Hank Williams version
Williams adapted the melody for the song from T. Texas Tyler's 1945 recording of "You'll Still Be in My Heart," written by Ted West in 1943. [4]
In the Williams episode of American Masters , country music historian Colin Escott states that Williams was moved to write the song after visiting his wife Audrey in the hospital, who was suffering from an infection brought on by an abortion she had carried out at their home unbeknownst to Hank. Escott also speculates that Audrey, who carried on extramarital affairs as Hank did on the road, may have suspected the baby was not her husband's. Florida bandleader Pappy Neil McCormick claims to have witnessed the encounter:
According to McCormick, Hank went to the hospital and bent down to kiss Audrey, but she wouldn't let him. 'You sorry son of a bitch,' she is supposed to have said, 'it was you that caused me to suffer like this.' Hank went home and told the children's governess, Miss Ragland, that Audrey had a 'cold, cold heart,' and then, as so often in the past, realized the bitterness in his heart held commercial promise. [4]
The first draft of the song is dated November 23, 1950, and was recorded on December 21, 1950, at Castle Studio in Nashville. [4] Williams was backed on the session by members of his Drifting Cowboys band, including Jerry Rivers (fiddle), Don Helms (steel guitar), Chet Atkins (electric guitar), Sammy Pruett (rhythm guitar), Ernie Newton or "Cedric Rainwater", aka Howard Watts (bass), and either Owen Bradley or producer Fred Rose on piano. [5]
Like his earlier masterpiece "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," it was released as the B-side (MGM-10904B) to "Dear John" (MGM-10904A), since it was an unwritten rule in the country music industry that the faster numbers sold best. "Dear John" peaked at #8 after only a brief four-week run on Billboard magazine's country music charts, but "Cold, Cold Heart" proved to be a favorite of disc jockeys and jukebox listeners, whose enthusiasm for the song catapulted it to #1 on the country music charts.
Williams featured the song on his Mother's Best radio shows at the time of its release and performed the song on The Kate Smith Evening Hour on April 23, 1952, which ran from September 1951 to June 1952; the appearance remains one of the few existing film clips of the singer performing live. He is introduced by his idol Roy Acuff. Although a notorious binge drinker, Williams appears remarkably at ease on front of the cameras, with one critic noting, "He stared at the camera during his performance of 'Cold, Cold Heart' with a cockiness and self-confidence that bordered on arrogance." [4]
The song would become a pop hit for Tony Bennett, paving the way for country songs to make inroads into the lucrative pop market. In the liner notes to the 1990 Polygram compilation Hank Williams: The Original Single Collection, Fred Rose's son Wesley states, "Hank earned two major distinctions as a songwriter: he was the first writer on a regular basis to make country music national music; and he was the first country songwriter accepted by pop artists, and pop A&R men."
Controversy
Music journalist Chet Flippo and Kentucky historian W. Lynn Nickell both have asserted that 21-year-old Kentuckian Paul Gilley wrote the lyrics, then sold them to Williams along with the rights, allowing Williams to take credit for it. Gilley also claimed to have written the lyrics to "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and other songs before drowning at the age of 27. [6] [7] [8] [9] The claims have not been widely accepted. [10]
