Hank Williams Jr.

Hank Williams Jr. (born 1949) spent the first part of his career in the shadow of his legendary father, recording country standards and performing as a Hank Williams tribute act at his mother's insistence. A near-fatal mountain climbing accident in 1975 — he fell 442 feet down Ajax Peak in Montana, fracturing his skull — gave him the freedom to reinvent himself. He re-emerged aligned with the outlaw country movement, collaborating with Waylon Jennings and Charlie Daniels, and developed a harder-edged country rock sound that was entirely his own. Family Tradition (1979) was his commercial breakthrough. Throughout the 1980s he had an uninterrupted run of 29 Top Ten country hits. His Monday Night Football theme Are You Ready for Some Football became one of the most recognizable sports anthems in America.