One of the best things about Bob Dylan’s recently wrapped Rough and Rowdy Ways tour was the location-centric covers he played. Over the course of three shows in Chicago, for example, he performed Nick Gravenites’s “Born in Chicago,” as well as Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters songs. In Austin, Texas just a couple of nights ago, he pulled out Ry Cooder’s “Across the Borderline,” which Willie Nelson covered many years back. But across two nights in Louisiana, in New Orleans and Lafayette, he pulled out two Hank Williams covers: “On the Banks of the Ponchartrain” and “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” the latter of which may have been in honor of Fats Domino’s version.

Hank Williams himself was at #1 on the Billboard Country charts 71 years ago today in 1953, with “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” now an American standard. Hank wrote the song in Autumn of ’52 while reminiscing about his 1st wife Audrey to his fiancée Billie Jean Jones. They were driving to Shreveport to tell Billie’s parents about their engagement. While talking about his 1st marriage, Hank asked Billie to take out his notebook so she could write down the lyrics he was developing after he described Audrey as having a “cheatin’ heart.”

On September 23, 1952 at Nashville’s Castle Studio, in what would be his final recording session, Hank recorded “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” along with “Kaw-Liga” and “Take These Chains From My Heart.” His music publisher Fred Rose produced the session. Don Helms of Hank’s Drifting Cowboys is on steel guitar, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar. “Your Cheatin’ Heart” would be released less than a month after Hank’s death on New Year’s Day ’53, originally as the B-side to “Kaw-Liga.” It has since been recorded more than 330 times. Ray Charles took it to the Top 30 in 1962. Patsy Cline included a version on her final album Sentimentally Yours. Artists from a wide range of genres have covered it, from Van Morrison, Connie Francis, Louis Armstrong, and Ronnie Hawkins, to Kitty Wells, Steve Lawrence, Ace Cannon and James Brown.

But back to Hank. Right about this time in 1952, he made his last television appearance, as part of a Grand Ole Opry segment, on The Kate Smith Evening Hour in New York City. He performed “Hey Good Lookin’,” “Cold Cold Heart,” and a duet with Anita Carter on “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love With You),” with an introduction by June Carter. He also comes back for the full group closing song “I Saw the Light.” Luckily, the appearance survives on You Tube. Check this out:

By the way, Bob Dylan has a great quote where he cites the song “I Saw the Light.” He told Newsweek in 1997, “Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else. Songs like ‘Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain’ or ‘I Saw the Light’-that’s my religion. I don’t adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I’ve learned more from the songs than I’ve learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.”

Today’s Playlist is a SomethingIsHappening compendium of Heart songs in honor or “Your Cheatin’ Heart”:

notice any similarity between this shot and the Hank clip above?