(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois Stories is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hello and welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Farmer City, in the basement home of Willis Bowles, who I would bet has the largest collection of Hank Williams memorabilia of anybody in the country, except for the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Hank Williams, who was Hank Williams, you might ask?

Well, a lot of people that are younger now may not have heard of him.

But he died very young at the age of 29.

But before he died, he was the preeminent composer and singer of country music.

And his hits are still heard today.

"I'm so Lonesome, I Could Cry", and on and on.

It reads like a top 40 hit sheet of country music.

Willis Bowles, I'm just amazed.

I read about your collection.

And when I called, you said, "Sure, come on down."

We came on down and I am still, as I walk through your basement, I am amazed - Everybody is.

- At the extension of the memorabilia that you have, everybody is, huh?

- Well, even myself.

(laughing) - You never expected it to grow to be what it is.

- No.

- When did you start collecting?

- 1997 I was serious.

- [Mark] You got serious in 1997?

- I got real serious.

But I've been a fan of his since the early fifties.

- [Mark] Yeah, and you still listen to him almost every day.

- Almost every day, yeah.

- [Mark] What's your favorite song?

Do you have a favorite song?

- Uh, "Mansion on a Hill".

- [Mark] "Mansion on a Hill", what's another one?

- "You Win Again".

- [Mark] Huh?

- "You Win Again".

- [Mark] Okay, all right.

And they go on and on.

He made a lot of records, even though he died very young.

- He wrote I think 128 songs.

- When I first came down here, you gave me a warning.

You said, "Look, there's a lot of stuff here.

"I had to expand my collection four or five times."

And what you did was you walked me through.

Well, first I was only gonna take this much in the basement.

And then my wife said I could have this much of the basement.

And then we went here, and we went here.

Would you do that again for me?

- Sure, follow me.

- Okay.

Watch out, it's kinda low.

- Well, I had enough material from here to here to go back this way.

- Okay.

- [Willis] So I thought well maybe, I might hit the lower step.

- Okay.

- So I made it a little bit bigger.

- Well let's stop here first.

Let's stop here first, because this was part of your original area right in here.

Right?

Okay.

- Yes, this way and that way.

- Okay.

Let's walk in there cause we may make a little room here.

Okay.

What's what's going on, Now, this is part of your original area, right?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

It looks like there's mostly CDs and recordings in here.

- And these are just souvenirs that I got from Montgomery.

- Oh, you go to Montgomery.

Do you go pretty regularly down there?

- [Willis] Mostly I do business on a telephone.

- These are good, look at some of the kinds of things you have.

Every kind of coffee mug there is.

And when you go to, so you've got an actual, you've got a lot of money in this collection because most of these things you had to buy, didn't you?

- [Willis] Yeah.

Most of 'em, yeah.

- [Mark] And so you have original albums here.

You got mugs.

All kinds of artwork!

- [Willis] Some of the albums are a reprint, but that's all right with me.

- [Mark] Sure, it's okay.

- [Willis] Yeah, yeah.

- [Mark] Okay, so this is all still part of your original area, right?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Okay.

Let's move on a little bit here.

I'll get by you.

It's kind of tight.

- These are the a CDs.

I save those too.

- [Mark] These are old tapes.

Old tapes, yep.

They don't make those anymore.

- No.

And, these... - [Mark] Was this where your original collection stopped?

- Yeah, right here.

But soon I had to extend to here.

- Oh, just, okay so was there a wall there?

- No, I made a wall.

- Oh, you made a wall.

Okay, all right.

And you were explaining to me earlier, now here's a lot of his sheet music right down here, right?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] And well that, some of that stuff looks like it's original.

It's 40 cents.

It's from the time that it was released.

Those are very valuable I would think.

- [Willis] But they're not for sale.

- [Mark] No, of course not.

- [Willis] Nothing's for sale.

- [Mark] "Jambalaya", everybody knows that one.

"Your cheatin' heart" Oh wow.

- [Willis] Yeah.

And some of these came from Europe.

