Consumer Guide Album

Hank Williams: Alone With His Guitar [Mercury, 2000]
Like most rock and rollers, and most country fans, I much prefer Hank the honky-tonker. But back before Pete Seeger claimed eminent domain, Williams just as often conceived himself as a folksinger. Mixing standards with obscurities and originals with covers, this 18-track selection from the countless solo demos and radio transcriptions preserved on his daunting ten-CD set will satisfy most of us. His directness is in relief, and though his natural sense of rhythm is irrepressible, his natural gravity overpowers it. If you wonder how the songwriter could get as starkly lugubrious as "A Teardrop on a Rose," listen to the singer bore into "With Tears in My Eyes" and "Thy Burdens Are Greater Than Mine." A-