Welcome To AlbumLinerNotes.com
"The #1 Archive of Liner Notes in the World!"
Celebrating Our Shared Musical Heritage
____________________________________________________________
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
Various Artists
Egyptian/CMF Records/Columbia
B8697 09010 2
____________________________________________________________
1. YOU’VE BEEN LONESOME, TOO
PERFORMED BY ALAN JACKSON
(Hank Williams, Sr., Alan Jackson) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced by Keith Stegall
Recorded and Mixed by Gary Paczosa
Assisted by Brandon Bell and Greg Lawrence
Additional Engineering by Matt Rovey
Recorded at Emerald Studios and Minutia, Nashville, TN
Mastered by Hank Williams at MasterMix, Nashville, TN
Production Coordinator: Jason Campbell
Alan Jackson appears courtesy of Arista Nashville
Brent Mason: Electric Guitar
Glenn Worf: Bass
Bruce Watkins: Acoustic Guitar
Stuart Duncan: Fiddle
2. THE LOVE THAT FADED
PERFORMED BY BOB DYLAN
(Hank Williams, Sr., Bob Dylan) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced by Jack Frost
Engineered by Chris Shaw
Mastered by Greg Calbi
Bob Dylan appears courtesy of Columbia Records
Bob Dylan: Vocals, Guitar
Tony Garnier: Bass
George G. Receli: Drums
Stu Kimball: Guitar
Denny Freeman: Guitar
Donnie Herron: Steel Guitar, Violin
4. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BROKEN MY HEART?
PERFORMED BY NORAH JONES
(Hank Williams, Sr., Norah Jones) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Vocals, Guitar: Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings
Engineered by Paul Kennerley
Mixed by Tom Schick
Norah Jones appears courtesy of Blue Note Records
Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings appear courtesy of Acony Record
4. YOU KNOW THAT I KNOW
PERFORMED BY JACK WHITE
(Hank Williams, Sr., Jack White) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Third String Tunes (BMI)
Produced by Jack White III
Engineered by Joe Chiccarelli
Assistant Engineer: Lowell Reynolds
Mixed by Jack White and Joe Chiccarelli
Recorded at Blackbird Studio D, Nashville, TN
Jack White appears courtesy of Third Man Records
Jack White: Vocals, Electric Guitar
Carla Azar: Drums
Dominic John Suchyta: Upright Bass
Donnie Herron: Steel Guitar
Dean Ferita: Acoustic Guitar
5. I’M SO HAPPY I FOUND YOU
PERFORMED BY LUCINDA WILLIAMS
(Hank Williams, Sr., Lucinda Williams) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. obo itself and Lucy Jones Music (BMI)
Produced by Lucinda Williams
Recorded and Mixed by Eric Liljestrand at The Village Studios, Los Angeles, CA
Second Engineer: Ghian Wright
Lucinda Williams appears courtesy of Lost Highway Records
Lucinda Williams: Vocals, Guitar
Management: Frank Callari
FCC Management
Business Management: Craig Jones and Jamie Lay from Gudvi, Sussman and Oppenheim
Project Coordinator: Jolie Levine
Special thanks from Lucinda:
Sincere thanks to Bob Dylan, Jeff Rosen, Mary Martin, Jim Keltner, Tony Garnier, Doug Pettibone, Luke Lewis, Frank Calleri and Jolie Levine. Heartfelt thanks to Eric Liljestrand and Ghian Wright for the live room sound, to Jeff Greenberg for the Valentine Flowers and to Tom Overby for his presence.
Love, Lucinda
6. I HOPE YOU SHED A MILLION TEARS
PERFORMED BY VINCE GILL AND RODNEY CROWELL
(Hank Williams, Sr., Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Vinniemay/Granite Music Corp.
Vince Gill appears courtesy of MCA Nashville, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
Rodney Crowell appears courtesy of Work Song/Yep Roc Records
Vince Gill: Guitar, Vocals
Rodney Crowell: Guitar, Vocals
Kenny Sears: Fiddle
Dennis Crouch: Bass
Don Helms: Pedal Steel
7. YOU’RE THROUGH FOOLING ME
PERFORMED BY PATTY LOVELESS
(Hank Williams, Sr., Patty Loveless, Emory Gordy, Jr.) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Jahazah Music (BMI)/Clay Root Music (BMI)
Produced by Emory Gordy, Jr. for Pauldin County Productions, Inc.
Contracted by Lauren Koch
Recorded and Mixed by Ellery Durgin at Cave 2 Studios, Dallas, GA
Patty Loveless appears courtesy of Jahaza Records
Kerlan Spur: Drums
Emory Gordy, Jr.: Bass
Buddy Minnix: Acoustic Guitar
Leigh Cochran: Electric Guitar
Butch Lee: Lap Steel
Deenie Richardson: Fiddle
8. YOU’LL NEVER AGAIN BE MINE
PERFORMED BY LEVON HELM
(Hank Williams, Sr., Levon Helm, Larry Campbell) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced by Larry Campbell
Recorded and Mixed by Justin Guip at Levon Helm Studios
Barbara O’Brien - Manager
Levon Helm appears courtesy of Dirt Farmer Records
Levon Helm: Lead Vocals, Drums
Amy Helm, Teresa Williams: Background Vocals
Mike Merrit: Bass
Larry Campbell: Acoustic and Electric Guitar, Fiddle, Mandolin, Dobro
9. BLUE IS MY HEART
PERFORMED BY HOLLY WILLIAMS
(Hank Williams, Sr., Holly Williams) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Songs of Universal, Inc. obo My Own Confusion Music (BMI)
Recorded, Engineered and Mixed by Justin Niebank at Blackbird Studios
Holly Williams appear courtesy of Mercury Records
Holly Williams: Acoustic Guitar
Vince Gill: Acoustic Guitar
Chris McHugh: Percussion
Tom Bukovac: Steel Guitar
10. OH, MAMA, COME HOME
PERFORMED BY JAKOB DYLAN
(Hank Williams, Sr., Jakob Dylan) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) and Sugarmoonmusic (ASCAP)
Recorded and Mixed by Jason Lader at Akademie Mathematique of Philosophical Sound Research, Los Angeles, CA
Jakob Dylan appears courtesy of Columbia Records
11. ANGEL MINE
PERFORMED BY SHERYL CROW
(Hank Williams Sr., Sheryl Crow) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced and Mixed by Bill Bottrell
Engineer: Calvin Turnbull
Pro-Tools: Mimi (Audia) Parker
Additional Engineering: Steve Marcantonio
Recorded at Odditorium Studio
Sheryl Crow appears courtesy of A&M/Interscope Records
Sheryl Crow: All Vocals
Roger Fritz: Guitar
Bill Bottrell: Guitar
David Hayes: Bass
James Preston: Drums
Gene Parsons: Pedal Street
Steven Bates: Mandolin
Dave Sinclair: Trumpet
12. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
PERFORMED BY MERLE HAGGARD
(Hank Williams, Sr., Merle Haggard) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Merle Haggard Music, Inc. (BMI)
Produced by Merle Haggard and Lou Bradley
Production Coordinator: Frank Mull
Recorded at Tally Studios, Palo Cedro, CA
Merle Haggard appears courtesy of Hag Records
Merle Haggard: Vocals, Guitar
Scott Joss: Guitar
Red Lane: Guitar
Reggie Young: Guitar
Kevin Williams: Bass
Rob Ickles: Dobro
George G. Receli: Drums
Doug Colosio: Piano
____________________________________________________________
THE LOST NOTEBOOKS OF HANK WILLIAMS
When Hank Williams died, he left behind a scuffed, embroidered brown leather briefcase. Like its owner, the briefcase appeared weathered beyond its years, yet it retained a dignified bearing that abuse couldn't erase. Hank used the briefcase to carry bound notebooks, among other items, darkening their pages with lyrics and song ideas. Some were fully finished, some just started. Once full, he would place the notebooks in a cardboard box, where he also dropped lyrics written on hotel stationery and other scraps of paper.