We used to take trips to Europe and I'd buy stuff there.

- [Mark] To Europe?

They knew about him in Europe?

- My wife is from Holland.

- She's from Holland.

And they know about Hank Williams over there.

- Yeah.

- He's popular.

- Yup.

- Where's he popular?

Where in Europe is he popular?

- All over.

- All over?

- Germany, France, Holland, Belgium.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- When you trade, you can find memorabilia, really?

- Yeah.

- I'll be darned.

Where are we here?

- That's Hank's grave.

- [Mark] That's Hank's grave?

- [Willis] Yeah and I'm standing in front and that's his first wife Audrey.

- [Mark] And that's you?

- [Willis] Yeah, that's me.

- [Mark] When was that taken, do you think?

- [Willis] Maybe 10, 10 years ago.

Something like that.

- [Mark] Did you leave flowers at the grave?

- [Willis] No, but some people do.

Or a beer can.

- Did you just sing a song?

Did you hum a song when you were there?

- No I never sang a song.

- Okay.

Then your collection ended here right?

And then you decided to come to... - I have most stuff but these are so hard to get.

- [Mark] But what are those now?

- Well these are albums.

There's two songs on each side.

- [Mark] Hold that up for us.

Hold that up for us again.

Okay those are, what are those like 45's?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Yeah okay.

And there's a there's a song on each side or two?

- [Willis] Two.

Two songs on each side.

- [Mark] And what is that?

"Ramblin' Man" and what else?

- [Willis] "Take These Chains From My Heart".

"I Won't Be Home No More".

"Lonesome Whistle".

- [Mark] You don't ever listen to those anymore, do you?

Those are just, those are just part of the collection.

- Well, these are collectors.

- [Mark] Well, you know those are valuable too, cause nobody's making 45's anymore.

- And these are all tributes.

- Oh, by other artists, tributes to Hank.

Okay gotcha.

What's this artwork up to our left up here.

What's all this.

- This is a song.

You heard and that song "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".

- Sure.

- And this is the verse, to one of them.

(Mark humming) This is another verse.

And this is where the robin weeps.

But this robin has a white breast.

- [Mark] Uh huh?

Okay.

- I've never seen a Robin with a white breast.

- No, nope.

But now you have.

Okay so this is, then you expanded to this area.

There's a lot of newspaper articles and stuff.

It's all about, about his life, I guess.

That's a copy of his birth certificate.

- [Willis] That's a copy.

And this is that copy from that quack doctor.

- [Mark] From the, what quack doctor?

Oh, you mean, some of, he was hooked on painkillers, wasn't he.

And this is one of his prescriptions.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Oh my goodness.

That's kind of sad.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] And this is his birth certificate.

- [Willis] Or his death, I don't know, let's see.

- [Mark] The nurses death certificate over here.

- [Willis] A couple letters from his, uh.

- [Mark] Okay, this is the death certificate here right?

Okay, now don't lean forward.

And what is, what are these letters now back here?

- [Willis] Well this is from one of his members of his band.

I was trying to find out what happened to Williams' mother's guestbook, because I signed it.

- Oh the guest book?

- [Willis] So I wrote to this guy.

Well, he didn't know, but he said he was there at the house two days after Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe was there.

- Is that right?

- [Willis] So that makes me say I'm in the same register book.

- There you go.

And it's in his hand, this is not a copy, this is the original letter.

- [Willis] No this is it I have that.

- That's nice.

That is nice.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- Okay I'm gonna put that back there like that, okay.

And I'm gonna follow you, okay.

Well let's, let's go.

Let's go this way.

- [Willis] Now this is part of the fan club, it comes out.

- Are you in the fan club?

- Oh yeah.

And it comes out three times a year.

- [Mark] Yeah, yeah, okay.

And they keep you informed of anything of the sort.

Any idea how many members are in that fan club?

- [Willis] I don't know offhand.

- [Mark] I think thousands I guess, huh?

- [Willis] Yeah.

And this is a paper from Holland.

- [Mark] Okay we're looking, oh, sure is.

