1, 1953 after he was found to be dead in the back seat of his Cadillac due to heart failure reportedly from mixing alcohol and barbiturates. To make the matter even more sad, Williams’ daughter was born only five days after his death, and the final single he released was titled “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” Despite his often clean cut country image, Williams led a rough life, with numerous marriages and serious addictions to alcohol, morphine and painkillers. One can’t deny the influence Williams has had not only on country music, but on music in general. His song structures and love ballads are still seen as the blueprint for popular music today, and without him music could very well be in a very different place. He will be missed, but thankfully he was extremely prolific during his short life, recording hundreds of songs for new and old fans alike to listen to and learn from.

Robert Johnson, 27

A strange, mythic figure, Robert Johnson was said to have possessed skills at playing Delta blues far advanced than any other living person. Consistently ranked as one of the best guitar players ever, Robert Johnson lived in a time before the internet, before you could find out everything you ever wanted, and didn’t want, to know about you favorite artist. As director Martin Scorsese said about the man: “The thing about Robert Johnson was that he only existed on his records. He was pure legend.” And the music that Johnson did make was brilliant, dark, morbid, strange and often downright depressing. The blues is inherently a depressing genre, but Johnson seemed haunted by something deeper—which only fuelled the rumors that Johnson had met the devil at a crossroads in Mississippi who offered Johnson incomparable blues skills for his soul. In the distance a train horn sounded and Johnson’s skills manifested. Johnson’s death further added to his mythic status, as he was reportedly poisoned by the owner of a juke joint which Johnson was frequenting, and where he reportedly flirted with the owner’s wife. The next morning Johnson was bedridden and his condition steadily worsened and he was pronounced dead after three days. Did the devil come back to claim what was his?

Ian Curtis, 23

It’s hard to imagine that Ian Curtis was only 23 when he watched Werner Herzog’s film “Stroszek,” listened to Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot” and then hung humself in the kitchen of his England house. It’s hard to imagine that he was only 23 because the music and art that Curis put out in his short life was full of such mature and intelligent feelings on relationships, depression and the state of the world. With the two albums Curtis recorded with Joy Division he made a legacy as the leader of a new crop of “post-punk” artists who created a doomy atmosphere in their music that often reflected the abandoned warehouses and darkness of their British surroundings. Curtis not only put his city of Manchester on the map (it would have its musical heyday during the height of the Hacienda nightclub in the late 80s) but influenced innumerable singers and songwriters who dealt with dark issues backed by somber lyrics. Curtis’ life is still shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding, but at least we have the word he left behind to remember him by.