Click here for link
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Over the years, Holly Williams never felt much of a connection to her grandfather. So when she slipped on a pair of white gloves and lifted one of Hank Williams' old spiral-bound notebooks to inspect its pages full of careful cursive script recently at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, she was a little bit startled to feel a deep visceral reaction.
"Just amazement," she said a few minutes later. "Just shock and awe."
Touching the notebooks left her with a feeling of "just how prolific he was."
"I'm 30," she said. "It makes me go, 'God, I sure haven't got much done.' ... He died at 29 and he wrote these songs."
Williams' notebooks not only inspired his granddaughter, but an all-star cast of artists who put the country archetype's unfinished lyrics to music for the new project "The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams." Williams used to carry the notebooks in a battered old leather briefcase he always had with him, including at the time of his death just before or on Jan. 1, 1953, on the way to a show in West Virginia.
All participants were challenged to put Williams' words to music. Some added lyrics of their own to flesh out fragments, and all were responsible for their own melody and instrumentation. For the most part, the principles stick close to what they imagined the source material should have sounded like, but each brings something a little different.
Williams is joined by her father Hank Jr. on her contribution
"Blue is My Heart." Dylan, his son Jakob, Alan Jackson, Merle Haggard, Jones, Jack White, Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell, Lucinda Williams and Sheryl Crow also cut songs for the long-simmering project, which Bob Dylan released this month on his Columbia Records imprint Egyptian Records, in association with the hall of fame.
Jackson delivers the closest homage with leadoff song
"You've Been Lonesome, Too," Norah Jones keeps it stripped down to acoustic guitar and harmony on
"How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart," and Crowell and Gill lay down what sounds like a classic song coming out of the radio circa 1950 on
"I Hope You Shed a Million Tears."Williams combined lonesome country sounds with the blues and other influences from his childhood in Alabama to revolutionize country music with universal themes almost anyone can identify with. He sold his first song at 19 and went on to record timeless classics like "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Hey, Good Lookin"' and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." His hard-living lifestyle and his tragic early death helped ensure his place as an American icon.
Total Members: