Hank Williams Last Night — Andrew Johnson Hotel, Knoxville

On the night of 31 December 1952, Hank Williams checked into the Andrew Johnson Hotel in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, en route to a concert in Canton, Ohio. Williams had been in severe decline — severely addicted to alcohol and the sedative chloral hydrate, and suffering from chronic spinal pain. He was accompanied by a 17-year-old driver, Charles Carr, hired to take him through the night. Williams had reportedly received injections from a Knoxville doctor that evening, and witnesses in the hotel described him in poor condition.

Carr drove through the night toward Ohio. Sometime in the early hours of New Year's Day 1953, probably in Oak Hill, West Virginia, Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac. He was 29 years old. The cause of death was listed as acute right ventricular dilation and haemorrhage — heart failure. The Andrew Johnson Hotel was his last known stop before the journey that ended his life. In a recording career lasting only six years, Williams had virtually invented the vocabulary of modern country music.

The Andrew Johnson Hotel still stands in downtown Knoxville, though it has operated under various names over the decades and is not specifically preserved as a Williams site. A state historical marker in Knoxville commemorates Williams's last night in the city. His grave and museum are in Montgomery, Alabama, and the full story of his final journey is one of the most documented and mythologised in country music history.