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M
ERCURY
And The Rowleys
Milano, Texas... the site of Horton's death. Dido Row-
ley recalls that they were indeed in the car, and that
Horton became upset, but doesn't remember where
they were. Williams was one of Horton's obsessions.
He later tried to make contact with Williams' spirit,
and he began to lay in the arms that had held Hank
Williams through his last troubled weeks.
A
s she would be the first to admit, it's difficult to
tell from Billie Jean's language that she is a min-
ister. Born on June 6, 1933, she was ordained in
1978. Her mode of expression, laced as it is with ex-
pletives and the occasional threat, isn't in keeping
with any religious order that comes to mind, but she
is at least forthright and not shy of speaking her
mind. She guards her interests with tenacity, for
which no one can blame her. And there is a strange
spirituality within her. When she sets aside her evis-
cerating manner, she betrays a thoughtfulness and
ability to set her life and that of others into a broader
sweep.
"I knew when I was five years old, dragging that cotton
sack, that if I ever got off that son-of-a-bitch, I'd never be
back,"
she said. Married at sixteen, she got pregnant
without ever really understanding how. Her first
daughter, Jeri Lynn, was born in March 1950. By that
point, or shortly afterward, her first husband, Harri-
son Eshliman, was history.
Billie Jean became aware of Johnny Horton when she
was with Hank Williams.
"Hank knew Johnny better
than I did,"
she told journalist John Prime.
"Hank was
actually a fan of Johnny's. He would stop the car if we
were riding along and Johnny came on the radio. I re-
member the last record Hank heard him sing, 'The Child's
Side Of Life,' which was a real dog. After it was over, he
turned it off and said, 'No son, this one ain't gonna make
it.' But he told me that one day Johnny would be one of
the biggest stars in the business."
After Hank's death on
January 1, 1953, it was discovered that he hadn't
been legally married to Billie Jean because her di-
vorce from Eshliman wasn't final. Hank's first wife,
Audrey, used this as leverage to force a settlement.
On August 19, 1953, Billie Jean signed an agreement
with Audrey and the estate in which she relinquished
all rights to Hank's estate and to any future income
from it, and agreed not to perform as
"Mrs. Hank
Williams."
Billie and her attorney had been persuaded
that the chance of income beyond 1953 was
"slight
and speculative,"
and that she would be better off tak-
ing a one-time settlement instead of fighting a pro-
tracted legal battle. The agreement was very specific,
right down to requiring Billie Jean to divulge the lo-
cation of Hank's horse. In exchange, she received
thirty thousand dollars. It was a sum that barely paid
off the debt of Johnny Horton, whom she married one
month later, on September 26, 1953.
"Johnny Horton was a great guy,"
said Billie Jean with
genuine tenderness.
"He wouldn't try to jump your
bones and make a pass. He was a good person. Hand-
some. Talented. There was nothing about him not to love,
and no damn in-laws to bug the hell out of me."
The lat-
ter remark was a not-so-veiled reference to Hank
Williams' mother. By all accounts, she got along well
with Claudia and John Loly. But, unlike Williams,
Horton's earning power was still minimal. The
Hayride gigs paid almost nothing, and bookings in
the Ark-La-Tex triangle (south-west Arkansas, north-
west Louisiana and north-east Texas) were scant and
low-paying.
"Johnny loved me, or I'm assuming he did,"
Billie Jean says cagily.
"He needed a family. He wasn't
hung up on music like Hank. He'd rather fish and hunt.
He certainly wasn't into working all day, either. He would
have quit music. He was tired of all that crap out on the
road – the pills and so on. He didn't like to be around
"Johnny needed a
family. He wasn't hung up
on music like Hank.
He'd rather fish and hunt.
He certainly
wasn't into working
all day, either.
BILLIE JEAN