CD of The Week

Sorrow Bound/Hank Williams Re-Examined
Artists: Billy Cowsill, Jane Hawley, Stewart MacDougall, Tom Phillips, Tim Williams
Label: Ruby Moon Records



As Reviewed by Peter North


Listen to samples from Sorrow Bound/Hank Williams Re-Examined:
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Alberta Winds
Billy Cowsill-It's Over Now

Is there a finer body of work in the American roots music library to both draw from and seek inspiration from than that of Hank Williams Sr.?

No, and it's still awe inspiring when reminded once again just how deep and timeless the Williams catalogue is and that fifty plus years later the songs remain the foundation of country, folk, and blues music.

Treated to hundreds of superior covers of the Alabama songwriter's tunes over the years, there wouldn't be much point in recording another Hank tribute disc unless participants could hit the bar that has been established by everyone from D.L. Menard and Lucinda Williams to Johnny Cash and Buckwheat Zydeco.

So it's hats off to Tim Williams and Joel Shortt, the late founder of Ruby Moon Records, for assembling a sympathetic cast of singers whose interpretive skills of Hank Sr. material match the emotion that is at the core of so many of the original recordings and subsequent classic covers.

This is a group of artists whose own lives have been marked by wanderlust and travels on the honky-tonk highways. Williams, who produced and performed, Stewart MacDougall, Jane Hawley, Tom Phillips and Billy Cowsill led a crusade through the Hank Sr. songbook. Individually they nailed everything from blues basted favorites like You Win Again (Cowsill) to the bayou beat of Jambalaya (Hawley) to Williams evangelistic alter ego Luke the Drifter, which would be MacDougall using his best narrative voice for My Heart Would Know. The supporting cast of guitarist Tim Leacock, bass player Kit Johnson, drummer Thom Moon and steel player Charlie Veilleux find the mark on every turn and echo the stark and lonesome sounding accompaniment that Hank Sr.'s Drifting Cowboys draped on the originals.

What really sets this project apart from other Williams' tributes is the second disc Touched By The Spirit of Hank.

Fifteen additional tunes, all originals from Hawley, Cowsill, MacDougall, Phillips and Williams, are tributaries flowing out of the Hank tradition.

Some, like Alberta Winds and For Loving You, are vintage Tim Williams tunes that he originally cut in the seventies and were long out of print until he re-recorded them for this set.

Hawley comes across as Alberta's Victoria Williams on Sympathetic Heart and the Cowsill closer, It's Over Now, is heartbreak personified in light of his recent passing.

There were any number of obstacles that momentarily stood in the way of this disc that also features great packaging seeing the light of day, but it's finally here and deserves our attention and praise.