名人轶事:Country and Western Singer Hank Williams Wrote S
Country and Western Singer Hank Williams Wrote Songs About Love and Heartbreak
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VOICE ONE:
PEOPLE IN AMERICA -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.
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Every week at this time, we tell you a story about people who played a part in the history of the United 1 States. I'm Tony Riggs. Today, Larry West and I tell the story of country and western singer and songwriter, Hank Williams.
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VOICE TWO:
That was the record Hank Williams made when he first tried to interest recording 2 companies in his music. None of the companies liked it at the time. But a few years later, the high sharp voice of Hank Williams would cut like a knife through the music world. When he sang his songs, people listened. They are still listening, long after his death.
VOICE ONE:
Hank Williams was born in nineteen twenty-three on a small farm near Mount 3 Olive 4, Alabama. Like most people at that time in the southern United States, the Williams family was poor. Hank's father could not work. He had been injured 5 in World War One. He spent many years in a hospital when Hank was a boy.
The Williams family did not own many things. But it always had music. Hank sang in church. When he was eight years old, he got an old guitar and taught himself to play. From then on, music would be the most important thing in his life.
VOICE TWO:
By the time Hank was fourteen, he had already put together his own group of musicians. They played at dances and parties. They also played at a small local radio station. They were known 6 as "Hank Williams and his Drifting 7 Cowboys 8."
For more than ten years, Hank remained popular locally, but wasunknown nationally. Then, in nineteen forty-nine, he recorded his first major hit record. The song was "Lovesick Blues 9."
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Hank Williams and his group performed "Lovesick Blues" on the stage of the Grand 10 Ole Opry house in Nashville, Tennessee. People in the theater would not let him stop singing. They made him sing the song six times. After years of hard work, Hank Williams had become a star.
VOICE ONE:
Hank wrote many songs in the years that followed. Singers are still recording them today. They may sing the songs in the country and western style -- the way Hank wrote them. Or they may sing them in other popular styles. Either way, the songs will always be his.
Hank Williams wrote both happy songs and sad songs. But the sad songs are remembered best.
Hank Williams
When Hank sang a sad song, those who listened knew it was about something that had happened to him. Somehow, he was able to share his feelings in his music. One of the most famous of these sad songs is "Your Cheatin' Heart." One music expert said: "Your Cheatin' Heart" is so sad, it sounds like a judge sentencing somebody to a punishment worse than death itself.”
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"Your Cheatin' Heart" was written in the early nineteen fifties. It has been recorded by more than fifty singers and groups in almost every style of popular music.
VOICE TWO:
Many years after Hank Williams' death, new fans of his music have asked why he could put so much of his life into his songs. There is no easy answer to that question.
Hank Williams had many problems during his life. He and his wife Audrey did not have a happy marriage. Many of his songs seemed to ask: “Why can't we make this marriage work?” Many people knew that when Hank sang this song, "Cold Cold Heart", he was singing about his wife and their problems. Those who had similar problems felt that Hank was singing about them, too.
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VOICE ONE:
Hank Williams drank too much alcohol 11. Those who knew Hank Williams say he did not have the emotional 12 strength to deal with his problems. They say he often felt he had no control over his life.
Everything seemed to be moving too fast. He could not stop. And he could not escape. He had money and fame. But they did not cure his loneliness, his drinking, or his marriage problems.
Hank was always surrounded by people, especially after he became famous. None, however, could break through the terrible sadness that seemed to follow him everywhere. One song, "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", expresses his feelings of loneliness.
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VOICE TWO:
When Hank Williams began to record his songs, country and western music was not popular with most Americans. It was the music of the poor farming 13 areas of the South. However, because Hank's songs told of real-life troubles with such great emotion, something unusual began to happen to his music.
Radio stations that had never played country and western music began to play Hank Williams' songs. Famous recording stars who never sang country and western music began recording songs written by Hank Williams. He had created a collection of music that stretched far past himself and his times.
Hank Williams' life and career were brief. He died on New Year's Day, nineteen fifty-three. He was twenty-nine years old.
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VOICE ONE:
You have been listening to PEOPLE IN AMERICA, a program in Special English by the Voice of America. Your narrators 14 were Larry West and Tony Riggs. PEOPLE IN AMERICA was written by Paul Thompson
- The whole nation is closely united.全国人民紧密团结。
- The two men were united by community of interests.共同的利益使两个人结合在一起。
- How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间?
- I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。
- Their debts continued to mount up.他们的债务不断增加。
- She is the first woman who steps on the top of Mount Jolmo Lungma.她是第一个登上珠穆朗玛峰的女人。
- Have you eaten a kind of fruit called olive?你吃过橄榄这种水果吗?
- She likes olive because It'symbolizes peace.她喜欢橄榄色因为它象征着和平。
- Our best defender is injured and won't be able to play today.我们最佳的防守员受伤了,今天不能参加比赛。
- The injured men have been dug out of the snow.受伤人员从雪中被挖了出来。
- He is a known artist.他是一个知名的艺术家。
- He is known both as a painter and as a statesman.他是知名的画家及政治家。
- Some people enjoy that kind of life, drifting from pillar to post. 有些人喜欢这种生活,到处漂泊游荡。
- The ship was found after drifting on the ocean for six months. 那条船在海上漂流了6个月后找到了。
- children playing a game of cowboys and Indians 玩美国西部牛仔与印第安人游戏的孩子们
- There are too many cowboys in the business these days. 近来商界中,瞎吵胡闹的家伙太多。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
- He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。
- The pianist played several pieces of music on a grand piano.钢琴家在一架大钢琴上弹了几首乐曲。
- Come on,I'll give you the grand tour of the backyard.跟我来,我带你去后院来一次盛大的旅游。
- The law forbids shops to sell alcohol to minors.法律禁止商店向未成年者出售含酒精的饮料。
- The alcohol is industrial.这些酒精是供工业用的。
- Emotional people don't stop to calculate.感情容易冲动的人做事往往不加考虑。
- This is an emotional scene in the play.这是剧中动人的一幕。