The Wichita band Haymakers recently issued two studio albums.
The first, “Waconda Flyer,” spotlights a number of the band’s original songs and other material that has made up the group’s live shows over the years. The second, released on Oct. 13, “100 Years of Hank,” pays tribute to the late Hank Williams, whose centennial birthday was Sept. 17.
Tom Page and Dustin Arbuckle say that the idea to celebrate Williams’ birth had been on their minds for quite some time. Some Williams songs had even found their way into the group’s live shows.
It ultimately came down to finding the right material and getting the core band -- Page on guitar and harmony vocals; Arbuckle on harmonica and lead vocals; bassist and harmony vocalist Caleb Drummond, and mandolinist Anthony Trupia -- into the studio. (Dennis Hardin adds resonator guitar.)
The result is a collection of songs that celebrate the wide range of music from which Williams drew, including staples such as “Lost Highway” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and unexpected takes on “Howlin’ At the Moon” and “Ramblin’ Man.” Joining the group on this release are fiddle player Rob Loren and pianist Tom Szambecki.
Arbuckle, who also leads Dustin Arbuckle & The Damnations, will release a new recording with that outfit on Oct. 27 titled “Live at the Shamrock Lounge.”
Arbuckle and Page recently visited the KMUW studios to talk about “100 Years of Hank.”
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
When did this idea of a Hank Williams tribute record come into view?
Dustin Arbuckle: Quite some time ago, actually. It’s an idea that we had been talking about for years.
Tom Page: I think Dustin really caught on to the 100-year birthday thing. We had talked about something along these lines, but I think it was you who really recognized that the 100-year birthday was coming on.
DA: A few years ago, I caught onto [the fact that] 2023 was going to be his 100th birthday. We batted around ideas. Maybe a tribute show.
TP: Something, do something. We’ve been playing a number of songs, just stuff we liked, on and off over the years. It would be kind of a wild card in different sets if we were in the mood for it.
DA: When we got things sorted out with where we were at, we thought, “Why don’t we just make a 100 years of Hank tribute album?”
TP: Let’s do it. I think we figured out that we had about six songs that we played that were the ones that we were already somewhat familiar with. We’d been kind of building towards it, then we had to pick out three more. That was the hardest part, “Well, let’s pick something that’s a hit.” “Well, they’re all hits.” Well, hell, what do you do? We just listened to a bunch of Hank and picked out the ones that we really liked.
DA: It feels like they were all hits but some of Hank’s classic songs weren’t actually huge hits for him at the time.
TP: At the time, right.
DA: The ones that people identify … as being synonymous with him [weren’t necessarily hits]. And some of the ones that people don’t think about as much today were actually big hits at the time.
TP: At the time, it’s true. Because of the prolific nature and redistribution and exploitation of Hank after his death, almost everything, even the obscure radio stuff, has been pretty well trodden.
DA: I think it really speaks to the depth, the overall quality of his catalog. There’s just so much great music to pick from.
TP: Another thing we learned [was that] Hank was not opposed to doing other people’s songs and turned a lot of those into hits in his time. One of the songs that I have always highly associated with him and thought was his song, “Lost Highway,” it turns out was [written by Leon Payne]. Welp, Leon did a good job with that song and Hank took it to the top.
DA: And, boy, if that doesn’t feel like a song that’s about Hank Williams.
Were there any songs that kind of surprised you in the process of the song selection. Ones that you had maybe previously overlooked?
TP: The hard part was that we couldn’t do 15 or 30. Or 40. The hard part was narrowing things down. Mostly, I’ve heard all of it and [it was a case of], “Oh, but I like that one, too.” We had a certain time budget and to get the core of the band together to do the recordings is a certain amount of juggling. We had to say, “This is it. Now let’s produce ’em and go.”
DA: I’ve listened to a lot of Hank over the last few years because it’s about the only music me and my son Hiram can agree on. Listening to that catalog over and over again, there were the songs that I would always come back to over the years, but I think it was songs like “Howlin’ At the Moon” and “I Can’t Get You Off of My Mind,” which I had heard but until these last couple of years, they hadn’t been huge favorites. They hadn’t been tunes I’d particularly thought of as, “Oh, that’s one that we should play,” but the more I heard them, [I thought], “We could absolutely deliver this well and these are songs that I would very much love to play and record.”
He is a figure like Johnny Cash who transcends the country music genre. People who love rock ‘n’ roll love him, people who love blues love him.
DA: When I was going through what I think of as my formative musical years in mid to late teens, really getting into a lot of the music I think shaped what my identity as a performer and artist has been, [at the time] I was really into traditional blues. But that was also around the time that I started really listening to Hank Williams. More than any other non-blues performer, although you could make a strong case that Hanks as much a blues [performer as anyone].
TP: A type of blues, yeah. I had a comment on that, but yeah.
DA: Hank stuck with me as much as Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Wolf did in the people who helped me develop what I wanted to do. My biggest influences, musically.
TP: A lot of dominant seven, a lot of blues scale over major chords in Hank. I think you can pretty much draw a straight line from country blues to Jimmie Rodgers, The Singing Brakeman Jimmie Rodgers that is, to Hank Williams. At the time, he could not use words like blues or rhythm and blues because those would have had him banned from Nashville what with the terrible race divide in America. But certainly, there’s a lot of blues in his music.
DA: The stories of his life say that he was taught to play guitar on some level by an itinerant Black blues musician in his hometown. There’s a strong connection to that music with Hank. Unquestionably.
Dustin, your son is named Hiram after Hank Williams.
DA: Yeah. Like I said, Hank’s music has always resonated really deeply with me. I don’t know what it was but reading about Hank and [that] his actual given name was Hiram… Even that was something [that led me to think], “Man, that’s such a great name. If I ever have a son, I want to name him Hiram.” When my wife was pregnant and leading up [to his birth] everybody assumed that because he was named after Hank Williams that we were going to end up calling him Hank. We never have. But it’s a joke now that when he’s being more difficult, and he’s having some of his tough moments, we say, “Hank’s coming out.”
TP: Hanks coming out of him, there you go.
DA: He got a little bit of that wild streak from ol’ Hank.