Now that was, wow okay.

They're talking about a new release of one of his recordings.

It's, that's sure, it's in Dutch all right.

He's a big deal over there huh?

- My wife's brother sent that to me.

- Oh, okay.

So here you ended your collection right?

You ended your collection here.

This was gonna be the end of it right?

- Okay this is a tribute by Willie Nelson.

Charlie Pride.

- Okay, this was gonna be the end of it.

We were gonna end it right here right?

Okay.

- [Willis] But I had more stuff.

- But you, (laughs) yes you do.

- So then I had to make this here.

- Oh my goodness, okay.

So we've got another low spot here, we have to watch out.

- Well, you wanted to know about members.

These are lifetime members to that.

- Oh, these are all, this is all part of the fan club huh?

- [Willis] No, this is members to the museum.

- [Mark] Oh, the museum?

- [Willis] In Montgomery.

- [Mark] Are you a member?

- [Willis] Oh yeah.

- [Mark] Okay so you contribute.

- Somewhere in here is Willis Bowles.

- Okay, all right.

They know you don't they?

Because nobody collects quite like you do.

- And I put my ad in there.

- Your ad's in there, yep, okay.

Let's keep moving here.

- All right.

Okay, here we go.

- "Long Gone Lonesome Blues".

There's a really good picture of Hank right there.

- That's one of my favorite pictures.

- [Mark] That is really good.

- [Willis] Now a lot of people wouldn't know those songs.

- [Mark] Right.

- [Willis] And I got a lot of stuff from this record show in Chicago.

Every time when you send me one this I hang it up.

- Okay so where were are you going to end your collection here, now this time?

- Well right in here.

- Right in here.

(laughs) - This is where I was gonna end it.

Now you've heard that song "Jambalaya".

- "Jambalaya", sure.

- Yeah.

This are all records of "Jambalaya".

- [Mark] They're all, okay.

- [Willis] By other artists.

And how do you pronounce that?

- Filet I guess.

Filet?

Gumbo filet?

- In American they put F I L E T. And I said that is not right.

And this is recipes for jambalaya.

- Oh, okay, all right.

Do you make jambalaya?

- [Willis] No, my wife won't make it.

- [Mark] Well, you should!

She won't eat it?

- [Willis] No, too much stuff.

- Okay.

Now here's where we started, right?

So this was going to be the end.

- Yeah.

But then there is a lot of other songs.

- Okay, let me move on, let me move on.

Okay there you go.

- These are all songs by Hank but sung by other artists.

- [Mark] Oh, tributes again, okay.

And these are the 45's?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Okay.

So they've been doing tributes to Hank for a long time cause they stopped making 45's in like the fifties.

- [Willis] They're just playing songs that they recorded.

- Yeah sure.

Oh, you got a lot of them, you got a lot of them.

Okay so you went on and you said, no we gotta, - [Willis] Well I ended here.

- [Mark] A little more room.

- I ended here.

- [Mark] Oh, you ended here?

- Yeah, well, then outgrew.

And in here.

- [Mark] Okay, then you ended in here.

And your wife was good enough to let you keep going.

- [Willis] Well, I've been told you're lucky your wife'll let you have the whole basement.

- It's a big basement too.

It's a big basement.

And so in here we got, I'm noticing, what I'm here noticing here, is a lot of articles and t-shirts.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- Is there a theme to this room or is there some reason why these things are together in here?

- [Willis] No.

- No?

Of course not.

(laughs) - [Willis] And the movie is gonna be released in March.

It's gonna be called... - [Mark] I'm gonna hold that up okay?

- [Willis] I Saw the Light And this fella just passed away, George Merritt.

- [Mark] The movie that's coming out this year is a biography of Hank.

And it comes from this book.

- [Willis] It was taken from this book.

- [Mark] Okay, and the author just passed away.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Okay but they have a screenplay and they're gonna do the movie.

Okay.

All right.

Well that's good.

- [Willis] The movie's already made, but it hasn't been released yet.

- I'm gonna put that there, okay?