When it came time to record, Hank would refer to the notebooks and pick a few to show his producer, Fred Rose. By the end of, December 1952, four of these notebooks existed, all featuring songs not yet recorded or performed. When Hank took his last breath, the promise and poetry of the unrecorded songs seemed to perish with him.
This album, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, breathes life into the haunted words left on those pages.
In doing so, the legacy of Hank Williams, only twenty-nine when he died, further extends into a new century. The Lost Notebooks presents twelve recordings of new, original songs that Hank had started writing prior to his death late New Year's Eve, 1952, or early New Year's Day, 1953.
The history of Hank's notebooks is as complex as the legend himself. Yet, in the end, what matters more are the songs, and these new works rise from the ether with ghostly relevance. As with his many standards, these new recordings tap straight into the soul of man. This is songwriting at its most artful and most powerful.
Just as bones remain unchanged with time, so do certain emotions. The emotions Hank left in these notebooks needed expert excavators to dust them off and mine their strengths. The project began with Bob Dylan, who has always expressed his love for Hank Williams and the influence he absorbed from his work: “The sound of Hank Williams's voice went through me like an electric rod,” Dylan wrote ill his autobiography, Chronicles, Volume 1. “When I hear Hank sing, all movement ceases. The slightest whisper seems sacrilege.”
Dylan was the first artist to lift one of Hank's notebook songs from its resting place, finish it, put music to it, and record it. With help from veteran music industry manager and A&R executive Mary Martin, who worked with Dylan's manager Albert Grossman in the 1960s, other artists were enlisted, most chosen because of their songwriting and arranging abilities and their affinity for delivering songs reminiscent of Hank’s earthly directness. The guest artists tapped into Hank’s musical DNA to creat something that is both his and their own. These artists and these voices—some with decades of experience, some still forging fresh paths—all found an essential truth in these songs, and then embellished them with their talents and personalities.
The results speak volumes. These new songs resemble rich farmland soil: Their strengths are as old as the earth, expressing emotions that have always been and always will be; yet at this moment they offer fresh fruit, creating a bountiful harvest that is as universal yet as personal as a lonesome night or a good morning kiss.
These recordings underscore, yet again, the distinct brilliance of Hank Williams as a songwriter. Hank wrote songs the way he drank whiskey: like there was no tomorrow. For Hank, drinking was a private affair, done in dark corners and hiding from the scowls of family, friends, and band mates. Drinking wasn’t a communal, shared activity for Williams. It was a pain-killing pursuit exercised alone.
He wrote songs like that too: Hunched over, locked away in his mind, furiously scrawling and crossing out words to pare a song to its essential emotions. He mostly wrote alone, occasionally turning to his mentor Fred Rose or friends like Vic McAlphin and Ray Price to help him finish the mission. That’s what happens The Lost Notebooks too; like-minded writers, admirers, and acolytes step up to help complete what Hank started.
Many myths surround Hank Williams, myths that those who knew him best are quick to dispel. He wasn’t a doomed, introspective genius anymore than he was a reckless rebel tearing his way through honky-tonks and wild women. Instead, he was a prankster, a man who enjoyed gathering friends for hunting and fishing trips, and a doting father who called out to his song from radio shows and saddled up a newly purchased horse to present to his stepdaughter at a front-yard birthday party.
The alcoholism, however, was always there. Born September 17, 1923, in rural Alabama, Hank first lost his balance from a belly full of corn whiskey in his grade-school years, when he and a few buddies knew where railroad employees hid flasks to sip during work breaks. He lost his first job a month before his eighteenth birthday by showing up drunk for his early morning radio show at the Montgomery, Alabama, station WSFA. By that time, he had won a talent contest, formed a band, and dropped out of school at age sixteen.
While the drinking came and went, the songwriting, once it started, remained constant. In 1943, not yet twenty, Hank sold a song, "(I'm Praying for the Day That) Peace Will Come," to Grand Ole Opry star Pee Wee King after opening a show for him. King had a contract with Acuff-Rose Publications, Nashville's first major country music publisher, a connection that would prove vital to Hank's career.
Within months of marrying Audrey Sheppard Guy in December 1944, Hank published two songbooks and entered a sanitarium for alcoholism. He was twenty-one at the time. Sober for a period, he returned to the morning program on WSFA and, urged by his new bride, contacted producer and songwriter Fred Rose at Acuff-Rose Publications. In December 1946, working with Rose as producer, Hank cut his first four songs in a studio at radio station WSM in Nashville.
From the start, his distinctive style separated him from all others, no matter the genre. A dyed-in-the-wool country boy, even when dressed in elegantly tailored Nudie suits and crisp cowboy hats, he had a limited education and. a similarly limited view of the world. Yet he owned a preternatural gift for succinctly and colorfully capturing the hopes and heartbreak of a generation of men and women.
Like Hank, the people populating his songs were pulled between the Christian, small-town values of the Depression Era South and the prosperous, rapidly changing postwar world in which he came of age. When Hank wrote, "I left my home down on the rural route / I told my pa I'm going steppin' out," he summed up a newly mobile world of endless possibilities of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the rise of highways automobiles allowed those born in the agrarian South to seek opportunities in urban areas.
With these shifts, values began to change. Soldiers from back-country areas returned from Europe and the Pacific with worldlier ideas of pleasures and how to savor their hard-won freedoms. Meanwhile, women also enjoyed newfound freedoms, brought on when they were encouraged to take jobs during wartime, to fend for themselves while so many men were continents away, and to deal with the uncertainties of whether family members, friends, and lovers would return. When the men did come home, newly liberated women both enticed and confounded them, and both sexes struggled to adjust to a changing culture.
Better than any songwriter, Hank’s songs captured the joys, tensions, and heartbreak of this evolving world: There’s “Ramblin’ Man,” which conveyed the dark side of a man suddenly free to go wherever he wants without the anchors or responsibilities of home; there’s “I Saw the Light,” about a rambler who turns back to the moral values he had left behind at home; there’s “Hey, Good Lookin’,” which joyously captures the excitement of the possibility of hooking up with a new partner; and there’s “I’m So Lonesome I could Cry,” which describes the bottomless ache of feeling as if there’s no friend or family member to turn to when life and love turns cold.
The list goes on and on. Hank’s songs could express an unbounded joy at the pleasures available to him, or he could articulate the conflicting feelings of lust and guilt that stirred inside him as he considered the temptations of his new world. His songs contained an enormously wide variety of emotions and perspectives. But much of his most memorable work delved into the loneliness of a lost soul or the nearly unbearable pain that accompanies betrayal or a relationship in turmoil. He could deal with this topic humorously, as in “Move It on Over,” but it’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love with You,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” and many more, that expose emotions in ways no songwriter had done prior to Williams.
