The death of Hank Williams has become an American legend. Everyone knows he was one of the largest figures in the history of country music, but country music really isn't big enough to contain him. He may not have lived to hear the phrase "rock 'n' roll," but some of his stuff sounds like it. Some of his music was blues, or gospel, with even an old minstrel-show song thrown in here or there. Even while he was still alive, jazz artists and pop crooners were interpreting his music. The last hit he ever knew about had zydeco flavorings. Bob Dylan called him his favorite songwriter; Leonard Cohen wrote a song about him; and Norah Jones is just the latest artist to cover his songs.

Moreover, he changed the pop-music paradigm. Before Hank Williams, professional singers on the radio were about as likely to write their own songs as they were to tailor their double-breasted suits. Songwriters were guys with ties and thick glasses who worked in offices in Manhattan. No one before Hank Williams had been as popular as a guitarist/singer/songwriter, which for the next half century became the standard in several varieties of American popular music.

If he had not died at 29, but had merely retired, and lived to the age of 79, Hank would still be considered a major figure in the development of American pop culture. He would still have his plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. But his early death gives him something extra unknown to his contemporaries. To die young, and, moreover, to die mysteriously, lends an aura of religion never accorded to influential figures allowed to live full-length natural lives. Fate allowed him to remain forever young, and an icon to each new generation. He still has an authority with youthful musicians that can only be envied by his contemporaries: the ones who didn't die young, who got chubby and wore hairpieces and worked the Branson/Pigeon Forge circuit and did a lot of chuckling on TNN talk shows.

Hank Williams' death, or his ghost, is the subject of countless country songs. (Someone once tried to count them all, and had to stop in the 700s.) There's a Broadway play called The Night Hank Williams Died, which got a good deal of attention in the national press in the 1980s, though the play isn't about either Hank Williams or the night he died. (Currently on stage in New York is Hank Williams: Lost Highway, a musical biography at the Manhattan Ensemble Theatre.) A bus tour, which included some musicians in Hank's old band, retraced his last route through Knoxville, Tenn. about four years ago, playing an impromptu tribute concert in Krutch Park.

And, of course, it's the climax of several major biographies, especially the 1994 book, Hank Williams: The Biography by Colin Escott (who followed it with a fascinating photographic book in 2001, called Hank Williams: Snapshots From the Lost Highway); Still in Love With You, a 1989 biography by his stepdaughter, Lycrecia Williams; and Chet Flippo's earlier biography, Your Cheatin' Heart. Plus a popular 1964 movie starring George Hamilton also called Your Cheatin' Heart. The movie is, perhaps wisely, vague about the circumstances of his death. No two of the tellings agree on all the details.

Last New Year's Eve marked the 50th anniversary of Williams' death. There are a lot of stories about Hank's last night; some are more than rumors.

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