On October 4th, The Lost Notebook of Hank Williams will be released. As far back as October of 2008, I’ve had serious questions about the origins of these songs, the ethics behind the project, and the artists chosen to flesh out songs that do not include music. Now I have a new concern: why we are being given wrong information.
The Rolling Stone has just reported that a long-rumored project pairing Bob Dylan and Jack White together to oversee the recording of an album of Hank Williams songs that were found without music in a briefcase will be released on October 4th. The title is The Lost Notebook of Hank Williams . It is being released on Dylan’s Egyptian Records imprint…
The grassroots petition to attempt to get country music legend Hank Williams reinstated into the Grand Ole Opry, also known as Reinstate Hank, has reached an important milestone, as the online petition has now crested the 50,000 signature mark. In 1952, Hank Williams was dismissed from the Opry with the understanding that he would sober up and then return to the stage that he loved so much.
Time Life and the Hank Williams estate have announced the release of another collection of rare recordings from the Hillbilly Shakespeare, Hank Williams: The Legend Begins due out September 13th on a 3-disc set. The first CD called “Rare & Unreleased” includes the earliest recordings of Hank Williams, from 1938 when he was only 15-year-old…
On July 26th, the always polarizing “new Outlaw” Eric Church will be releasing his latest album entitled Chief, which includes a song called “Country Music Jesus”. Saving Country Music has learned that the idea behind Eric Church’s “Country Music Jesus” very well might have come from none other than your humble, lovable Triggerman.
Country rap is here ladies and gentlemen. It is a full-blown chart-topping mainstream-acceptable sub-genre of country, like it or not. So what is a country purist to do? Well I have assembled a survivor’s guide to help you rebuke some of the ridiculous claims being made by country rap apologists.
If you’re looking for a work that for the first time zooms out and looks at how tragedy, women, addiction, fatherhood, and music have played out as recurring themes in these three men’s lives, and how they all intertwine, Family Tradition, Three Generations of Hank Williams should be right in your wheelhouse.
When Justin Moore’s “Outlaws Like Me” comes out, I will listen to it with the most un-bias perspective I can muster, and try my best to judge the music beyond the marketing. But in the meantime, I am not going to look at him as the problem, I am going to look my self and ask, “What did I do wrong? How can I resolve this? What can I do to make sure this doesn’t happen in the future?”
Family Tradition, The Three Generations of Hank Williams, a new book by Susan Masino chronicling the lives of Hank Williams, Hank Jr., and Hank III, was just released today via Backbeat Books…she was given “unprecedented access” to Hank III, and being the first print book to deal with his story in detail, it carries a lot of before unknown facts and information about the youngest Hank Williams.
Just announced, this Sunday night (3-27), Hellbound Glory will be broadcasting their performance at Will’s Pub in Orlando, FL on SCM LIVE! Tune in at 9 PM Eastern, 8 Central for opening act Lone Wolf OMB, who just released his debut album a few weeks ago. I just had the fortune of seeing Hellbound Glory less than a week ago at South by Southwest. It’s a rarity to get such a great mix of top notch songwriting, with an energetic…
The Country Music Hall of Fame has just announced that on April 16th, 2011, they will honor Hank Williams in a special presentation called “I Saw The Light, Songwriters Salute Hank.” I Saw the Light, which is presented in conjunction with the Museum’s exhibition Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy…will feature Rodney Crowell, Ashley Monroe, the Secret Sisters and Steve Young. During the program, which will be hosted…
Caleb Klauder has been a well-kept secret of the Pacific Northwest for too damn long my friends. His latest album Western Country proves why. Some may dub him the Wayne Hancock of the West, revitalizing the classic sound without mimicking or mocking it, but his star is bright enough to burn outside the confines of any region.
Rachel Brooke’s Down In The Barnyard was one of my most-anticipated releases for 2011. Then again 2011, especially early, has been full of anticipated releases that have been either disappointments in one way or another, or difficult to wholly appreciate because they’re full of previously-released material. Luckily, Down In The Barnyard delivers.
A feature film named “The Last Ride” about the final days of Hank Williams has been completed and should be released later this year. The movie stars Henry Thomas, the main kid from ET that’s yells “Penis Breath!’ and was shot mostly in Benton, Arkansas with other parts shot at a gas station in Sherwood, AR. It is directed by Harry Thomason, an Arkansas native.
The latest new low is this “duet” by Colt Ford with the aforementioned Kevin Fowler called “Hip Hop in a Honky Tonk.” You can probably guess the premise. 2011 might be the year that the two 2 supergenres of hip hop and country merge into a monogenre as the lost and creatively bankrupt music industry continues to contract, offering no contrast, no creativity, and no choice. What could be a finer example than this.
Hal Leonard Publishing and Backbeat Books have announced the upcoming release of a new title: Family Tradition – The Three Generations of Hank Williams by Susan Masino. The book will be a 256-page hardcover, with a $24.99 asking price. At the moment it is scheduled to be released on May 3rd, 2011.
When the Family Tradition exhibit in the Country Music Hall of Fame opened in March of 2008, covering the lives and careers of Hank Sr., Jr., III, Hilly, Holly, and Jett, it was scheduled to close on Decemeber 31, 2009. Nearly a year later it is still going strong, kept alive by popular demand and critical acclaim, and now it is expanding.
On New Year’s Day in 1953, country music’s first superstar Hank Williams died of what could be considered an early-era overdose–heart failure due to a lethal combination of morphine and alcohol. He was the first superstar musician to die in this manner, issuing in an era that would see the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis, and many many more.
Sometimes Nashville’s major labels behave so ridiculously, they do things you thought could only exist in a make-believe world, and this is the case with Curb Records and their incessant, redundant “Greatest Hits” album releases for perfume magnate Tim McGraw.
The Ryman is what lower Broadway revolves around, and it is easy to think that however it goes, so goes lower Broadway. When The Ryman was virtually shuttered in 1974 and The Grand Ole Opry moved to the Opry House, that is when the seeds of the lower Broadway decline were sowed.
There’s been lots of talk lately here and other places about what makes an Outlaw, who are the real Outlaws, who are the fake ones. Well Nancy Dunham from The Boot had Merle Haggard cornered and answering questions, and was bold enough to ask him some smart ones, and Merle replied with some bold, smart answers.
I noticed this for the first time last year, that as the birthday of Hank Williams approached, people were looking at it more than just a bulletin you would pass along on social network sites. It felt like a full blown observance, maybe even a quasi-holiday. And the days leading up to it, there was anticipation.
In the upcoming 200th issue of Mojo Magazine, the legendary Tom Waits takes the helm as editor, and handpicks Hank III to be one of the issue’s featured artists. In the 7 page spread, Waits recounts seeing Hank III for the first time at the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, CA: “I had heard he does […]
Today is the release date of Hank Williams III’s album Rebel Within. This is his sixth and final album with label Curb Records, meaning that he is now a free man, finally done after a 14 year battle with Curb over creative control and timely release of his music. And Hank III isn’t the only […]