Certainly, a key to his becoming a hero to so many listeners came from how he articulated the most difficult of emotions in an era when men, still molded by the war years, were conditioned to hide their feelings and charge through any problem with a steely-eyed swagger. Men of that era weren't supposed to succumb to heartbreak or suffer from personal conflicts. They didn't openly wrestle with moral questions or lonely nights. Hank gave voice to those who couldn't admit to the psychological quandaries everyone at some point had to endure. And listeners loved him for it.
More than any songwriter before him, Hank drew on real-life experiences and emotions when crafting his great work. The indelible way he expressed his joy, his distress, and his spiritual searching set the standard against which all songwriters now measure themselves. Hank's monumental legacy becomes even more notable when realizing he issued only thirty singles in his lifetime—and five more posthumously. Eleven went to #1. All were recorded in less than six years, between December 1946 and September 1952. Yet that small body of work changed the course of American music, forever altering the sound of country music and motivating song writers of all styles to dare to be as emotionally bare and as unabashedly real as Hank had been.
Bare emotions run throughout The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, and these new songs honor and extend the artistry and the legacy of the great Hank Williams.
In his classic “I Saw the Light,” Hank wrote of a man who had wandered aimlessly through a life filled with sin. But there was nothing aimless about Hank’s songwriting. He shot straight to the heart. Even on the night he died, on a scrap of paper found on the backseat floorboard, there were incredibly moving lines written in a shaky hand, suggesting that even as he rushed to an early end, Hank fought the darkness by expressing himself in short, impactful verse.
These new songs, each in their own way, express something visceral and important about individual experience, about our most intimate relationships, and about the struggle between sin and redemption. Through the talents of several capable acolytes, Hank Williams has risen yet again to peer into the darkness and to help the rest of us see the light.
THE HISTORY OF THE NOTEBOOKS
To explain why this musical bounty has surfaced at this time requires tracing the tale of the four treasured notebooks. These sacred scrolls have a story as complicated as the man who once wrote them.
Upon Hank Williams’s death, his mother, Lillian Stone, contacted Acuff-Rose Publications to alert them to the existence of a cardboard box containing lyrics Hank had written but hadn’t recorded. In early 1953, Acuff-Rose took possession of the box, finding four notebooks of songs, as well as other scraps of paper.
As time passed, company president Wesley Rose made sure the notebooks were treated as the treasures they were. Copyrights were applied to the unrecorded songs, sixty-six in all. Peggy Lamb, a longtime Acuff-Rose employee, kept tabs on the notebooks in a locked, fireproof safe next to her desk, along with other items highly valued by the publishing firm.
When Gaylord Broadcasting (now Gaylord Entertainment) bought Acuff-Rose Publications in 1985, the notebooks at first remained in the longtime Acuff-Rose offices on Franklin Road in Nashville. But in 1986, Gaylord moved its various publishing and recording companies to new headquarters on Seventeenth Avenue in the heart of Nashville’s Music Row. The notebooks were put in two large, fireproof vaults along with other important historical Acuff-Rose documents.
Years later, then-Mercury Records executive Kira Florita began working with the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum on what became a Grammy-winning box set, The Complete Hank Williams. During her research, Florita learned about the notebooks from Lamb. Florita remembered the notebooks when co-authoring, with Colin Escott, Snapshots from the Lost Highway, a book filled with images of Hank Williams memorabilia. Published in November 2001, the book included photographed images of several unrecorded songs from the notebooks.
At the same time, Florita led the Mercury/Lost Highway Records marketing effort for the album Timeless, a multi-artist tribute to Hank Williams. That album, released in September 2001, also won a Grammy Award. Veteran music industry leader Mary Martin, who co-produced the Timeless album, first learned of the wealth of unrecorded Hank lyrics when she saw the Snapshots book.
“I didn’t know the notebooks existed until I saw the photographs in Kira’s book,” Martin said. “I began to think something should be done with these songs. We had just won a Grammy for the Timeless album, and it seemed like a good time to keep a light shining on Hank Williams. The interest was obviously there.”
In 2002, as Martin’s interest in the unrecorded songs grew, Sony/ATV Music Publishing bought the prized Acuff-Rose catalog. Of forty-eight Opryland Music employees, only six were retained; Peggy Lamb was one of them. Once again, the notebooks were relocated and stored in fireproof vaults where the company’s most valuable materials were kept.
After the sale was finalized, Martin forged ahead. In late 2002, Florita, Lamb, Martin, and Sony/ATV president and chief executive officer Donna Hilley had lunch to discuss possibilities for the songs. Eventually the four women decided to find a well-known, well-regarded artist—one who considered Hank Williams a hero and influence—to record an album’s worth of the unheard songs.
The first approached, Bob Dylan, showed a strong interest. As discussions continued, it was decided that Dylan’s Sony-related company, Egyptian Records, would become involved. It was decided that, instead of recording a full album himself, Dylan would pick one of the songs to record, and other compatible artists would be invited to choose a song to record, coming up with the arrangement and, if need be, finishing the lyrics.
Martin came up with a list of artists to consider, with help from Dylan and his representatives. The next artist invited, country star Alan Jackson, jumped at the opportunity. From there, the focus zeroed in on artists who were also established songwriters and, more specifically, on those who had demonstrated an affinity for Hank’s songs. Eventually, the list came down to the thirteen artists heard on The Lost Notebooks.
As recording started, the story of the notebooks took a bizarre turn. A Chicago Sun-Times article surfaced in 2006 that two of the notebooks, unbeknowest to Sony, had been purchased by two country music collectors. At the Sony/ATV offices, a search into a locked vault found that, indeed two notebooks were missing. A police investigation was launched and ultimately Sony regained possession of the notebooks and the handwritten songs.
With the release of The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, not only do these historically treasured notebooks endure, but now a dozen songs from within can be heard for the first time.
Michael McCall
Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum
____________________________________________________________
HANK’S CO-WRITERS
ALAN JACKSON
From the start of his career, country music star Alan Jackson has cited two songwriters as his greatest influences: Hank Williams and Merle Haggard. His songs reference Hank repeatedly, most notably “Midnight in Montgomery,” about an eerie visit to his idol’s gravesite. Hank’s presence also looms in the way Jackson writes about his personal experiences and his relationships; in the lean, cinematic lines of his songs; and in the earthy language he uses to delve into themes both emotional and cultural. As with Hank’s compositions, Jackson’s work has an innate integrity, suggesting that he has absorbed the lessons of his hero on a fundamental level.
BOB DYLAN
Though his work has been groundbreaking, Bob Dylan is quick to cite the myriad influences who inspired him to aim for timelessness rather than trendiness. Key among them, he has said is Hank Williams. As with Dylan, Williams spoke to a generation by using lyrics and sound to capture the essential changes occurring in culture. Few artists, and even fewer songwriters, express the imagination of people in a manner that forever will represent an era. Hank Williams and Bob Dylan are two of those artists. Dylan also was the first artist to record one of Hank’s notebooks songs, and he was a driving force behind the album from the start.
NORAH JONES
When Texas-born Norah Jones introduced herself to the world with her 2002 debut album, Come Away with Me, she featured a Hank Williams song early in the sequence. Her distinctive take on "Cold, Cold Heart" helped establish her love for the classic American songbook, and it demonstrated how she could forge a blend of standards and originals to make a personal statement. The album sold more than ten million copies, proving the appeal of her distinctive style. Like her mentor Willie Nelson, Jones embraces an eclectic set of influences, and her versions of Hank's songs underscore how well those songs adapt to a variety of musical settings.
