Hank Williams Tribute last night as part of Woody Hawley series in Charleston

I attended a very enjoyable evening of music last night at the Walker Theater of the Clay Center in Charleston. It was an event of the Woody Hawley concert series (which is primarily a songwriter showcase held approximately monthly). This was a hank Williams tribute led by John Lilly and Rob McNurlin. They have been doing a Hank Williams tribute since 2002 (which was the 50th anniversary of Hank's death here in WV near Oak Hill). They mentioned a previous one being in Princeton, and this was the first time they have been connected with the Woody Hawley series. They had a great line up of musicians playing the various key musical parts to a classic Hank Williams song. These two singer-songwriters both had a great voice for hank songs, and traded back and forth smoothly sharing the leads. The fiddle player was Buddy Griffin, who is at Glenville St. college in some capacity as a bluegrass music instructor. The dobro player I believe was named Donnie Scott. A woman from Nashville was the stand up bass player, and an electric guitar player, (Richie Collins) rounded out the line up. They interspersed the solid renditions of classic Hank songs with little lead-in stories, and history. John Lilly, as the editor of Goldenseal, the state cultural and history magazine, had done a detailed story in 2002 about Hank Williams death in the state that Dec. 31st. He is a master at leading a good combination of great music, and a themed story line through the evening. They even had a recording on Hank introducing Don Helms the original steel guitar player and a short excerpt of his playing. John cited the advance publicity for this event that indicated Don would be here, though he died in August.
John did the song that he won a "Hank Williams-style" song contest in 2005, and Rob McNurlin did a few original songs also. He is from Ashland Kentucky. He wore a very gaudy cowboy jacket, as did Buddy Griffin. This was a packed house in the Walker Theater, good to see for the Hawley series. All these musicians had various CD's for sale out front, and this seemed to be a good way to promote their involvement in the tribute. The next event in the Woody Hawley series is Tim O'Brien there in January (the 10th) at 7:30 pm. You can get tickets at the www.theclaycenter.org website. Todd Burge opens for Tim. I already have tickets to see Chris Smither in April as part of this series (the 18th).