US Festival '83, Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino, CA, 6-4-1983 - Day 4, Part 1: Hank Williams, Jr.

When people talk about the 1983 US Festival, if they know anything at all, they probably talk about the first three days of the festival. But there was a much lesser known fourth day. It was in the same location, but was separated in time by several days. That's because the theme of the fourth day was Country Day, and it was assumed that the types of fans who wanted to see that would be very different than the types who attended the previous three days, with a focus on new wave and heavy metal.

The attendance went way down for Country Day. I couldn't find exact numbers, but I read one of the musicians on stage guessed it was about 50,000 people. The list of acts was impressive, but the Los Angeles area was far from the best place in the U.S. to have such a concert.

I was able to find at least some music from all the acts for the first three days, but that definitely wasn't the case for Country Day. In fact, I could only find three. Here are the acts I was unable to find any music from whatsoever:

The Thrasher Brothers
Ricky Skaggs
Emmylou Harris
Alabama
Riders in the Sky

Frankly, I've never even heard of a couple of those, since I'm not a big country fan. But I would have liked to hear some of them, especially Emmylou Harris. If anyone has any of this and wants to pass it on to me so I can post it, that would be great. Curiously, there's a website called "Historic Films" that has film footage of most or all of the 1983 US Festival, including Country Day. Unfortunately, it's not available for the general public. One has to pay for a special account, and then it costs a $100 for each hour of film, and I'm sure there are severe limitations on the rights to use that. So that's kind of a non starter. But it shows the recordings still exist, at least.

There also are no audio bootlegs that I know of from Country Day. I have a small amount of music from the set by Hank Williams, Jr. because I found a video of it on YouTube. 

Hank Williams, Jr., naturally, is the son of country legend Hank Williams. He's had a very successful country music career of his own. He was only four years old when his father died, in 1953. At first, he struggled to find success in music as a Hank Williams imitator. But in the mid-1970s he discovered his own style, influenced by Southern rock. He had a banner year in 1982, when nine of his albums of original material were in the country album charts at the same time. One song from that year, "A Country Boy Can Survive," was one of the best selling country songs that year.

Here's his Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

Hank Williams Jr. - Wikipedia

This album is only 14 minutes long. Although that's very short, we're lucky that it includes his two biggest hits, "A Country Boy Can Survive" and "All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)."

001 Hank Williams Junior Junior (Hank Williams Jr.)
002 Honky Tonkin' (Hank Williams Jr.)
003 If You Don't Like Hank Williams [Kiss My Ass] (Hank Williams Jr.)
004 A Country Boy Can Survive (Hank Williams Jr.)
005 All My Rowdy Friends [Have Settled Down] (Hank Williams Jr.)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17205639/VA-1983USFstvlDay0401HnkWllimsJr_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JZfGtp74

The Country Day of the US Festival is so obscure that I couldn't find a single photo of Williams from it, not even in black and white. But since there is the YouTube video footage I mentioned above, I took a screenshot from that and used it for the cover.

UPDATE: On October 6, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.