JACK WHITE
Jack White repeatedly has demonstrated his interest in classic country music. When not leading one of his series of bands — the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather — the has produced recordings for country singers Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Secret Sisters, and he contributed folk and country songs to the soundtrack Cold Mountain. The Detroit native moved to Nashville in December 2005, eventually opening his Third Man Records store and recording studio within walking distance of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. He was named Nashville’s Music City Ambassador by Mayor Karl Dean in April 2011.
LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Lucinda Williams often credits two namesakes when listing her primary influences: her father, poet Miller Williams, and the unrelated Hank Williams. Known for blending country, blues, and folk influences, Williams takes an intimately personal approach to songwriting, just as Hank did. Her albums mirror her life, reflecting relationships and observations about culture and the world in which she resides. Her 1979 debut album Ramblin’, featured a version of Hank’s “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” and she is one of the three artists, in addition to Bob Dylan and Sheryl Crow, on The Lost Notebooks who also contributed a track to the Grammy-winning Hank tribute album, Timeless.
VINCE GILL
Country Music Hall of Fame member Vince Gill started his career in bluegrass music, but his breakthrough as a country star came on such steel guitar-drenched hits as “When I Call Your Name” and “Pocket Full of Gold,” both songs of heartbreak and betrayal in the Williams tradition. Like Hank, Gill’s voice works particularly well against the crying strains of a steel guitar; Gill recruited a legendary steel player, the late John Hughey, to play on Gill’s albums and tours. Gill considered it a great honor to record his contribution to The Lost Notebooks with the great Don Helms, best known for his crucial contributions to Hank Williams’s work. “I Hope You Shed a Million Tears” was the last recording Helms played on before his death in August 2008.
RODNEY CROWELL
Rodney Crowell’s memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, features a passage in which his father takes him to see his father’s singing idol, Hank Williams. J.W. Crowell, who led his own honky-tonk band, called the Rhythmaires, hoisted his infant son onto his shoulder so the young boy could see Hank above the crowd. The December 1952 concert the Crowells attended was among Hank’s last. Crowell inherited his musical talent and interest from his father, and he has said that finishing and recording this Williams song completes a circle. As one of country music’s most important songwriters, and one known for searching his heart and his life for influences, Crowell has been carrying on Hank’s legacy throughout his career.
PATTY LOVELESS
Patty Loveless’s mountain-born voice, with its high-lonesome arc and great ability to convey emotion has proven incredibly flexible when it comes to convincingly expressing a wide variety of material. There’s no denying that when Loveless takes on a bluegrass or a honky-tonk tune, her vocal talent all but defines what it means to be a great country singer. Just as Loveless proved a perfect foil on duets with such country greats as Vince Gill, George Jones, and Ralph Stanley, she also shows on “You’re Through Fooling Me” that she taps into the emotional core of a Hanks Williams lyric with an undeniable power all her own.
LEVON HELM
As the native Arkansan among his Canadian partners in the Band, Levon Helm gave the group a homegrown authenticity as it explored southern themes and musical influences in its landmark albums. As a solo artist, he has consistently mixed older country, folk, and blues songs among original material. His ties to Bob Dylan go back to the mid-1960s, and Helm participated in a fundraising concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in recent years. His 2011 album, Ramble at the Ryman, even found him standing on the same stage where Hank Williams regularly performed.
HOLLY WILLIAMS
Hank's granddaughter, Holly Williams, inherited her family’s penchant for drawing on personal experience in her songs and fearlessly probing her life and relationships for material. Just as Hank drew on honky-tonk and blues, and her father, Hank Williams Jr., merged southern rock with blues and country music, Holly also mixes country music with the music of her era that she grew up loving. In Holly's case, she takes the intimate approach of singer-songwriters with a dollop of country and blues. Also, that's her father Hank Williams Jr.’s voice chiming in on harmony on the choruses of Holly's recording of "Blue Is My Heart."
JAKOB DYLAN
Since the breakthrough of the Wallflowers' 1996 album, Bringing Down the Horse, and its Grammy-wiIming hit "One Headlight," Jakob Dylan has maintained ties with the roots rock and country communities. Bringing Down the Horse, like Dylan's 2010 solo album, Women and Country, were produced by T Bone Burnett, the mastermind behind the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and many other country-flavored outings. Dylan collaborated with Dixie Chicks members (and sisters) Martie Maguire and Emily Robison on their Court Yard Hounds debut. Dylan's Women and Country album and tour featured Americana singers Neko Case and Kelly Hogan on harmonies and occasional duets.
SHERYL CROW
Kennett, Missouri, native Sheryl Crow established herself as a rocker with a strong singer-songwriter foundation on her Grammy-winning debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club. After recording "Picture," a 2002 hit country duet with Kid Rock, Crow bought a farm near Nashville, Tennessee, and started appearing on country awards shows and on country tribute albums, including singing "You're Looking at Country" with Miranda Lambert for a Loretta Lynn tribute. Crow appeared on the 2001 Grammy-winning Hank tribute album, Timeless. She also has said her next album, expected in 2012, would have pronounced country flavor.
MERLE HAGGARD
As one of the per-eminent country music singer-songwriters of all time, Merle Haggard often gets mentioned alongside Hank Williams as one of the genre’s most influential and admired figures. He has been quick to tip his hat to his own idols over time, and he recorded “Lovesick Blues,” a song Hank Williams took to #1 in 1949, on his 1973 live album, I Love Dixie Blues. Like Williams, Haggard has shown an interest in gospel music and Hag has released complete albums of religious music in the past. His take on Hank’s notebook song “The Sermon on the Mountain” is the only gospel song found on The Lost Notebooks album.
____________________________________________________________
Executive Producer: Jeff Rosen
Producer: Mary Martin
Production Coordinator: Debbie Sweeney
Mastered by Mark Wilder
Art Direction & Design: Jim Sherraden at Hatch Show Print® & Coco Shinomiya
Photographs: Archival photos courtesy of Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum; Manuscript pages courtesy of Sony/ATV
Artist Photos:
Russ Harrington, David Gahr, Autumn de Wilde, Jo McCaughey, James Minchin III, Jim McGuire, Alan Messer, Tony Baker, Dino Perrucci, Mark Seliger, Pam Springsteen
Columbia Records:
Steve Barnett, Rob Stringer, Greg Linn, Kiana Perry, Betsy Whitney, Bryan Younce, Kimberly Boley
Thanks to Management:
Craig Fruin, Nancy Russell, Mary Levitan, John Silva, Ian Montone, Tiffany Steffens, Tom Overby, Larry Fitzgerald, David Whitehead, Mike Robertson, Barbara O'Brien, Stuart Dill, Rich Egan, Ryan Smull, Dave Sanford, Scooter Weintraub, Pam Wertheimer, Frank Mull
Special thanks to:
Diane Lapson, Robert Bower, Callie Gladman, April Hayes, Will Schwartz, Damian Rodriguez, & Michael Perlstein
For more information on Hank Williams and The Lost Notebooks, visit the limited engagement exhibit, Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, Presented by Sun Trust, at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum.
