I gotta reason for this… I am a Hasil Adkins fan, and, was a good friend of his, took him on a Southern tour many moons back, a swell buddy who took me on many horrifying turns. Love him still. He passed away a couple of years ago. So, now, I have a documentary filmmaker beating at the door, and want to do Hasil right. I know what I want to say, and have a deep knowing of the Haze’s conversation’s with me in some good midnight ones.
Do any of y’all know Hasil Adkins? If so, what would you want to know about him? I have a two week window here with the filmaker coming back to interview me… I can do Ok on me own self, but thought I would throw it out to the good SD minds.
elelle, did Hasil Adkins ever play at the Down Home in Johnson City, TN? I saw a colorful artist in the early/mid 90’s who told a story/sang a song about a rooster that lived for some time after its head was cut off.
Beau, he may well have done that. Or it could have been his compatriot Jesco, who is featured in some WVa documentaries. I’m thinking now that Hasil is beyond the scope of the SD, but, have seen some folks here post about him in years past. Here’s a Filmmaker to interview me, and I want to give Hasil all due, so, asking for other good ???
I’ve got his album What the Hell Was I Thinking?, plus a few other songs on compilations here and there. I never saw him play, but when he played a show here in Memphis in about 2002-ish, I arrived (from work) right after he’d finished and saw him walking around in the bar.
What would I like to know? Hmm. Here are a couple of questions I’d like answered:
[ul]
[li]Is the story about how he became a one-man band true? I.e., he heard a Hank Williams song on the radio and when the DJ said, “That was Hank Williams,” he assumed it was just one guy playing all the instruments, and so he taught himself to do the same.[/li][li]What was it like to just hang out with him? What did he generally chat about, when he wasn’t being interviewed or something? Did you hang out at his place? What was that like?[/li][li]Who is the song “Your Memories” about? Is there a story there?[/li][li](This may sound disrespectful, but I certainly don’t mean it that way; I’m genuinely curious.) What did he smell like? I’ve always suspected, based only on a general intuition, that he had a distinctive smell.[/li][li]What kind of music did he listen to? Did he have “influences”? Did he see his music as an evolving style, or just something that he did? To me, he never seemed to consider himself an “artist”; so what DID he consider himself to be? What did he consider other musicians to be?[/li][li]Did he ever hear the Cramps’ cover of “She Said”? What did he think of it? Did he ever meet the Cramps?[/li][/ul]
Thanks for starting this thread, elelle; I’m curious to read answers to this; he was (to me) an enigmatic guy, maybe the most truly “outside” of all “outsider artists.”