Deep Roots, Hard Times, Family Tradition

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Hank Williams Sr. has cast a shadow across country music that not even the
most pop-influenced, most country-rock rebel, can escape.  From Waylon
Jennings singing "Are You Sure Hank Done it This Way?" to Alan Jackson's
heartfelt plea, "We don't all have to sound like Hank, but once in a while
would be nice," Hank Sr. has touched every life, every aspect of country
music.  His son struggled to escape from that shadow until he grew old
enough to embrace it, and sang his first "duet" with his "long-gone daddy"
in 1983, through a forgotten recording Hank Sr. left behind and the magic
of modern video technology. 

Now Hank Jr. has roped his own son, Shelton Hank - Hank III - into an
entire album with the Patron Saint of Honky-Tonk, their distinguished
ancestor, and while Shelton Hank has been known to speak disparagingly of
this project, it must be acknowledged that Hank III has been known to speak disparagingly of just about everything he's done.  Whether or not Hank III actually does or does not like this disc is quite beside the point.  It's a loving tribute to the late, great Hank Sr.  It's a joyous clash of style that works in happy harmony. But more than anything else, "Men With Broken Hearts" is a celebration of a country music dynasty.  The album starts out with Hank Sr.'s ironic last recording: "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive."  It was almost as though Hank knew what his hard life had done, and he knew how to make a graceful bow and quit the stage.  Here the two younger Hanks team up for an introduction into what you're going to hear with the rest of this disc.

Since Hank Sr. is limited by the linear nature of time to singing the lead
vocals, it's up to Hank Jr. to take his warm baritone to the low registers,
and for Hank III to take his own hillbilly tenor to the upper ranges.  They
share lead vocals by switching off with the ghost of granddaddy. 
There is a lot of discussion about the extreme resemblance Shelton Hank
bears to Hiram Hank.  True, there is a great similarity - but there is
still no doubt whatsoever that Hank III is his own man, no matter how many
people remark how much he looks or sounds like his granddaddy.  Put them
side-by-side in a recording, and their differences come clear.

They put that to the test again with a re-recording of Hank Sr.'s classic
"Move It On Over."  This rockin' honky-tonkin' track actually bears more of
a resemblance to George Thoroughgood''s remake than it does to the
original; but the testament of how well it stands up, and how much of a
rocker Hank Sr. actually was, is demonstrated by the fact that his vocals
do not at all seem out of place in this southern-fried rocker. 

The good start continues as Hank Sr. and Hank III duet on "Moanin' the
Blues," and then Hank Jr. solos with a little-known Hank Sr. song, "Never
Again."  The three team up again for "I'm A Long Gone Daddy," then again
for "Honky Tonk Blues" and "I Won't Be Home No More."  Hank III throws his awesome pipes behind "'Neath A Cold Gray Tomb of Stone," and then all three join together for my personal favorite track, "Where the Soul of a Man Never Dies." Again, Hank Jr's baritone and Hank III's "high lonesome" sound weave together with Hank Sr.'s hillbilly vocals, and, with the added bonus of Miss Audrey singing high backup, wow...  It's an experience.  Hank Jr. takes another solo for "Hand Me Down," a song of his own, with Hank III providing harmony.  "Men With Broken Hearts" is a spoken-word poem from the pen of "Luke the Drifter" (the gospel pseudonym of Hank Sr.), eloquently and heart-felt from all three Hanks, and then the disc closes with the standard classic, "Lost Highway." 

For a novelty, it's a hell of a listenable album.  For a standard market?
Probably not.  Although, in going through an old Hank Sr. songbook of my
own father's, I found an interesting quote that amused me, particularly in
light of today's "Hot New Country." 

Country music is no longer considered "hillbilly," even in Nashville.
And one of the reasons it has moved "uptown" is because of Hank Williams, despite his deep rural roots, because no other country performer's songs, up until the time of Williams, successfully spanned the gulf between what is called "pop" and "country."  I once asked a very successful popular New York singer about Hank Williams' songs, and why he included a couple in every performance: "They have soul, brother.  That's why everybody sings 'em.  They deal with feelings, and feelings about love and loneliness are the same in Detroit as in Mobile.  You can fake a lot of things in this world, friend - but you can't fake the truth.  And if you got truth, you got universal appeal.  And greater people than me will tell you that Hank Williams' songs have that."  - Melvin Shestack, 1974.

Odd the way things work out.  The more they change, the more they stay the same.  Still, I can't think of any artist today who will still be recording
nearly 50 years post-mortem, no matter how they bridge that gulf between
pop and country.  Both the younger Hanks seem to think so, too.

Kathy Coleman Take Country Back February 2002