____________________________________________________________
columbiarecords.com
lostnotebooksofhankwilliams.com
countrymusichalloffame.org
____________________________________________________________
© & (P) Compilation ® 2011 Sony Music Entertainment/Distributed by Columbia Records, A Division of Sony Music Entertainment/550 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022-3211/"Columbia" and Reg. U.S. Pat & Tm. Off. Marca Registrada./WARNING: All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. 88697 090102
____________________________________________________________
Back to Top
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
Various Artists
Egyptian/CMF Records/Columbia
B8697 09010 2
____________________________________________________________
1. YOU’VE BEEN LONESOME, TOO
PERFORMED BY ALAN JACKSON
(Hank Williams, Sr., Alan Jackson) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced by Keith Stegall
Recorded and Mixed by Gary Paczosa
Assisted by Brandon Bell and Greg Lawrence
Additional Engineering by Matt Rovey
Recorded at Emerald Studios and Minutia, Nashville, TN
Mastered by Hank Williams at MasterMix, Nashville, TN
Production Coordinator: Jason Campbell
Alan Jackson appears courtesy of Arista Nashville
Brent Mason: Electric Guitar
Glenn Worf: Bass
Bruce Watkins: Acoustic Guitar
Stuart Duncan: Fiddle
2. THE LOVE THAT FADED
PERFORMED BY BOB DYLAN
(Hank Williams, Sr., Bob Dylan) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced by Jack Frost
Engineered by Chris Shaw
Mastered by Greg Calbi
Bob Dylan appears courtesy of Columbia Records
Bob Dylan: Vocals, Guitar
Tony Garnier: Bass
George G. Receli: Drums
Stu Kimball: Guitar
Denny Freeman: Guitar
Donnie Herron: Steel Guitar, Violin
4. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BROKEN MY HEART?
PERFORMED BY NORAH JONES
(Hank Williams, Sr., Norah Jones) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Vocals, Guitar: Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings
Engineered by Paul Kennerley
Mixed by Tom Schick
Norah Jones appears courtesy of Blue Note Records
Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings appear courtesy of Acony Record
4. YOU KNOW THAT I KNOW
PERFORMED BY JACK WHITE
(Hank Williams, Sr., Jack White) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Third String Tunes (BMI)
Produced by Jack White III
Engineered by Joe Chiccarelli
Assistant Engineer: Lowell Reynolds
Mixed by Jack White and Joe Chiccarelli
Recorded at Blackbird Studio D, Nashville, TN
Jack White appears courtesy of Third Man Records
Jack White: Vocals, Electric Guitar
Carla Azar: Drums
Dominic John Suchyta: Upright Bass
Donnie Herron: Steel Guitar
Dean Ferita: Acoustic Guitar
5. I’M SO HAPPY I FOUND YOU
PERFORMED BY LUCINDA WILLIAMS
(Hank Williams, Sr., Lucinda Williams) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. obo itself and Lucy Jones Music (BMI)
Produced by Lucinda Williams
Recorded and Mixed by Eric Liljestrand at The Village Studios, Los Angeles, CA
Second Engineer: Ghian Wright
Lucinda Williams appears courtesy of Lost Highway Records
Lucinda Williams: Vocals, Guitar
Management: Frank Callari
FCC Management
Business Management: Craig Jones and Jamie Lay from Gudvi, Sussman and Oppenheim
Project Coordinator: Jolie Levine
Special thanks from Lucinda:
Sincere thanks to Bob Dylan, Jeff Rosen, Mary Martin, Jim Keltner, Tony Garnier, Doug Pettibone, Luke Lewis, Frank Calleri and Jolie Levine. Heartfelt thanks to Eric Liljestrand and Ghian Wright for the live room sound, to Jeff Greenberg for the Valentine Flowers and to Tom Overby for his presence.
Love, Lucinda
6. I HOPE YOU SHED A MILLION TEARS
PERFORMED BY VINCE GILL AND RODNEY CROWELL
(Hank Williams, Sr., Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Vinniemay/Granite Music Corp.
Vince Gill appears courtesy of MCA Nashville, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.
Rodney Crowell appears courtesy of Work Song/Yep Roc Records
Vince Gill: Guitar, Vocals
Rodney Crowell: Guitar, Vocals
Kenny Sears: Fiddle
Dennis Crouch: Bass
Don Helms: Pedal Steel
7. YOU’RE THROUGH FOOLING ME
PERFORMED BY PATTY LOVELESS
(Hank Williams, Sr., Patty Loveless, Emory Gordy, Jr.) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Jahazah Music (BMI)/Clay Root Music (BMI)
Produced by Emory Gordy, Jr. for Pauldin County Productions, Inc.
Contracted by Lauren Koch
Recorded and Mixed by Ellery Durgin at Cave 2 Studios, Dallas, GA
Patty Loveless appears courtesy of Jahaza Records
Kerlan Spur: Drums
Emory Gordy, Jr.: Bass
Buddy Minnix: Acoustic Guitar
Leigh Cochran: Electric Guitar
Butch Lee: Lap Steel
Deenie Richardson: Fiddle
8. YOU’LL NEVER AGAIN BE MINE
PERFORMED BY LEVON HELM
(Hank Williams, Sr., Levon Helm, Larry Campbell) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced by Larry Campbell
Recorded and Mixed by Justin Guip at Levon Helm Studios
Barbara O’Brien - Manager
Levon Helm appears courtesy of Dirt Farmer Records
Levon Helm: Lead Vocals, Drums
Amy Helm, Teresa Williams: Background Vocals
Mike Merrit: Bass
Larry Campbell: Acoustic and Electric Guitar, Fiddle, Mandolin, Dobro
9. BLUE IS MY HEART
PERFORMED BY HOLLY WILLIAMS
(Hank Williams, Sr., Holly Williams) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Songs of Universal, Inc. obo My Own Confusion Music (BMI)
Recorded, Engineered and Mixed by Justin Niebank at Blackbird Studios
Holly Williams appear courtesy of Mercury Records
Holly Williams: Acoustic Guitar
Vince Gill: Acoustic Guitar
Chris McHugh: Percussion
Tom Bukovac: Steel Guitar
10. OH, MAMA, COME HOME
PERFORMED BY JAKOB DYLAN
(Hank Williams, Sr., Jakob Dylan) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) and Sugarmoonmusic (ASCAP)
Recorded and Mixed by Jason Lader at Akademie Mathematique of Philosophical Sound Research, Los Angeles, CA
Jakob Dylan appears courtesy of Columbia Records
11. ANGEL MINE
PERFORMED BY SHERYL CROW
(Hank Williams Sr., Sheryl Crow) © 2011 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC. All rights on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Produced and Mixed by Bill Bottrell
Engineer: Calvin Turnbull
Pro-Tools: Mimi (Audia) Parker
Additional Engineering: Steve Marcantonio
Recorded at Odditorium Studio
Sheryl Crow appears courtesy of A&M/Interscope Records
Sheryl Crow: All Vocals
Roger Fritz: Guitar
Bill Bottrell: Guitar
David Hayes: Bass
James Preston: Drums
Gene Parsons: Pedal Street
Steven Bates: Mandolin
Dave Sinclair: Trumpet
12. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
PERFORMED BY MERLE HAGGARD
(Hank Williams, Sr., Merle Haggard) Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/ATV Acuff Rose Music (BMI)/Merle Haggard Music, Inc. (BMI)
Produced by Merle Haggard and Lou Bradley
Production Coordinator: Frank Mull
Recorded at Tally Studios, Palo Cedro, CA
Merle Haggard appears courtesy of Hag Records
Merle Haggard: Vocals, Guitar
Scott Joss: Guitar
Red Lane: Guitar
Reggie Young: Guitar
Kevin Williams: Bass
Rob Ickles: Dobro
George G. Receli: Drums
Doug Colosio: Piano
____________________________________________________________
THE LOST NOTEBOOKS OF HANK WILLIAMS
When Hank Williams died, he left behind a scuffed, embroidered brown leather briefcase. Like its owner, the briefcase appeared weathered beyond its years, yet it retained a dignified bearing that abuse couldn't erase. Hank used the briefcase to carry bound notebooks, among other items, darkening their pages with lyrics and song ideas. Some were fully finished, some just started. Once full, he would place the notebooks in a cardboard box, where he also dropped lyrics written on hotel stationery and other scraps of paper.
