Hank was not a character that could ever have seen old age. I think the implication of some kind of mystery about his death is just plain crap. The only mystery, which will obviously never be resolved, is "when did he die, exactly?"

He spent the last several months of his life on a routine prescribed by the man referred to in the article as his "physician/supplier". (My source for this info is the Colin Escott biography cited in the article). The objective of the routine was to keep him more or less able to perform.

He was a man who absolutely could not handle alcohol, but had to have it. So they would do this: His handlers would let him have a few beers when he got up in the middle of the day. Then they'd give him a drug to make him throw up, and then try to get him ready for showtime in a reasonably coherent condition. Often, as is well known, they wouldn't succeed, especially if he managed to disappear.

It wasn't unusual that, as noted in the article, he had been beaten up sometime shortly before his death. Ever see what happens to an unruly drunk in a low-life saloon on the wrong side of town? That was Hank whenever he slipped away from his retinue in the evening.   The guy was a walking pharma-toxic cocktail, a corpse that hadn't laid down yet. And he had no body mass to speak of, no ability at all to metabolize any of it.

Another occasion detailed in the book, not mentioned in this article, was his wedding to Billie Jean. The private wedding was one thing; but his management decided to make a bundle from a public, televised wedding, a la Tiny Tim & Miss Vicky, at a grand concert. A spectacle without taste or class, needless to say.

"Alcohol and pills, alcohol and pills,
He wound up on alcohol and pills." (Fred Eaglesmith)

Hank Williams was one of the great artists of the twentieth century, and one screwed up and misused human being.

Willie-O