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Article published Jun 1, 2007 A king of a different sort: Unknown Hinson brings the weirdness to town
By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff
He’s the self-declared “King of Country Western Troubadours,” but Unknown Hinson doesn’t think twice about rattling off a rock ‘n’ roll lick or two.
Not that he prefers the rock to his beloved honky-tonk ballads, trail songs and cowboy tales. He just likes to show off.
“Occasionally I do play the rock,” Hinson told The Daily Times this week. “I have to play it for the young folks and the pretty womens, but I do it as a disclaimer and to show them it don’t take no talent to do it. Now, country and Western — that takes talent. Long story short, I reckon that country-Western, by my definition, is music from the heart. It’s music from real life experiences, based on the music our forefathers brought here when they settled from the ancient, old countries.
“There’s a lot of different offshoots of what I call country and Western, but what they call country on the radio ain’t really country to me. It’s mass-produced pablum put out by the record labels, sung by all these pretty boys in black cowboy hats who pantomime during their shows. That don’t qualify to me. Real country is a string band, good lyrics, a good message in the song and unforgettable lyrics.”
Long pause. No laughter. Hinson is deadly serious, and by some accounts, just plain dead.
Urban legend has it that, according to Wikipedia, “The Unknown Hinson is a hell-raisin’, hard-drinkin’ country and western singer who is also purported to be a 400-year-old hillbilly vampire. Unknown Hinson was an only child, named after his daddy (‘says right there on my birth certificate — Mama: Miss Hinson. Daddy: Unknown.’), raised by his mother who gave him his first guitar.
“After his mother’s mysterious disappearance, he ran off and joined the circus as part of the sideshow, where he learned how to lift 50-pound weights with his tongue, among various other talents. Hinson was later arrested on various trumped-up charges, including three counts of murder, 19 paternity suits, vampirism and random grave-robbing offenses. Falsely imprisoned for 30 years, he was released in 1993 to reclaim his long-denied musical legacy.”
His Web site biography is a little more down-to-earth ... but not much. He doesn’t claim to be any sort of vampire, actually; that label came about through an encounter with a group of goth kids that the Charlotte, N.C., had while living and playing in Los Angeles.
“I lived in LA for a while, back in 2002, and I done a residency out there off of Hollywood Boulevard at a place called the Knitting Factory,” he said. “I played there for a couple of months, along with other places around Orange County and Hollywood. Well, out there, they’ve got these gothic-type people, these guys and gals who wear a lot of makeup — a lot of black lipstick and all that mess.
“Well, these folks are obsessed with the extra-natural. They saw me and said, ‘Dude! You’re dark, and you’ve got a widow’s (he pronounces it “widder’s”) peak and thick eyebrows! You’ve got pointed teeth and dress all in black, just like Dracula (pronounced, in Hinson’s vernacular, as “Drack-ler”)!” So they put that together and thought I was a vampire.
“If they want to believe that, that’s fine,” he added. “I don’t say nothing. It’s just like if somebody wants to believe in Santa Claus, that’s fine with me, too.”
Picking out what’s reality, what’s fiction and where the line blurs both in Hinson’s head and in the read world can be tricky. He claims his father was a “drunk, no-account devil from hell,” and he speaks reverently of his mother. Somewhere around 1992, he gained regional popularity in North Carolina with a self-produced TV show, and he managed to parlay that into an outrageous, campy, white-trash persona with sleazy overtones and a penchant for playing mean, driving, rockabilly and crooning deranged country-Western songs of his own making.
He’s gained something of a following among his more famous peers; both Hank III (as in, son of Hank Williams Jr. and grandson of Hank Sr.) and the Reverend Horton Heat have both played and toured with Hinson. Actor and singer-songwriter Billy Bob Thornton names Hinson as one of his favorite songwriters ... Marty Stuart introduced Hinson as his “illegitimate brother” on-stage at the Ryman Auditorium ... Tom Petty came backstage at a Hollywood show asking Hinson how he obtained his “sound” ... and the Rolling Stones invited him to participate in the soundcheck session for their most recent show in Charlotte.
“That Hank III, he’s for real — he’s a good feller, and a good friend of mine,” Hinson said. “He’s the real thing; he ain’t got no ego, no ‘don’t-touch-me’ attitude. He gets up there and puts on an honest show, and I think what he’s doing is worthwhile. I consider him to be a fellow country-Western troubadour.
“Really, I respect anybody who’s got success. Any kind of success is hard to come by. You’ve got to earn it, and Tom Petty, the Stones ... them boys have been around for a while, and just because they don’t play what I play doesn’t mean there’s not mutual respect. If it’s well-done and well-performed, I’ve got to give it my respect whether I listen to it or not. It’s like when the fat lady sings at the opry — I may not like the sound, but if it’s done well, it deserves respect.”
Lately, Hinson is gaining recognition in another genre of pop culture — for lending his voice to the character of Early Cuyler in “The Squidbillies,” which airs late nights on The Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block of programming. It’s a paycheck, and it helps pay for Hinson’s affinity for fine guitars and “party liquor,” as he calls it.
But playing live — entertaining and horrifying the masses, as he’ll do Saturday night in Knoxville’s Old City — is where his heart lies. (Or lack thereof, if you buy the vampire story.)
“All I can say is, I’ll be singing my hits, straight from the heart, and playing guitar, straight from the heart,” he said. “I’ll be playing my guts out for all the womens. You’ll see a lot of women fainting and crying and swooning over me, and a lot of jealous husbands wanting to whoop my ass after the show.
“Don’t worry about me, though. I got ways of getting in and out of a theater without being assaulted. I been in the business a pretty good while, so I know how to make a fast exit.”