Now I want you to do one more thing before we leave this room.

Turn on this little, this little machine for me here.

- [Willis] Yeah.

(man singing) - [Mark] Can you turn it up?

Or is that all the volume you get?

- [Willis] That's as loud as it goes.

- [Mark] I'm going to put my microphone up to it.

(man vocalizing) - [Willis] See, that's it.

- [Mark] Okay.

- That's the advertisement.

- Okay that's the collector's box, okay.

- Yeah.

- Should I turn it off now?

- Well, you can, yeah.

- Okay.

Now, where did you expand next?

Because you ran out yet, to too much stuff.

- Follow me.

- Okay.

- Most all this stuff was released after Hank died.

And this is his daughter that was born about three days after he died.

- [Mark] This is his daughter Jett?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Okay.

And he was, she was, wow!

Three days after he died.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- [Mark] Oh my goodness.

So she never knew him?

- And she didn't know who he was until she turned 21 or 2.

And she had a cheque for $2,000 or something like that.

Okay, then I went this way.

- Okay you went this way.

Oh my goodness.

There's a lot of stuff back here too.

- [Willis] I'm gonna end it right here.

- Do you promise this time you're going to end it.

Are you out of room?

Is your basement completely full or could you expand?

- Well I got a little spot, I've have flowers back here.

- [Mark] You got a little, what do you keep?

You dry flowers back there.

- [Willis] Well I start from seeds.

- Oh you start from seed okay.

Well, you got to do that somewhere.

Maybe you could build a greenhouse and then you could take over that area too.

Okay so I'm looking at a lot of cool t-shirts here but this one I know has some special significance, doesn't it?

- [Willis] The guy that started in the museum in Montgomery.

When he was a boy he changed the wheels on Hank's tire on his last drive.

And then, well, Hank died.

- And so this is a picture, a depiction of him and Hank together.

And then he fell, he fell for Hank pretty hard.

And after that, then he became an adult.

He started the museum.

And his name must be Cecil Jackson.

- [Willis] Yeah, Cecil Jackson.

- What a nice thing.

- And his daughter runs the place now.

- Well, listen, I think the next thing we ought to do is some of our audience doesn't, has never heard Hank Williams' music.

Let's go listen to it.

Let's do that.

Okay, Willis I think we've seen everything, right?

Well, not everything, but we've seen, we've seen the locations where everything is.

- Yeah.

- I mentioned some of the folks in our audience may not have heard Hank Williams or if they did, they didn't recognize it as Hank Williams.

So let's go in and take a little listen, okay.

- Right, we'll listen.

- You got a CD place where you listen to your CDs in here.

- I always sit here.

- That's a nice little lounge you got here.

And then we'll listen to, see what you got queued up here for us.

♪ Your cheatin' heart will make you weep ♪ ♪ You'll cry and cry and try to sleep ♪ ♪ But sleep won't come ♪ ♪ The whole night through ♪ ♪ Your cheatin' heart will tell on you ♪ ♪ When tears come down like fallin' rain ♪ ♪ You'll toss around and call my name ♪ ♪ You'll walk the floor the way I do ♪ ♪ Your cheatin' heart will tell on you ♪ Okay, Willis can you turn that off for us, so we can talk a little bit?

Okay, thank you.

You know, that "Cheatin Heart" is really good example of his music because he was a sad man, wasn't he?

He had a lot of sadness in his life.

- But sometimes he was happy.

- Yeah.

- He'd sing a happy song.

- Yeah, but I mean, he did have a lot of sadness.

What I like to do here Willis, is take a look at this.

Cause this is kind of cool what you've done.

You've put together his top 10 singles, and they go all the way from 1947 to 1989, somebody recorded his stuff and it was still in the top 10 as late as 1989.

- This a song that was discovered and it was done with Hank Jr. - [Mark] "There's a Tear in My Beer".

But so many of these, "Move It on Over", "Honky Tonk", "Mansion On the Hill", "Lovesick Blues", we just heard you know, "Your Cheatin Heart", Oh, it's just like a, what a hit list!

