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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Hank Williams The Unreleased Recordings Digital Release
Now exclusively on the Amazon MP3 store is Hank Williams The Unreleased Recordings for only $27.99. All tracks are DRM-free which means they are transferrable and playable across computers and MP3 players or iPhones.
Product Description on Amazon Page
At the peak of his career in 1951, Hank Williams recorded 143 songs for the Mother's Best Flour Company. Hank sang with his regular studio band and recorded his hits as well as many songs he never recorded commercially anywhere else. From this amazing legacy, Time Life is proud to release this historic 3 CD, 54 track collection drawn from the very best of the Mother's Best recordings.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Brian Turpen on new Hank Williams Gospel Keepsakes
It's gives Saguaro great pleasure that there's so many fantastic Hank fans out there. That's why we're fortunate enough to have Hank researcher Brian Turpen write blog entries upon Hank. Below is an exclusive feature on the latest Gospel Keepsakes record which came out last week. You can pick it up at Amazon or Walmart. Gospel Keepsakes is a follow up to the box set featuring 54 previously unreleased recordings.
Hank Williams - Gospel Keepsakes
By Brian Turpen
When the name of “Hank” is spoken in country music circles, nearly everyone immediately thinks of the legend, Hank Williams Sr. There is absolutely no denying his immortal stature. And when thinking of Hank, the vast majority of the average country music fans will recall his many successful popular tunes. Most may not know or realize the actual importance that gospel music played in both Hank’s life and career. In fact, most scholars would agree that it was gospel music that first sparked Hank’s interest in music.
In the Deep South during Hank’s youth, many were deeply tied to religious lifestyles, with their first music experiences being gospel. That is exactly where Hank’s first taste of music came from. His first and fondest memories were that of a very young boy enthusiastically singing gospel hymns while his mother Lillie played organ at the Mount Olive West Baptist Church. Years later in a rare interview with Jazz journalist Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle Hank stated, “My earliest memory is sittin’ on that organ stool by her and hollerin’. I must gave been five, six years old and louder’n anybody else.”
Lillie encouraged Hank’s interest in singing. In the midst of the depression, as a single parent, she scraped together a few dollars and for two years straight she sent him to a Gospel shape-note singing school at the Oak Grove Methodist Church in Avant, Alabama.
Black church music also entered his young life too, as he could hear their music from his Georgiana home. Hank is said to have once commented to a boyhood friend while listening to the black church singing, “One day, I’m gonna write songs like that.”
The hymns Hank learned and heard colored his approach to music as nothing else ever would and those experiences would help shape Hank’s musical career. There is little question that Hank developed an early understanding and enthusiasm for gospel music, which was huge part of the background of his earliest days. The old hymns helped to teach him what he would need to know about writing and performing music. The melodies should be simple and the words plain spoken. Hank also learned how to express sincere feelings and to sing them as if salvation rested upon it. He came to appreciate the warm feeling components of a spiritual song. Gospel music would remain with Hank throughout his life.
Continue here to read the whole review
Hank Williams - Gospel Keepsakes
By Brian Turpen
When the name of “Hank” is spoken in country music circles, nearly everyone immediately thinks of the legend, Hank Williams Sr. There is absolutely no denying his immortal stature. And when thinking of Hank, the vast majority of the average country music fans will recall his many successful popular tunes. Most may not know or realize the actual importance that gospel music played in both Hank’s life and career. In fact, most scholars would agree that it was gospel music that first sparked Hank’s interest in music.
In the Deep South during Hank’s youth, many were deeply tied to religious lifestyles, with their first music experiences being gospel. That is exactly where Hank’s first taste of music came from. His first and fondest memories were that of a very young boy enthusiastically singing gospel hymns while his mother Lillie played organ at the Mount Olive West Baptist Church. Years later in a rare interview with Jazz journalist Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle Hank stated, “My earliest memory is sittin’ on that organ stool by her and hollerin’. I must gave been five, six years old and louder’n anybody else.”
Lillie encouraged Hank’s interest in singing. In the midst of the depression, as a single parent, she scraped together a few dollars and for two years straight she sent him to a Gospel shape-note singing school at the Oak Grove Methodist Church in Avant, Alabama.
Black church music also entered his young life too, as he could hear their music from his Georgiana home. Hank is said to have once commented to a boyhood friend while listening to the black church singing, “One day, I’m gonna write songs like that.”
The hymns Hank learned and heard colored his approach to music as nothing else ever would and those experiences would help shape Hank’s musical career. There is little question that Hank developed an early understanding and enthusiasm for gospel music, which was huge part of the background of his earliest days. The old hymns helped to teach him what he would need to know about writing and performing music. The melodies should be simple and the words plain spoken. Hank also learned how to express sincere feelings and to sing them as if salvation rested upon it. He came to appreciate the warm feeling components of a spiritual song. Gospel music would remain with Hank throughout his life.
Continue here to read the whole review
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Hank Williams Goldmine Review
HANK WILLIAMS
The Unreleased Recordings
Time Life (80031-D) (Three CDs)
Along with the hillbilly Shakespeare’s own hits (“Cold Cold Heart,” “I Can’t Help It”), we find plenty of covers he never taped elsewhere (“Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain,” The Weavers’ trad folk hit “On Top Of Old Smoky”) and fervent four-part-harmony gospel with his Drifting Cowboys on guitar, bass, fiddle, and steel guitar. Don Helm’s teardrop steel notes perfectly fit the aching sincerity of Williams’ vocals.
Somehow he always shone in the studio despite the torments of alcoholism, congenital back problems and a horrible marriage. An ornery “Mind Your Own Business” verse that wasn’t on the song’s single release portrays him as (no surprise) a battered husband.
These discs delete much of the shows’ between-song talk unlike his 1949 Health & Happiness Shows transcriptions. But we do hear him joke, “I like this verse,” amid his comically hang-dog “Dear John.”
While his career peaked in 1951 (the golden age of honky-tonk music), off stage his life was so tragic that, though he sang Roy Acuff’s “Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine,” his burdens were really greater than most of ours. And when, turning to gospel, he sang, “I’ll have a new body. I’ll have a new life,” it may have been the spina bifida victim’s greatest wish.
Bruce Sylvester
Friday, February 20, 2009
Collection of Amazon Customer Reviews
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|  Life-long Hank Fan,
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Unrealeased Recordings of Hank Williams,
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: Hank - a" Masterpiece of Music" recorded live in an informal setting - Simply Outstanding!!!, This is 3 cd's of Hank and the Drifting Cowboys performing live on a radio show, back in 1951. Its informal, you get to hear them talk, and tell stories and joke, and etc. This is a great release,one of the best releases of all-time!!! I would estimate 60 percent or more of this music is pure southern, country Gospel. These recordings reveal Hank in a different "light" than all the previously released recordings. This is a "must-have" for any Hank Williams fan period!!!
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| 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: You've gotta have this...,
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: An unexpected treat,
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| 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: long awaited treasure,
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| 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: Required Listening,
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| 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: A must for Hank WIlliams fans.,
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| 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: Dad loves it,
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: Hank Williams The UnReleased Recordings,
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