He’s the King of Country Western Troubadours. He’s “every womern’s dream and every jealous husband’s nightmare.” He’s Unknown Hinson. Named after his father, it’s all in black-and-white right there on his birth certificate: Mama – Miss Hinson, Daddy – Unknown.
Hinson’s path to Country Western legend was carved out of the rural rough-south wanderings of a six-truck carnival, where at the age of fourteen, Hinson quickly made a name for himself as the star attraction on the midway. He regularly performed 12 shows a night, handling snakes, biting the heads off “certain domestic fowls,” screaming and making faces at the audience, and for his finale, lifting a 25-pound weight with his bare tongue.
It was on the midway that Hinson began to establish his reputation as the true forefather of Country Western music. He began incorporating performances of his “chart-toppin’ hits” into his midway act, and it wasn’t long before the Nashville record men came calling. The rest would have been part of country music history, and would surely have been chronicled in the annals of the Country Music Hall of Fame…but then a diabolical scheme derailed the Unknown Hinson train.
Certain cowboy hat wearing singers, fellows with names like Roy, Hank, and Ernest, all men with aspirations of becoming famous, devised a plan to remove Hinson from his rightful position as the King of Country Western Troubadours. Hinson found himself the patsy in a frame-up of epic proportions, and was brought to trial. The charges brought against him included murder, grave robbing, vampirism, and even copyright infringement, which was the most troublesome of all for Hinson. Sentenced to twenty years in prison, an error in judgment came in the form of Hinson’s threatening to “whup the judge’s butt” and he was strapped with an extra ten years.
Thirty years later, Hinson emerged to re-claim his kingdom, but he soon realized that “yore rakkerd sales will drop off if you do thirty years in the joint.” So he hit the road with his show-date band, Tiny on bass, Buddy Boy on drums, and his faithful man-servant Gustav (whom Hinson claims to have re-animated from the grave), and began reacquainting himself with his fans.
Although Hinson is a staunch opponent of Rock and Roll, often berating rock fans in his audiences by shouting “Rawk is straight from hell! Any idiot can make that racket,” he’s toured with the likes of Reverend Horton Heat and Hank Williams III, and he frequently tears into songs by The Who or Jimi Hendrix, complete with blazing guitar work, just to show his fans that “It don’t take no talent to play that mess.”
Hinson’s re-emergence didn’t go unnoticed, and it wasn’t long before the Nashville record men came calling again. With a little prodding, and a rumored meeting that allegedly involved a brief encounter with Hinson’s infamous pistol, Capitol Records offered Hinson a recording contract.
Today, Hinson’s career is back on track, and it won’t be long before the world will understand the reckoning as “The King” embarks on his show-date tour and releases his first CD for Capitol, The Future is Unknown, fueled by his “chart-toppers” like “Man to Man,” “Polly Urethane,” “I Ain’t Afraid of Your Husband,” and “Hippie Girl.”
When asked about what the future will bring for Unknown Hinson, his reply is simple.
“I don’t worry about the future. After all…The Future IS Unknown, Babaaaaaaaay!”
Advance tickets available online and at local outlets..
Standing room only.
Hank Williams III
Hank 3
Burnsey’s our winner! I will be in touch.