Hank Williams – Lord, Build Me a Cabin in Glory

“Lord, Build Me a Cabin in Glory” is one of those quiet gospel standards that moved through churches, radio programs and small record labels long before it ever settled into the catalogs of bigger stars. The tune is usually credited to Curtis L. Stewart and was circulated among gospel quartets in the 1940s; Hank Williams recorded his own heartfelt rendition as part of the body of sacred material he cut for radio and small-label releases, and that version later showed up on posthumous gospel compilations. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

Hank’s reading of the song is often heard today on collections that gather his Mother’s Best radio recordings and later remastered gospel EPs. Those releases didn’t all appear during his lifetime — many were compiled and cleaned up decades later — but they helped preserve a Hank who could be gentler and more intimate than the honky-tonk outlaw image that later dominated his legend. The track’s presence on modern streaming and remaster packages is part of a reshaping of how people think about Hank’s musical range. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

There are small stories that travel with the song. Family lore passed down by descendants of Curtis Stewart and anecdotes from early gospel performers suggest the song was already well known among church groups before stars outside the gospel circuit picked it up. A line often told in collector circles is that Stewart’s grandchildren would take particular pride in hearing Hank or other country artists record their grandfather’s hymn — a reminder that these songs belonged first to congregations and neighborhood choirs. :contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}

Hank recorded a fair amount of spiritual material for radio and local sessions, and those performances have an intimacy different from his MGM studio singles. He sang these songs in smaller rooms, sometimes with minimal accompaniment, and the takes that survive feel more like someone offering a private prayer than a commercial performance. People who study his radio work note that those gospel moments reveal a side of Hank that responds to the same home- and faith-shaped rhythms that grounded many of his peers. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

The song’s life didn’t stop with Hank. Other country and gospel artists—looking to bridge church music and country audiences—also recorded it, and it appears on playlists and albums that chart the cross-pollination between those worlds. That continuing interest shows how a simple hymn about longing for a place of rest could find purchase across styles and decades. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}

What keeps “Lord, Build Me a Cabin in Glory” alive is not any single grand arrangement but the small human things around it: the people who sang it in backyard revivals, the radio announcers who cued it up late at night, and the family members who could say, decades later, “my grandfather wrote those words.” Hank’s version is useful precisely because it listens more than it performs; it preserves a hymn’s practical comfort and, by doing so, keeps a thread of ordinary faith visible in the larger story of American country music.