When it came time to record, Hank would refer to the notebooks and pick a few to show his producer, Fred Rose. By the end of, December 1952, four of these notebooks existed, all featuring songs not yet recorded or performed. When Hank took his last breath, the promise and poetry of the unrecorded songs seemed to perish with him.
This album, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, breathes life into the haunted words left on those pages.
In doing so, the legacy of Hank Williams, only twenty-nine when he died, further extends into a new century. The Lost Notebooks presents twelve recordings of new, original songs that Hank had started writing prior to his death late New Year's Eve, 1952, or early New Year's Day, 1953.
The history of Hank's notebooks is as complex as the legend himself. Yet, in the end, what matters more are the songs, and these new works rise from the ether with ghostly relevance. As with his many standards, these new recordings tap straight into the soul of man. This is songwriting at its most artful and most powerful.
Just as bones remain unchanged with time, so do certain emotions. The emotions Hank left in these notebooks needed expert excavators to dust them off and mine their strengths. The project began with Bob Dylan, who has always expressed his love for Hank Williams and the influence he absorbed from his work: “The sound of Hank Williams's voice went through me like an electric rod,” Dylan wrote ill his autobiography, Chronicles, Volume 1. “When I hear Hank sing, all movement ceases. The slightest whisper seems sacrilege.”
Dylan was the first artist to lift one of Hank's notebook songs from its resting place, finish it, put music to it, and record it. With help from veteran music industry manager and A&R executive Mary Martin, who worked with Dylan's manager Albert Grossman in the 1960s, other artists were enlisted, most chosen because of their songwriting and arranging abilities and their affinity for delivering songs reminiscent of Hank’s earthly directness. The guest artists tapped into Hank’s musical DNA to creat something that is both his and their own. These artists and these voices—some with decades of experience, some still forging fresh paths—all found an essential truth in these songs, and then embellished them with their talents and personalities.
The results speak volumes. These new songs resemble rich farmland soil: Their strengths are as old as the earth, expressing emotions that have always been and always will be; yet at this moment they offer fresh fruit, creating a bountiful harvest that is as universal yet as personal as a lonesome night or a good morning kiss.
These recordings underscore, yet again, the distinct brilliance of Hank Williams as a songwriter. Hank wrote songs the way he drank whiskey: like there was no tomorrow. For Hank, drinking was a private affair, done in dark corners and hiding from the scowls of family, friends, and band mates. Drinking wasn’t a communal, shared activity for Williams. It was a pain-killing pursuit exercised alone.
He wrote songs like that too: Hunched over, locked away in his mind, furiously scrawling and crossing out words to pare a song to its essential emotions. He mostly wrote alone, occasionally turning to his mentor Fred Rose or friends like Vic McAlphin and Ray Price to help him finish the mission. That’s what happens The Lost Notebooks too; like-minded writers, admirers, and acolytes step up to help complete what Hank started.
Many myths surround Hank Williams, myths that those who knew him best are quick to dispel. He wasn’t a doomed, introspective genius anymore than he was a reckless rebel tearing his way through honky-tonks and wild women. Instead, he was a prankster, a man who enjoyed gathering friends for hunting and fishing trips, and a doting father who called out to his song from radio shows and saddled up a newly purchased horse to present to his stepdaughter at a front-yard birthday party.
The alcoholism, however, was always there. Born September 17, 1923, in rural Alabama, Hank first lost his balance from a belly full of corn whiskey in his grade-school years, when he and a few buddies knew where railroad employees hid flasks to sip during work breaks. He lost his first job a month before his eighteenth birthday by showing up drunk for his early morning radio show at the Montgomery, Alabama, station WSFA. By that time, he had won a talent contest, formed a band, and dropped out of school at age sixteen.
While the drinking came and went, the songwriting, once it started, remained constant. In 1943, not yet twenty, Hank sold a song, "(I'm Praying for the Day That) Peace Will Come," to Grand Ole Opry star Pee Wee King after opening a show for him. King had a contract with Acuff-Rose Publications, Nashville's first major country music publisher, a connection that would prove vital to Hank's career.
Within months of marrying Audrey Sheppard Guy in December 1944, Hank published two songbooks and entered a sanitarium for alcoholism. He was twenty-one at the time. Sober for a period, he returned to the morning program on WSFA and, urged by his new bride, contacted producer and songwriter Fred Rose at Acuff-Rose Publications. In December 1946, working with Rose as producer, Hank cut his first four songs in a studio at radio station WSM in Nashville.
From the start, his distinctive style separated him from all others, no matter the genre. A dyed-in-the-wool country boy, even when dressed in elegantly tailored Nudie suits and crisp cowboy hats, he had a limited education and. a similarly limited view of the world. Yet he owned a preternatural gift for succinctly and colorfully capturing the hopes and heartbreak of a generation of men and women.
Like Hank, the people populating his songs were pulled between the Christian, small-town values of the Depression Era South and the prosperous, rapidly changing postwar world in which he came of age. When Hank wrote, "I left my home down on the rural route / I told my pa I'm going steppin' out," he summed up a newly mobile world of endless possibilities of the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the rise of highways automobiles allowed those born in the agrarian South to seek opportunities in urban areas.
With these shifts, values began to change. Soldiers from back-country areas returned from Europe and the Pacific with worldlier ideas of pleasures and how to savor their hard-won freedoms. Meanwhile, women also enjoyed newfound freedoms, brought on when they were encouraged to take jobs during wartime, to fend for themselves while so many men were continents away, and to deal with the uncertainties of whether family members, friends, and lovers would return. When the men did come home, newly liberated women both enticed and confounded them, and both sexes struggled to adjust to a changing culture.
Better than any songwriter, Hank’s songs captured the joys, tensions, and heartbreak of this evolving world: There’s “Ramblin’ Man,” which conveyed the dark side of a man suddenly free to go wherever he wants without the anchors or responsibilities of home; there’s “I Saw the Light,” about a rambler who turns back to the moral values he had left behind at home; there’s “Hey, Good Lookin’,” which joyously captures the excitement of the possibility of hooking up with a new partner; and there’s “I’m So Lonesome I could Cry,” which describes the bottomless ache of feeling as if there’s no friend or family member to turn to when life and love turns cold.
The list goes on and on. Hank’s songs could express an unbounded joy at the pleasures available to him, or he could articulate the conflicting feelings of lust and guilt that stirred inside him as he considered the temptations of his new world. His songs contained an enormously wide variety of emotions and perspectives. But much of his most memorable work delved into the loneliness of a lost soul or the nearly unbearable pain that accompanies betrayal or a relationship in turmoil. He could deal with this topic humorously, as in “Move It on Over,” but it’s “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love with You,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” and many more, that expose emotions in ways no songwriter had done prior to Williams.
Certainly, a key to his becoming a hero to so many listeners came from how he articulated the most difficult of emotions in an era when men, still molded by the war years, were conditioned to hide their feelings and charge through any problem with a steely-eyed swagger. Men of that era weren't supposed to succumb to heartbreak or suffer from personal conflicts. They didn't openly wrestle with moral questions or lonely nights. Hank gave voice to those who couldn't admit to the psychological quandaries everyone at some point had to endure. And listeners loved him for it.
