Jett Williams

Singer

Birthday January 6, 1953

Birth Sign Capricorn

Birthplace Montgomery, Alabama, United States

Age 71 years old

Nationality United States

#24185 Most Popular

1922

Born Antha Belle Jett, she is the daughter of country music icon Hank Williams and Bobbie Jett (1922–1974), whose brief relationship with Hank Williams occurred between his two marriages.

1953

Jett Williams (born Antha Belle Jett; January 6, 1953) is an American singer and songwriter.

She is a posthumous child; born on January 6, 1953, in Montgomery, Alabama, five days after her father's death on January 1.

1954

In December 1954, she was legally adopted by her paternal grandmother, Lillie Williams Stone, who renamed her Catherine Yvonne Stone.

1955

Following her grandmother's death in 1955, Stone was made a ward of the state of Alabama and subsequently adopted by parents who renamed her Cathy Louise Deupree.

1980

Deupree knew she was adopted, but did not learn of her biological parents until the early 1980s.

Although Hank Williams had executed a custody agreement three months before her birth that gave him custody of his unborn daughter, she was forced to go to extreme lengths to prove the relationship and be recognized as Williams' daughter.

1984

In September 1984, she met and retained Washington, D.C. investigative attorney Keith Adkinson to help her.

Within days, he obtained a copy of the custody contract, and within months had conclusive proof Deupree was defrauded for the financial gain of others.

A lawsuit was filed based on this discovery.

1985

In 1985, the Alabama State Court ruled she was the daughter of Hank Williams.

1986

On September 28, 1986, Deupree and Adkinson married in Washington.

1987

On October 26, 1987, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled she was entitled to her half-share in the Williams estate, as she had been the victim of fraud and judicial error.

1990

Hank Williams Jr. appealed the case in federal court, but the ruling stood when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 1990.

In 1990, she published her autobiography Ain't Nothin' as Sweet as My Baby.

1997

The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include live versions of Williams' hits and covers of other songs.

1998

Polygram contended Williams' contract with MGM Records, which Universal Music Nashville now owns since 1998, gave them rights to release the radio recordings.

2000

In 2000, the Tennessee legislature passed HJR 621 designating May 18, 2000, as "Jett Williams Appreciation Day" in Macon County.

2006

In January 2006, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating Hank Williams' heirs — son Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.) and daughter Jett Williams, Hank Jr.'s half-sister — have the sole rights to sell his old recordings made for a Nashville radio station in the early 1950s.

The court rejected claims made by Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother's Best Flour Show, a program that originally aired on WSM.

2008

In October 2008, a selection of the "Mother's Best" recordings was released by Time-Life as Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings.

Jett Williams released a number of albums featuring her own songs, and toured with a version of the Drifting Cowboys to sing her father's songs.

Her nephew Hank Williams III is an ardent critic of her, calling her an atrocious performer and saying that she should have written a book instead.

2013

He died on June 19, 2013.

2016

In 2016, Jett married Kelly Zumwalt.