Review: Hank Williams Jr. almost gets rowdy at the State Fair

Thirty-two years is a long time, especially in the music business.

Hank Williams, the first superstar of country music, lived only 29 years. His famous son, Hank Williams Jr., headlined at the Minnesota State Fair grandstand Wednesday, exactly 32 years after he last performed there.

That’s not a record. Diana Ross went 56 years between her State Fair appearance with the Supremes in 1966 and her return as a magnificent diva in 2022.

In 32 years, not much has changed with Hank Jr., as everyone calls him. (For those keeping track, he made his State Fair debut at age 19 in 1968 in Marty Robbins’ revue.)

He’s pretty much a time warp, back to when he sold more records than any other country artist in the second half of the 1980s, back when he grabbed a Grammy and two Entertainer of the Year trophies from the Country Music Association.

Hank Jr. was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2020 along with Wednesday’s opening act, Marty Stuart, who last played the grandstand in 1996 (and first played it as part of Johnny Cash’s show in 1980).

The scene: It was a Wednesday night, and hump night isn’t exactly party night for the over-50 crowd that remembers Hank’s heyday. To be sure, there were plenty of old Hank Jr. T-shirts in the stands and a sizable line to buy new tees declaring “Bocephus is my family tradition.” But all his rowdy friends must have settled down since there were only 7,331 fans, modest for a grandstand country concert.

Hank Jr. is a combination of boogie, bluster, braggadocio and respect for others in his collection of self-referential, self-reverential, name-dropping songs. He showcased his versatility as a musician — on guitar, fiddle and piano — and song stylist, embracing rock ‘n’ roll, blues, country, bluegrass, Southern rock and lots of boogie.

Backed by a seven-piece, guitar-heavy band, Hank Jr. did covers of five of his father’s tunes and one song each by Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Jerry Lee Lewis as well as his own old-school country tunes, including the title track from his most recent album, 2022’s “Rich White Honky Blues.”

Biggest takeaway: The biggest change by Hank Jr. in all these decades was his frequent rotation of head gear in 70 minutes onstage — Icon ball cap (Icon is his record label), cowboy hat, John Deere ball cap, fedora, camo bucket hat, Icon cap again. And maybe he’s less ornery than he used to be — he is 76 — but he still showed a rambunctious spirit. In any case, Hank still does it his way, performing only 20 to 25 shows a year, many with Kid Rock.

Coolest moment: When he tore into the inevitable “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight,” which he adapted into the theme song for “Monday Night Football” for more than 25 years, he showed clips of the Vikings, including J.J. McCarthy and Justin Jefferson.

Low point: Hank Jr. has never been a threat to win a male vocalist of the year prize. While he can belt with whiskey-fueled bravado, his way with ballads left something to be desired.