On January First, 1953, Hank Williams died of heart failure in the back seat of a car on the way to a gig. (He had hired a student to drive him from Alabama to West Virginia to be there. Dedication.) Hank liberated the pop music voice to sound wholeheartedly and powerfully American with unparalleled directness and emotional honesty on the hit song charts in ways no one had done before. He is not the father of The First Amendment but he is for me a pivotal grandfather of modern freedom of speech. The cultural achievements I revere of Dylan, Elvis,...