VISIT TO HANK WILLIAMS MUSEUM IN MONTGOMERY CHANGES JOE FLETCHER’S LIFE, INSPIRES NEW SONG “HAINT BLUE CADILLAC”

HANK I’S “RAMBLIN’ MAN” PROVIDES CREED FOR NEW ALBUM ‘YOU’VE GOT THE WRONG MAN’ (OCTOBER 7) AS ROLLING STONE RUNS PREVIEW

On Joe Fletcher’s first tour through Alabama, he stopped at the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery. “I was stopped in my tracks by the pale blue Cadillac just a few feet in front of me. This, of course, is the car that Hank passed away in somewhere between Bristol, VA and Oak Hill, WV in the first few hours of the first day of 1953,” he says. He examined the car, the stitching on the suits, the photographs and handwritten lyrics. “Not one other patron entered the museum over the next hour or so,” he remembers.

Fletcher goes on, “As I circled back through towards the entrance, I stood and stared a little longer at Thee Cadillac. Suddenly ‘Ramblin' Man’ came on over the speakers. I had long identified with this song as a declaration of his devotion to a risky way of life, a way of life that baffles and alienates those with more traditional values. Hank explains here that he doesn't have a choice in this calling and that it's not important that anyone else give their blessing. He asks only for understanding from those that matter to him. I could never describe the experience I had over those few minutes, but I can tell you it changed my life forever.”

“Haint Blue Cadillac,” recorded solo electric, was written a year later, portraying the ghost of Hank accompanying Joe for a drink at a local tavern. Fletcher says, “The only tribute I could possibly pay that morning was try to capture the essence of it in a song. This tale is not what happened, nor its it what I saw that day. Something was still nagging at me to put a frame around that very special morning.”

Last week, Rolling Stone previewed ‘You’ve Got the Wrong Man,’ out October 7 on Wrong Reasons Records, saying, “With a narrative writing style that eschews traditional structure in favor of twist-and-turn tales, Joe Fletcher's songs are like the musical version of Lombard Street: they wind and roll with steep changes, always ending with a birds-eye view that suddenly organizes it all into one delicate vision. The Rhode Islander-turned-Nashvillian's words flow more like folk poetry than verse-chorus status quo, picking on a honky-tonk spirit with a Tom Waits heart.”

Tour dates are here.