Hey, good looking.

- [Willis] "Hey, Good Lookin'".

- Yeah, yep.

(laughs) - [Willis] "Kaw-Liga" - [Mark] And we talked about "Jambalaya", you know, everybody's got that going.

Oh, that's great.

That is great.

Okay now take me in to your favorite doll.

Your Williams doll.

- [Willis] Oh, my favorite doll.

Well there was a lady that runs the museum in Montgomery she was having some made, and she was having to sell them to some fans, the this was made for her, Beth.

But somehow there was a fire.

- [Mark] A fire at the museum?

- [Willis] No, at this lady's place.

- [Mark] Oh that was making them?

- [Willis] So they burnt up.

She sent this to me until the other doll is ready, but I think she got sick and couldn't do it.

I've had this, I've had this doll since 2004.

- [Mark] 2004, yeah.

That's neat.

That's neat.

- [Willis] But, if something happens to me, it's gonna go back to the museum.

- [Mark] Okay, now right behind the doll, there's artwork on the wall.

And that's got an interesting story too, because these come from friends of yours who were behind bars, right?

- We're not friends.

One of the guys saw my name in a Hank Williams calender.

So he wrote me, so we started corresponding.

And then when he went to prison he met these guys and they drew pictures for me.

- So, so, okay, so you correspond with, do you still correspond with them?

- Yeah.

- And they're still like, he's still behind bars, and he and his friends are still doing these tribute pictures.

Wow.

Well listen, let's take a, - Guy here's a pretty good painter.

And one time I sent a picture of me and it was painted.

- Ah, that's neat.

That's neat.

Well, I want to show something.

I want to show something over here, because we have a picture of your, of your friend.

Well, you say he's not your friend, but he but he's a correspondent of yours.

And this is the fellow you're talking about here, right?

- [Willis] And that's his mother, and that was his little daughter.

She grew up a little bit, and now she's this big.

- [Mark] He's still in prison in Texas, huh?

- Yep, yep.

And this is is a letter I got from his mother.

- Yeah, you still stay in touch with her.

- She said some injustice done, that's why he's in there.

- Is he still doing the artwork?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, good.

You know, that's, that's good, because that gives him something to focus on.

You've given him something in his life that he didn't have before.

- And there was a stamp made in 93.

- [Mark] For Hank.

- [Willis] And this is the story of it.

- [Mark] Of the stamp.

- [Willis] Yeah.

- Well, Willis, as you walk through your collection you can't help but notice you have hanging, all these like ruler like, like yard sticks with, with words on them.

And I guess what are these what are these singles that were released by Hank?

- Yeah many of them singles, some of them weren't recorded on the record, but he wrote them, he wrote the songs.

- Okay, and some of them were recorded.

So some of them were big hits and some of them weren't, but they were all his songs.

And, and these are all over.

There must be hundreds of them.

- It cost me I think $700.

Just for the letters.

- $700 for the letters.

Are you still making any or are they all done?

You're done.

- This is while I lived in Oak Park, Illinois.

(Mark laughs) And I bought all their letters.

- Oh, that's funny.

Okay, I'm going to show some pictures here, because the reason you got involved really loving Hank was because you were actually, you were playing Hank's music, right?

- [Willis] Yeah, yeah.

- [Mark] Point to yourself.

Where are you in these pictures?

- [Willis] Right here's me.

And that's me there.

- [Mark] Okay, and there, and the bottom, - [Willis] This was a practice session, I didn't have my cowboy hat on.

- [Mark] And down is a practice session on the bottom.

And you can see you've got your steel guitar on your knees where it belongs, right.

But that's, do you still play at all?

- No, no, no.

- No?

But you still got your steel guitar?

- Yeah, right here.

- It's behind us, we'll show that in a minute.

But you still got it?

- [Willis] Yup.

- Yeah, yeah.

You just don't, and these guys, I guess some of them have passed away.

Some of them are still around.

- This is my buddy here, he passed away.

