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Hank Williams - The Ultimate Collection
- Hank Williams is the grandfather of country music. His original, standard country songs left an indelible mark on the future of music.
“The Ultimate Collection” is just that: a two disc collection of his greatest songs. His words fit into the confines of each melody like a puzzle piece. Simplicity was his forte. Because of this, I don’t think he knew how brilliant of a songwriter he was.
“Mansion on the Hill” is a perfect example of this. He sings, “Tonight down here in the valley/ I’m lonesome and oh how I feel/ As I sit here alone in my cabin/ I can see your mansion on the hill.” This is a visually inviting, lovelorn tale: “I’ve waited all through the years love/ To give you a heart true and real/ Cause I know you’re living in sorrow/ In your loveless mansion on the hill.” Many of Williams’s songs, including this one, feature the splendor of Don Helms’s lap steel guitar.
“Cold, Cold Heart” is pure poetry. He sings, “A memory from your lonesome past keeps us so far apart/ Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart,” simple yet brilliant.
“Ramblin’ Man” is a description of a songwriter’s vagabond lifestyle. He sings it in a country-tinged pitch with the drawl of a howling dog as he does in “Honky Tonk Blues.”
You can hear his religious influence in “Ready to Go Home” and “The Angel of Death.” Williams also recorded gospel songs under the pseudonym Luke the Drifter.
Another one of his most popular songs is “Lost Highway,” another brilliant piece of poetry. The first lines say it all: “I’m a rolling stone all alone and lost/ For a life of sin I have paid the cost/ When I pass by all the people say/ there goes another boy down the lost highway.”
As a result of drugs and alcohol, Williams died at the young age of 29 from a heart attack. Yet, he accomplished so much that most of his songs are considered standards and covered by countless country, folk, punk, and rockabilly artists.
Although he died so young, I feel that Williams made such a connection to people and had such an influence on country music in his time that he led a happy and fulfilling life.
His rambling lifestyle caught up with him quickly and perhaps the greatest wisdom Williams ever acquired was when he sang his song, “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.”
Reviewer: Stefan Julian
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Reviewer's Rating: 9.5
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Added: 1-Aug-2009
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