aaamusic | On 09, Aug 2011

Egyptian Records, Bob Dylan’s label imprint, in partnership with the Country Music Hall of Fame^®, Museum’s CMF Records and Sony Commercial Music Group, will release The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams on Monday 3 October 2011.

The second title ever to be released on Egyptian (the first was 1997’s The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers – A Tribute Album), The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams is a long-awaited collection of previously unrecorded Hank Williams lyrics newly set to music and performed for the first time as completed songs by a roster of artists with a musical and spiritual kinship to the archetypal American country music singer-songwriter.

The release of The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams provides an audio companion to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy, a 5,000-square-foot exhibition presenting an intimate, behind-the-scenes portrait of a great American musical dynasty.  Family Tradition, which opened in March 2008, is the largest and most popular temporary exhibition in the institution’s history.   The exhibit, which includes Hank Williams’ notebooks and other memorabilia, will close on 31 December 2011.

Created from writings left behind by country music’s “lovesick blues boy,” The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams premieres the first-ever performances of 12 previously unheard Hank Williams lyric compositions newly set to music by 13 artists whose own sensibilitieshave been profoundly shaped by Williams.

The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams project began with the idea of finding a well-known artist, one who felt Hank’s inspiration and influence, to record an album’s worth of the unheard songs. After veteran music industry manager/A&R executive Mary Martin approached Bob Dylan, a natural first choice for the endeavor, the project evolved into a multi-artist tribute providing a variety of sympathetic approaches to this rich mysterious material.

The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams – tracklisting

1. 1.             You’ve Been Lonesome, Too – Alan Jackson
2. 2.             The Love That Faded  – Bob Dylan
3. 3.             How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?  – Norah Jones
4. 4.             You Know That I Know – Jack White
5. 5.             I’m So Happy I Found You  – Lucinda Williams
6. 6.            I Hope You Shed a Million Tears – Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell
7. 7.             You’re Through Fooling Me – Patty Loveless
8. 8.             You’ll Never Again Be Mine – Levon Helm
9. 9.             Blue Is My Heart – Holly Williams
10. 10.          Oh, Mama, Come Home – Jakob Dylan
11. 11.          Angel Mine – Sheryl Crow
12. 12.         The Sermon on the Mount – Merle Haggard

* * * * *

From heartbreak to honky-tonking, from Jesus to gin mills, Hank Williams wrote about life’s deepest truths and sang with an ethereal authority on such unforgettable songs as “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, “I Saw the Light”, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, “Cold, Cold Heart” and many more.

When Hank Williams died, at the age of 29, in the back of his Cadillac sometime early morning on New Year’s Day 1953, he leftbehind a scuffed, embroidered brown leather briefcase, which he used to carry bound notebooks, among other items, darkening their pages with lyrics and song ideas. Some were fully finished, some just started.

The odyssey of Hank Williams’ notebooks is recounted in the album’s liner notes, penned by Michael McCall from the Country MusicHall of Fame and Museum, who observes, “The history of Hank’s notebooks is as complex as the legend himself. Yet, in the end, what matters most 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.”