More than any songwriter before him, Hank drew on real-life experiences and emotions when crafting his great work. The indelible way he expressed his joy, his distress, and his spiritual searching set the standard against which all songwriters now measure themselves. Hank's monumental legacy becomes even more notable when realizing he issued only thirty singles in his lifetime—and five more posthumously. Eleven went to #1. All were recorded in less than six years, between December 1946 and September 1952. Yet that small body of work changed the course of American music, forever altering the sound of country music and motivating song writers of all styles to dare to be as emotionally bare and as unabashedly real as Hank had been.
Bare emotions run throughout The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, and these new songs honor and extend the artistry and the legacy of the great Hank Williams.
In his classic “I Saw the Light,” Hank wrote of a man who had wandered aimlessly through a life filled with sin. But there was nothing aimless about Hank’s songwriting. He shot straight to the heart. Even on the night he died, on a scrap of paper found on the backseat floorboard, there were incredibly moving lines written in a shaky hand, suggesting that even as he rushed to an early end, Hank fought the darkness by expressing himself in short, impactful verse.
These new songs, each in their own way, express something visceral and important about individual experience, about our most intimate relationships, and about the struggle between sin and redemption. Through the talents of several capable acolytes, Hank Williams has risen yet again to peer into the darkness and to help the rest of us see the light.
THE HISTORY OF THE NOTEBOOKS
To explain why this musical bounty has surfaced at this time requires tracing the tale of the four treasured notebooks. These sacred scrolls have a story as complicated as the man who once wrote them.
Upon Hank Williams’s death, his mother, Lillian Stone, contacted Acuff-Rose Publications to alert them to the existence of a cardboard box containing lyrics Hank had written but hadn’t recorded. In early 1953, Acuff-Rose took possession of the box, finding four notebooks of songs, as well as other scraps of paper.
As time passed, company president Wesley Rose made sure the notebooks were treated as the treasures they were. Copyrights were applied to the unrecorded songs, sixty-six in all. Peggy Lamb, a longtime Acuff-Rose employee, kept tabs on the notebooks in a locked, fireproof safe next to her desk, along with other items highly valued by the publishing firm.
When Gaylord Broadcasting (now Gaylord Entertainment) bought Acuff-Rose Publications in 1985, the notebooks at first remained in the longtime Acuff-Rose offices on Franklin Road in Nashville. But in 1986, Gaylord moved its various publishing and recording companies to new headquarters on Seventeenth Avenue in the heart of Nashville’s Music Row. The notebooks were put in two large, fireproof vaults along with other important historical Acuff-Rose documents.
Years later, then-Mercury Records executive Kira Florita began working with the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum on what became a Grammy-winning box set, The Complete Hank Williams. During her research, Florita learned about the notebooks from Lamb. Florita remembered the notebooks when co-authoring, with Colin Escott, Snapshots from the Lost Highway, a book filled with images of Hank Williams memorabilia. Published in November 2001, the book included photographed images of several unrecorded songs from the notebooks.
At the same time, Florita led the Mercury/Lost Highway Records marketing effort for the album Timeless, a multi-artist tribute to Hank Williams. That album, released in September 2001, also won a Grammy Award. Veteran music industry leader Mary Martin, who co-produced the Timeless album, first learned of the wealth of unrecorded Hank lyrics when she saw the Snapshots book.
“I didn’t know the notebooks existed until I saw the photographs in Kira’s book,” Martin said. “I began to think something should be done with these songs. We had just won a Grammy for the Timeless album, and it seemed like a good time to keep a light shining on Hank Williams. The interest was obviously there.”
In 2002, as Martin’s interest in the unrecorded songs grew, Sony/ATV Music Publishing bought the prized Acuff-Rose catalog. Of forty-eight Opryland Music employees, only six were retained; Peggy Lamb was one of them. Once again, the notebooks were relocated and stored in fireproof vaults where the company’s most valuable materials were kept.
After the sale was finalized, Martin forged ahead. In late 2002, Florita, Lamb, Martin, and Sony/ATV president and chief executive officer Donna Hilley had lunch to discuss possibilities for the songs. Eventually the four women decided to find a well-known, well-regarded artist—one who considered Hank Williams a hero and influence—to record an album’s worth of the unheard songs.
The first approached, Bob Dylan, showed a strong interest. As discussions continued, it was decided that Dylan’s Sony-related company, Egyptian Records, would become involved. It was decided that, instead of recording a full album himself, Dylan would pick one of the songs to record, and other compatible artists would be invited to choose a song to record, coming up with the arrangement and, if need be, finishing the lyrics.
Martin came up with a list of artists to consider, with help from Dylan and his representatives. The next artist invited, country star Alan Jackson, jumped at the opportunity. From there, the focus zeroed in on artists who were also established songwriters and, more specifically, on those who had demonstrated an affinity for Hank’s songs. Eventually, the list came down to the thirteen artists heard on The Lost Notebooks.
As recording started, the story of the notebooks took a bizarre turn. A Chicago Sun-Times article surfaced in 2006 that two of the notebooks, unbeknowest to Sony, had been purchased by two country music collectors. At the Sony/ATV offices, a search into a locked vault found that, indeed two notebooks were missing. A police investigation was launched and ultimately Sony regained possession of the notebooks and the handwritten songs.
With the release of The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, not only do these historically treasured notebooks endure, but now a dozen songs from within can be heard for the first time.
Michael McCall
Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum
____________________________________________________________
HANK’S CO-WRITERS
ALAN JACKSON
From the start of his career, country music star Alan Jackson has cited two songwriters as his greatest influences: Hank Williams and Merle Haggard. His songs reference Hank repeatedly, most notably “Midnight in Montgomery,” about an eerie visit to his idol’s gravesite. Hank’s presence also looms in the way Jackson writes about his personal experiences and his relationships; in the lean, cinematic lines of his songs; and in the earthy language he uses to delve into themes both emotional and cultural. As with Hank’s compositions, Jackson’s work has an innate integrity, suggesting that he has absorbed the lessons of his hero on a fundamental level.
BOB DYLAN
Though his work has been groundbreaking, Bob Dylan is quick to cite the myriad influences who inspired him to aim for timelessness rather than trendiness. Key among them, he has said is Hank Williams. As with Dylan, Williams spoke to a generation by using lyrics and sound to capture the essential changes occurring in culture. Few artists, and even fewer songwriters, express the imagination of people in a manner that forever will represent an era. Hank Williams and Bob Dylan are two of those artists. Dylan also was the first artist to record one of Hank’s notebooks songs, and he was a driving force behind the album from the start.
NORAH JONES
When Texas-born Norah Jones introduced herself to the world with her 2002 debut album, Come Away with Me, she featured a Hank Williams song early in the sequence. Her distinctive take on "Cold, Cold Heart" helped establish her love for the classic American songbook, and it demonstrated how she could forge a blend of standards and originals to make a personal statement. The album sold more than ten million copies, proving the appeal of her distinctive style. Like her mentor Willie Nelson, Jones embraces an eclectic set of influences, and her versions of Hank's songs underscore how well those songs adapt to a variety of musical settings.
