In the early days of Leon Payne's career, he used to travel from one place to another, trying to find jobs wherever he could.
Once he was in California hitchhiking to Alba, Texas, to visit his sick mother, he was unable to get a ride and finally got help from The Salvation Army.
[4] Payne wrote hundreds of country songs in a prolific career that lasted from 1941 until his death in 1969.
As Williams' biographer Colin Escott observes, "In recent years, 'Lost Highway' has been the title of several books, a stage show, a record label, and a television series.
It's seen as one of Hank's defining records, if not a defining moment in country music, which makes it ironic that it barely dented the charts on release and doubly ironic that it's not even one of Hank's songs.