III’s Pipes

As the great GALEA pointed out in a previous blog, III’s been having some serious voice issues the past few years. I don’t think this is the reason they are pushing back the upcoming tour, but III’s pipes, or as he calls it, ‘The Sickness’ are a recurring theme in the III world.

Now before I go any further, if any of you think I’m being too critical of Hank III, stop down for a second and check out the name if this fucking MySpace site. Furthermore, there ain’t nobody more critical, or more aware, of III’s voice problems than III himself.

One of the reasons I’m bringing this up is because a few blogs ago I brought up how similar Hank Sr. and Hank III are. This goes the same with their health problems. A lot of people portray Hank Williams Sr. as a drunk and a junkie, which in some respects he was, but you almost NEVER hear about the severe chronic back problems that plagued him during his career, and how this was the main reason he had turned heavy towards the medicated life.

In respect to III, as he’s said in a few different interviews, the docs told him he couldn’t even do what he’s doing today because of his pipes, and still he’s fighting through that shit every day for you and me, and is still one of the best country music crooners out there.

Still I was sitting here wondering on 4/20, if III could do more to help himself out. The dude smokes cigarettes, and he smokes pot like its going out of style. I think III is not as much of a drinker as a lot of people think, but when he does drink, I’m pretty sure it’s not Heinekin Light, and that hard stuff can burn up a throat pretty good. Then you take the fact that he rags out his throat croaking out the metal/punk stuff, and by the end of a tour he’s in the hospital with strep.

Now I’m not going to be the poor bastard to tell III to stop doing any of these things, and don’t take that as my point here.

When I saw him in New Mexico last year, it was near the beginning of the tour and his voice sounded great. Between each song he would reach back and squirt some kind of medication onto his throat. And it’s funny, because even when you see him towards the end of a tour, when he talks his voice sounds like shit, but when he starts singing he does a pretty good job fighting through it.

This is another one of these blogs when I ramble on about a topic, and don’t really get anywhere. But I will wrap it up with a prediction: III’s voice, weather he decides to stop doing harmful stuff to it or not, will be a defining point, if not the most defining point, in his career. That’s my prediction . . .

and you can quote me on that shit.