Abstract

The study mainly examines the musical style of Hank Williams . Two problems in the dissertation are submitted: Current research is mostly biography-oriented, not musical analysis. What is the musical style of Hank Williams? The dissertation has three purposes. The first purpose is to produce a brief biography of Hank Williams that contains the most significant events in his life. The brief biography is organized logically and chronologically in Chapter Two. The second purpose is to provide examples of Hank Williams's musical style through analysis of his eleven #1 songs. The eleven songs are analyzed in detail in Chapter Three. The third purpose is to analyze the forty-one songs of Hank Williams on the Billboard charts to find out the common characteristics in his musical style. The musical style of Hank Williams is discussed for all of his forty-one songs on the chants in Chapter Four. The study integrates all chapters in the dissertation and makes a final conclusion in Chapter Five