Forty-eight years ago (August 8, 1975) is a day that Hank Williams Jr will never forget. It was on this day that the country music legend experienced a near fatal mountain fall on Ajax Mountain in Montana.
While mountain climbing the Ajax Peak, the snow beneath Hank collapsed causing Bocephus to descend 530 feet down the mountain.
(Hank Williams Jr Facebook)
The country music legend was not expected to survive the accident, but he did. The fall left Hank Jr. with numerous skull fractures which took 17 operations to repair. Williams spent over two years recovering from the accident.
The scars from the numerous surgeries led Hank to his signature look of beard, hat and sunglasses-which he still wears today.
Williams awoke in the Montana hospital to none other than June and Johnny Cash who presented Williams with a model train in the hospital.
Hank also had the support of his then-girlfriend, and future second wife, Becky White.
“Twenty-four hours after admitting we loved each other, I became a monster on a mountainside with most of my face gone,” Williams Jr. tells People magazine.
After the mountain fall, Hank Jr released the album Hank Williams Jr. and Friends in December 1975 which was recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama before the accident.
It would be nearly two years after the accident before Williams’ next Album One Night Stands would be released.
