According to singer Ward Hayden, the ultimate motivation for the tribute to Hank Williams that he and his band, Girls Guns and Glory, put on Sunday afternoon is the big influence Williams has had on their music. The more immediate reason for the tribute, however, was to mark the occasion of that icon’s death 59 years ago on Jan. 1, and to celebrate the music he left behind.
These sorts of affairs can go two ways: faithful reiteration of the originals, or looser versions that allow more room for interpretation. Girls Guns and Glory went down both paths. For the first half of the show, they dialed things back in a manner intended to provide an explicit evocation of Hank. The band’s four members, augmented by fiddle player Jason Anick, swapped out their typical performance attire for suits and ties. Hayden also sported a fedora in the style that Hank typically wore, and sang into a microphone encased in a replica of the old Grand Ole Opry mike stand, complete with the WSM logo (for the Nashville radio station), but updated with the band’s name.