I know he's passed away.

I'm sure he's passed away.

I don't know about him.

- Did they all love Hank?

- Well, I mean, not like I did!

- Not like you do!

But, but they enjoyed his music, huh?

- [Willis] Yeah.

- Okay.

- But back then everybody wanted to hear a Hank, Hank music.

- Sure.

You had an opportunity to get a signed picture, a Hank signed picture.

And unfortunately this is, this was some time ago.

This was back in the, - [Willis] 1954, I went to see his mother in Montgomery.

- [Mark] And she signed it down here.

Unfortunately in all those years, it's kind of lost it's readability.

- She signed it, Hank Williams' mother.

- [Mark] Yeah, that's Hank Williams' mother.

- [Willis] And she died the next year.

- [Mark] She died the next year, and this is a picture of her.

So you did get a chance to meet her.

- Yeah, yeah.

But I never met Hank.

- No, you never met Hank.

But you also had a chance to meet his son.

- Yeah.

- [Mark] Well let's look at that!

- Hank Jr. - [Mark] Hank Jr. - I met him when he was nine years old.

- [Mark] Well, let's look at that.

While we're looking for that, see there you've got a doll up there.

- [Willis] That's when he grew up!

- [Mark] That's sure, I mean, he doesn't look quite as cute as when you met him, does he.

He's not quite as cute anymore.

But he is famous, he's very famous.

- [Willis] Very famous.

- [Mark] And he's got some talent.

I don't know if he's as good as his dad, but he's got some talent, doesn't he?

- [Willis] He sure has.

- And this is what you, this is what you, this is a really a precious thing.

- [Willis] Now, this was in 1958.

I went to St. Louis to see Hank's mother and her daughter.

- [Mark] No, not his mother.

- [Willis] That's Hank's first wife.

- [Mark] First wife, right.

- [Willis] So after the show, they were walking around, so I had little Hank sign his name.

- [Mark] And it says to what?

- [Willis] To Willie, from Hank.

- [Mark] From Hank Jr. Williams, Hank Jr. Williams.

Okay.

And this is, this is a picture of him when he was nine, that's how old he was.

- [Willis] That's his wife's signature.

- [Mark] Oh, and she signed it too.

And unfortunately Hank was, had passed away by that time.

Yeah.

That's nice.

- But every time little Hank sang a song everybody would jump up and just go like that.

- Well, sure, he was cute, right?

Yeah.

But, but he wasn't, he didn't really have that, was he any good when he was nine years old?

- No.

(Mark laughs) He was just, uh.

- He was just a kid.

- He was just singing his dad's song, he got tired of it.

- Yeah, yeah.

They loved it though.

The audience loved it.

Was the daughter, did the daughter have any talent?

- No.

- No, she didn't.

- Don't tell that.

She sang like her mother.

- Her mother wasn't that good either.

Hank had all the talent in that family.

Although Jr. is pretty good now.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And this is Hank when he was lying in his grave.

- [Mark] Oh, that's true.

That's true.

Oh yeah.

Oh boy.

- [Willis] This was the house I went to when I saw his mother.

- [Mark] And this was after he had passed away, huh?

Did you, you didn't go to the funeral, did you?

- [Willis] No, no, no.

- [Mark] But you were very much affected by his death, weren't you?

- [Willis] Yeah.

Not like some people, some people cried, and, yeah.

- [Mark] Yeah.

But, but for you, it was, - I felt bad.

- [Mark] You felt bad because you knew how talented he was, but you didn't, it didn't personally affect you, but you knew we had lost a great talent.

Yeah.

- And his music is still going.

- [Mark] It sure is.

- It sure is.

- Thanks.

So Willis' wife Andrianna gave him the entire basement for his collection.

And as you can see, over the years it's expanded from aisle to aisle to room to room.

The entire basement is now part of Hank Williams, except for this little niche he's got back here where he raises geraniums and some other flowers.

And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Andrianna doesn't get a request to expand that collection a little more.

With another Illinois story in Farmer City, I'm Mark MacDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

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