The Unreleased Recordings [Long Box] (CD - 2008)

Personnel: Hank Williams (vocals, guitar); Cousin Louie Buck (spoken vocals); Samuel K. "Sammy" Pruett (guitar); Jerry Rivers (fiddle); Howard Watts (bass guitar); Audrey Williams (background vocals).

Liner Note Author: Colin Escott.

As important as any country music release in the digital era, HANK WILLIAMS: THE UNRELEASED RECORDINGS finds Williams delivering some of the most impactful performances of his career. Captured during his artistic zenith in 1951 for the Mother's Best Flour Company, these sessions' acetates were forgotten until the 1970s. Eventually Williams's daughter Jett won a protracted legal battle and partnered with Time Life for their release. Mastered without the severe compression that bedeviled his most famous studio recordings, the 143 tracks foreground Williams's expressive vocal delivery as it seesaws between a yearning rustic croon and shiv-sharp, reedy wail. A loose Hank jokes with his studio band and even tells stories about some of the songs as he introduces them. Touching upon his classics like "Cold, Cold Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin'," and "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You)," the bulk of the three discs comprises songs that pop up nowhere else in the country god's catalog. Among these many standouts include charged readings of "On Top of Old Smokey," the cowboy standard "Cool Water," and the Luke the Drifter song "Pictures from Life's Other Side" (with a never-before-heard extra verse). An essential purchase for country music fans and enthusiasts of all stripes. minimize