Nevertheless, Williams -- who was said to go "into anything like 'killin' rattlesnakes" in his short 29 years — persevered with single-minded drive and determination to produce his songs of “sincerity and delivery that held a listener or an entire audience spellbound.” Whether in the back of a bumpy car between gigs or a noisy Grand Ole Opry dressing room, Williams was able to tune out the world, and was almost obsessive about refining the song to death and in his seeking of approval afterward, “until a single line or simple idea unfolded into a tragedy or comedy of life and love as ordinary people live it.”
As a springboard from an inquiry by a Tennessee farmer — “Hank, how do you ‘make’ all those songs?” — Rivers offers the view that Williams did more than merely write a song on paper and sing it. He “made” a song “from his own creative genius, then he made it a lasting standard in American music with his own style of delivery.” It is only when someone pointed out Williams’ rural bearing and unpretentious grammar that spurred the comment about getting the lay of some south Alabama acreage from the back of a farm animal. “That he was able,” says Rivers, “to communicate with rural America is understandable.”
And, moreover, that he was able to convey his sense of place on a wider scale with his creative genius and style of delivery is undeniable.
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