Various Artists: The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams

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By putting music to unfinished Hank Williams songs, some of the biggest names in pop and country have created “a veritable holy grail for fans,” said Neil McCormick in the London Telegraph. These songs aren’t “weak experiments and rejects, but gems that Williams never got around to demoing.” Entrusted with lyric books Williams left behind, Bob Dylan assembled a wide range of musicians to record the songs, including country stalwarts Alan Jackson and Merle Haggard, and such indie pop stars as Norah Jones and Jack White. It’s not just the country artists who do the material justice, said Steve Morley in Country Weekly. Even “the most un-country voices have a unique, soulful quality that makes them suited for the deeply felt sentiments” of the songs. The most touching moment comes courtesy of Hank’s granddaughter Holly Williams and her father, Hank Jr., as they “use their late forebear’s own words to lament his very absence.” If you like country drama, “it doesn’t get any better.”

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