JACK WHITE
Jack White repeatedly has demonstrated his interest in classic country music. When not leading one of his series of bands — the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather — the has produced recordings for country singers Loretta Lynn, Wanda Jackson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the Secret Sisters, and he contributed folk and country songs to the soundtrack Cold Mountain. The Detroit native moved to Nashville in December 2005, eventually opening his Third Man Records store and recording studio within walking distance of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. He was named Nashville’s Music City Ambassador by Mayor Karl Dean in April 2011.
LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Lucinda Williams often credits two namesakes when listing her primary influences: her father, poet Miller Williams, and the unrelated Hank Williams. Known for blending country, blues, and folk influences, Williams takes an intimately personal approach to songwriting, just as Hank did. Her albums mirror her life, reflecting relationships and observations about culture and the world in which she resides. Her 1979 debut album Ramblin’, featured a version of Hank’s “Jambalaya (On the Bayou),” and she is one of the three artists, in addition to Bob Dylan and Sheryl Crow, on The Lost Notebooks who also contributed a track to the Grammy-winning Hank tribute album, Timeless.
VINCE GILL
Country Music Hall of Fame member Vince Gill started his career in bluegrass music, but his breakthrough as a country star came on such steel guitar-drenched hits as “When I Call Your Name” and “Pocket Full of Gold,” both songs of heartbreak and betrayal in the Williams tradition. Like Hank, Gill’s voice works particularly well against the crying strains of a steel guitar; Gill recruited a legendary steel player, the late John Hughey, to play on Gill’s albums and tours. Gill considered it a great honor to record his contribution to The Lost Notebooks with the great Don Helms, best known for his crucial contributions to Hank Williams’s work. “I Hope You Shed a Million Tears” was the last recording Helms played on before his death in August 2008.
RODNEY CROWELL
Rodney Crowell’s memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, features a passage in which his father takes him to see his father’s singing idol, Hank Williams. J.W. Crowell, who led his own honky-tonk band, called the Rhythmaires, hoisted his infant son onto his shoulder so the young boy could see Hank above the crowd. The December 1952 concert the Crowells attended was among Hank’s last. Crowell inherited his musical talent and interest from his father, and he has said that finishing and recording this Williams song completes a circle. As one of country music’s most important songwriters, and one known for searching his heart and his life for influences, Crowell has been carrying on Hank’s legacy throughout his career.
PATTY LOVELESS
Patty Loveless’s mountain-born voice, with its high-lonesome arc and great ability to convey emotion has proven incredibly flexible when it comes to convincingly expressing a wide variety of material. There’s no denying that when Loveless takes on a bluegrass or a honky-tonk tune, her vocal talent all but defines what it means to be a great country singer. Just as Loveless proved a perfect foil on duets with such country greats as Vince Gill, George Jones, and Ralph Stanley, she also shows on “You’re Through Fooling Me” that she taps into the emotional core of a Hanks Williams lyric with an undeniable power all her own.
LEVON HELM
As the native Arkansan among his Canadian partners in the Band, Levon Helm gave the group a homegrown authenticity as it explored southern themes and musical influences in its landmark albums. As a solo artist, he has consistently mixed older country, folk, and blues songs among original material. His ties to Bob Dylan go back to the mid-1960s, and Helm participated in a fundraising concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in recent years. His 2011 album, Ramble at the Ryman, even found him standing on the same stage where Hank Williams regularly performed.
HOLLY WILLIAMS
Hank's granddaughter, Holly Williams, inherited her family’s penchant for drawing on personal experience in her songs and fearlessly probing her life and relationships for material. Just as Hank drew on honky-tonk and blues, and her father, Hank Williams Jr., merged southern rock with blues and country music, Holly also mixes country music with the music of her era that she grew up loving. In Holly's case, she takes the intimate approach of singer-songwriters with a dollop of country and blues. Also, that's her father Hank Williams Jr.’s voice chiming in on harmony on the choruses of Holly's recording of "Blue Is My Heart."
JAKOB DYLAN
Since the breakthrough of the Wallflowers' 1996 album, Bringing Down the Horse, and its Grammy-wiIming hit "One Headlight," Jakob Dylan has maintained ties with the roots rock and country communities. Bringing Down the Horse, like Dylan's 2010 solo album, Women and Country, were produced by T Bone Burnett, the mastermind behind the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and many other country-flavored outings. Dylan collaborated with Dixie Chicks members (and sisters) Martie Maguire and Emily Robison on their Court Yard Hounds debut. Dylan's Women and Country album and tour featured Americana singers Neko Case and Kelly Hogan on harmonies and occasional duets.
SHERYL CROW
Kennett, Missouri, native Sheryl Crow established herself as a rocker with a strong singer-songwriter foundation on her Grammy-winning debut album, Tuesday Night Music Club. After recording "Picture," a 2002 hit country duet with Kid Rock, Crow bought a farm near Nashville, Tennessee, and started appearing on country awards shows and on country tribute albums, including singing "You're Looking at Country" with Miranda Lambert for a Loretta Lynn tribute. Crow appeared on the 2001 Grammy-winning Hank tribute album, Timeless. She also has said her next album, expected in 2012, would have pronounced country flavor.
MERLE HAGGARD
As one of the per-eminent country music singer-songwriters of all time, Merle Haggard often gets mentioned alongside Hank Williams as one of the genre’s most influential and admired figures. He has been quick to tip his hat to his own idols over time, and he recorded “Lovesick Blues,” a song Hank Williams took to #1 in 1949, on his 1973 live album, I Love Dixie Blues. Like Williams, Haggard has shown an interest in gospel music and Hag has released complete albums of religious music in the past. His take on Hank’s notebook song “The Sermon on the Mountain” is the only gospel song found on The Lost Notebooks album.
____________________________________________________________
Executive Producer: Jeff Rosen
Producer: Mary Martin
Production Coordinator: Debbie Sweeney
Mastered by Mark Wilder
Art Direction & Design: Jim Sherraden at Hatch Show Print® & Coco Shinomiya
Photographs: Archival photos courtesy of Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum; Manuscript pages courtesy of Sony/ATV
Artist Photos:
Russ Harrington, David Gahr, Autumn de Wilde, Jo McCaughey, James Minchin III, Jim McGuire, Alan Messer, Tony Baker, Dino Perrucci, Mark Seliger, Pam Springsteen
Columbia Records:
Steve Barnett, Rob Stringer, Greg Linn, Kiana Perry, Betsy Whitney, Bryan Younce, Kimberly Boley
Thanks to Management:
Craig Fruin, Nancy Russell, Mary Levitan, John Silva, Ian Montone, Tiffany Steffens, Tom Overby, Larry Fitzgerald, David Whitehead, Mike Robertson, Barbara O'Brien, Stuart Dill, Rich Egan, Ryan Smull, Dave Sanford, Scooter Weintraub, Pam Wertheimer, Frank Mull
Special thanks to:
Diane Lapson, Robert Bower, Callie Gladman, April Hayes, Will Schwartz, Damian Rodriguez, & Michael Perlstein
For more information on Hank Williams and The Lost Notebooks, visit the limited engagement exhibit, Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, Presented by Sun Trust, at the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum.
____________________________________________________________
columbiarecords.com
lostnotebooksofhankwilliams.com
countrymusichalloffame.org
____________________________________________________________
© & (P) Compilation ® 2011 Sony Music Entertainment/Distributed by Columbia Records, A Division of Sony Music Entertainment/550 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022-3211/"Columbia" and Reg. U.S. Pat & Tm. Off. Marca Registrada./WARNING: All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. 88697 090102
____________________________________________________________
Back to Top
