Rodney Crowell credits Hank Williams with having a profound influence on his career, and it all started 18 days before Hank died on New Year’s Day in 1953. 

“My father and I were big Hank Williams Sr. fans—he actually took me to see him when I was 2 years, 4 months old,” says Rodney, now 65. “Hank did a show in Houston on Dec. 14, 1952, right before he died, and my dad told me about that night over and over again until it became my own memory.”

Due to Rodney’s extensive knowledge of both Hank’s life and his body of work—not to mention his own reputation as one of the most celebrated modern-day country singer/songwriters—the two-time Grammy winner was tapped to serve as executive music producer of I Saw the Light, the biopic based on Hank’s life that hits theaters in limited release, Friday (March 25).

A large part of the gig consisted of transforming Tom Hiddleston—an actor best known in the United States for his roles in The Avengers and Thor franchises—from poised English stage actor into the gruff, troubled and often unpredictable icon. For five weeks, Tom lived in the upstairs suite of Rodney’s Nashville-area home, during which the 35-year-old Brit only went into town twice. 

“He dedicated himself to the role to the point that he had no social life at all,” Rodney says. “We spent 16 hours a day playing music, talking, conceiving what needed to be done. And what needed to be done was an actor classically trained to amplify his baritone voice to the back of a West End theater in London adopting these high, reedy tenor sounds like Williams’. To Tom’s credit, and to mine, we went about deconstructing a method of making sounds in order that he could yodel. We worked really hard.” MORE…