William Herbert York

Who was William Herbert York?

William Herbert "Lum" York, was a musician best known as the bass player in Hank Williams Drifting Cowboys from 1944–1949. After leaving the Drifting Cowboys, York played bass in Lefty Frizzell's band until 1953. York continued to perform until weeks before his death and was a fan favorite at the Hank Williams festival in Georgiana, Alabama.

In rural Alabama, the depression days of the 1930s and early 1940s were rough. Lum York remembers "I only had two pairs of overalls. My mother washed on Wednesdays so I had to wear them all week long."

Lum was born on November 16, 1918 as William Herbert York in the tiny hamlet of Elmore, just about 15 miles north of Montgomery, Alabama. Farming is a hard life at best. This was one of the worst times. Poverty gripped the rural south with an iron fist. To eke out a meager living, crops demanded grueling service. Lum was a schoolboy before they moved to a house with electricity. But life was more than just the backbreaking work of picking cotton and tilling the vegetable patch. On Saturday nights when the family gathered around the radio the Grand Ole Opry, Lum’s lifelong love of music was born. When he was 12, his older brother bought a guitar.