Nashville, TE (Top40 Charts/ Jennifer Brantley Official Website) - The story behind the song began when
Glenn was approached in 1958 by Hank's first wife, Audrey, who told him that she had found some old lyrics of Hanks that he never finished writing. She asked Glenn, who was a big fan of Hanks, to finish writing the lyrics and to come up with a Hank Williams' style melody for the song.Although
Glenn was young at the time, he had already written songs for Johnny Cash, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and others.
George Jones had just taken two of Glenn's songs to record. But the main reasons Audrey chose
Glenn were because she knew that
Glenn sang a lot of Hank's songs on his personal appearances and that he would probably come closer to finishing the song as Hank would have wanted.
Glenn waited until he had written more songs for Johnny Cash, George Jones, Bob Dylan, Tammy Wynette, Tennessee Ernie and many others before he attempted to finish writing the song Hank had started. In 1974, he was living in Tucson, Arizona, when he completed the song and mailed it to Acuff-Rose, Hank's publisher.
He sent them a copy of the original Hank Williams lyrics along with a demo of the song. They had the handwriting checked by a hand writing expert, who concluded that it was indeed Hank William's handwriting.
In June of 1974, Fred Rose Music issued a publishing contract on the song, showing the writers as Hank Williams and Glenn D. Tubb.
Before Glenn moved back to Nashville, Audrey died in November of 1975. He doesn't know if Audrey ever heard the finished product. After Glenn returned to Nashville, he went to Acuff-Rose and had a meeting about the song. Because of some disagreements, the song was essentially buried until now.
Glenn met Jennifer Brantley in August of this year at a guitar pull dinner party in Nashville. After Jennifer heard the song and Glenn heard her voice, it was decided that Jennifer should record the song.
Jennifer, a singer and an award winning songwriter, favors vintage country music. A few years ago, Bil VornDick, a producer with numerous Grammy credits to his name (including Alison Kraus, Bela Fleck, Ralph Stanley), heard Jennifer sing at a Nashville club. The two met a couple of times and soon after Bil produced her CD, Break Down, released September 4, 2006.
It was broadcast on over 153 radio stations and has received radio airplay worldwide, on both country and Americana stations.
She has won two awards from Billboard's World Songwriting Contests. Her Myspace page has amassed over 20,000 fans. One of her songs recently reached No 6 on New Music Weekly's Up and Coming country radio charts. Jennifer has appeared as a guest on the second longest running radio show, 'Ernest Tubb's Midnight Jamboree,' and several times on the world famous station, WSM 650 AM, this past year.
She appears with country legend Razzy Bailey on his latest CD, 'I'm a Damn Good Time.'
'Heartbroken Forsaken and Alone' can be downloaded on her website: JenniferBrantley.com through SNOCAP . It will be available on itunes and Amazon in mid December. Available for radio at Airplaydirect.com
