Hatman Williams
Leroy "Hatman" Williams is an African American country & western singer that is idolized by such country legends as Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, David Allen Coe and Kevin Wilson. Hatman has been around since the 1950s and has released over 330 albums, but what is even more remarkable is he has only sold 12 albums over his career.
Leroy was born in West Texas in 1943. He grew up like many a black folk at the time, learning the guitar, riding horses, herding cattle on the farm, finding a woman, losing her, being fired from jobs, wives taking all his money in the divorce, kids he's never allowed to see and such other things that make you both country & western.
But what makes Hatman a unique country singer is that he didn't endorse his losses in too many of his songs, instead, he wrote about the good times. Tho some of his tunes are about the loss of loved ones and the "one" that got away, he is highly regarded as never having sung a song about his dog dying on a rainy day.
Why You Ain't Heard Of Him[edit | edit source]
Hatman will tell you himself, he has had it tough as a singer and song writer due to the colorization of his skin tone. Hatman was quoted after being asked why his music hasn't sold and why no one has heard of him to which he stated, "Well, it's probably cause I'm a black man, singing a white man's song".
In 1997 Hatman was interviewed by Crook & Chase, a Texas morning television show; Hatman performed live on TV for the first time, playing his tear jerking love song about his lost love called, "Boothill" as well as "Davey Crockett & Me". The two songs raised some controversy as to weather or not it was because he was a black man or not that his records are not selling.
Hatman claimed after the airing of the show; "Damn inbred racist crackers. They heard I was a country & western singer, and didn't expect a nigger I reckons, so of course they didn't like my music"
Why His Albums Aint A Sellin'[edit | edit source]
Hatman Williams has recorded over 330 albums! But when asked why only 12 records in total of his have ever sold, Hatman has said that he is just hard done by, that white folk don't wanna accept a black man in the country & western music business, and black people don't wanna hear it, cause they don't like country & western.
Hatman, the Idol of many great singers[edit | edit source]
Some of the great names such as Willie Nelson say Hatman Williams is one of the greatest.
“Quite often I add one of Hatmans numbers to my live set”
“Even tho I am not a black man myself, I can't help but always listen to Hatman standing up for niggers rights”
“Alice Cooper & I went through this phase about trying to write songs about dead girls, but then we discovered Hatman and well... he perfected it”
“Many people think we wrote "Dead or Alive" but the truth is, it was written by Hatman, we just changed a few of the original words around... such as "I'm a necrophiliac, on a steel bed they lye, and I wanna fuck 'em, dead or alive"”
Selected Discography[edit | edit source]
- I'm just an old cowpoke, pokin' old cow (1949)
- The Allamoe (Davey Crocket & Me) (1954)
- How Can I Tell You I Love You (when I can hardly breath down here) (1955)
- Boothill (1958)
- Get Along Little Doggy, Get Along Doggy Style (1963)
- Don't come a knockin' if the TeePee's a rockin' (1966)
- Lookin' For Love In All The Wrong Places (the Dirty Sanchez mix) (1969)
- I Left My Heart, In A Fag from Sisco (1971)
- Up The Butt Again (1973)
- East Bound & Down Town In The Brown (1975)
- I Really Dig (for) Marylin Monroe (1976)
- Dead or Alive (1978)
- Squat & Gobble (1983)
- I Refuse to Take Medicine (As I'm Too Proud to Pick the Cotton From the Bottle) (1988)
- The Devil Came Down To Georgia (And showed me a mighty loving time) (1990)
- I've loved em so young, (I've had to burp em' after wards) (1993)