Flashback: Hank Williams Jr. Throws a ‘Rowdy’ Party
To revisit the 1984 music video for Hank Williams Jr.‘s “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” is to return to a time in country music when characters reigned. Actual, honest-to-goodness, no-stylist-on-the-payroll mavericks. And despite cameos from some of country’s wildest dudes, there was no bigger character on the “Rowdy Friends” set than Bocephus.
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Wearing shirts that apparently didn’t have buttons, “Hank”-emblazoned suspenders and a shit-eating grin bigger than his straw cowboy hat, Williams was all wild-eyed energy, whether cavorting with women in matching pre-Robert Palmer leotards or hamming it up on a ramshackle yard-party stage. His comic masterstroke, however, was clumsily acting out the opening lyric of the song — “I’ve got ketchup on my blue jeans, I just burned my hand” — during a surreal segment with Paul Williams.
And that’s before all hell breaks loose. Williams (Paul, not Hank Jr.) leads a party-hearty charge to Casa de Bocephus, with familiar faces from country, rock and even comedy in tow. George Jones is spotted — naturally — on a riding lawnmower. George Thorogood shows up in a hot rod. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong stumble out of a smoke-filled limo. And Porter Wagoner woos a young girl with his…pen.
When Paul Williams arrives, he does so with Little Jimmy Dickens, the two of them hossing a keg of beer bigger than the famously diminutive Dickens into the party.
But the cool cameos belong to the usual suspects: Kris Kristofferson, in black leather and a Hank Williams T-shirt, makes eyes at a woman; while Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson engage in a game of poker — with a parrot.
The capper? In a nod to Junior’s famous pops, a guy dressed as Hank Sr. pulls up — and then flies away — in a spectral Cadillac.
Look closely and you’ll see Nelson sporting a T-shirt that reads “Life’s a bitch, then you die — have a good day,” but thanks to Williams’ all-star shindig, the party goes on forever.