Complete Hank Williams CD

THE COMPLETE HANK WILLIAMS is 10-CD deluxe box set containing more than 220 tracks including 53 previously unreleased and the complete early Sterling Records and MGM Records sessions. The box also comes with 2 books: "The Stories" with extensive liner notes by Colin Escott, a 2,500-word essay by Daniel Cooper, complete discography, biographical chart, rare photographs, and "The Music" which contains the 10 discs as well as handwritten lyrics, LP covers, detailed track listings and other information. Also included are 8 Hank Williams postcards, some of which feature original art.
Personnel includes: Hank Williams (vocals, acoustic guitar); Audrey Williams (vocals); James "Guy" Willis, Zeke Turner, Louis Innis, Zeb Turner, Slim Thomas, Jack Shook, Bob McNett, Sammy Pruett, Rusty Gabbard, Chet Atkins, Harold Bradley, Eddie Hill (guitar); Clyde Baum (mandolin); Dale Lohman, Herman Herron, Jerry Byrd, Don Davis, Don Helms (steel guitar); Charles "Skeeter" Willis, L.C. Crysel, Robert Wise, Tommy Jackson, Dale Potter, Jerry Rivers (fiddle); Vic Willis (accordion); Owen Bradley or Frank Rose (piano, organ); Bronson "Brownie" Reynolds, Lum York, Willie Thawl, Ernie Newton, Velma Williams, Hellus Butrum, "Cedric Rainwater" (Howard Watts), Charles Wright, Floyd "Lightin'" Chance (bass); Farris Coursey (drums).
Producers include: Fred Rose.
Compilation producers: Colin Escott, Kira Florita, The Country Music Foundation.
Includes liner notes by Daniel Cooper and Colin Escott.
Digitally remastered by Joseph M. Palmaccio at Sterling Sound.
THE COMPLETE HANK WILLIAMS won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album and for Best Boxed Recording Package, and was nominated for Best Album Notes.
Part of this collection includes 6 Health And Happiness radio transcription recordings from 1949.
Includes a 52 page booklet.
Between 1986 and 1987, Mercury launched its first effort to chronicle Hank Williams' complete recorded works, releasing a series of eight double albums/single CDs which were later collected as a box set. Both the individual compilations and the box set were pulled from the market in the '90s, clearing the way for The Complete Hank Williams, a ten-disc box set which purported to contain all of Williams' recordings. Mercury, however, played it a little loose with their terms, deciding that "complete" covers the studio recordings, demos, and selected live performances, leaving overdubbed tracks and many live cuts (including much of The Health and Happiness Shows, which was released as a separate collection) in the vaults. This is bound to frustrate some collectors, but it makes for a better listen, actually. Instead of piling all the recordings into an impenetrable chronological trawl through Williams' recording life, the compilers logically devoted specific discs to the studio sessions, live cuts, and demos. In particular, the studio discs are quite compelling, but for hardcore fans, the previously unheard live performances (including several songs that Williams only performed in concert) are the real treasures. Then again, only hardcore fans will invest in such a lavish, extensive box set as The Complete Hank Williams, and there's little question that they'll be quite pleased with it. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
This magnificent four-disc box is easily the best budget collection of Hank Williams' music ever assembled. Three discs are devoted to studio recordings compiled in chronological order; disc four covers six installments of the Health & Happiness Show. Fans who own only 40 Greatest Hits or a similar collection will be pleased at the scope of this box, which features not only hit singles but early demos, Luke the Drifter sides, gospel tunes, and a handful of the duets Williams recorded with his wife, Audrey. The catch is that it explores only the first seven years of Williams' recording career, which means that nothing he released after 1951 is included. That's a pity, but even so, this set is woSpin (1/99, p.92) - Ranked #2 in Spin's list of the "Ten Best Reissues Of 1998."
Spin (11/98, pp.144-145) - 10 (out of 10) - "...this jumped-up hillbilly was the bridge between old and new. He links the pious, antebellum Roy Acuff to postwar, urban, roadhouse culture....the key to country's red-dirt past and sign of a rock world to come."
Entertainment Weekly (9/25/98, pp.101-102) - "...Ultimately, THE COMPLETE HANK WILLIAMS is less a document more than a documentary: the nonfiction story of a prodigiously gifted falling-down alcoholic, always at odds with his wife Audrey,...the industry he helped spawn,...and most crucially, himself..." - Rating: B+
Mojo (Publisher) (7/02, p.120) - "...Follows him chronologically through 1946-1951 over 3 CDs - ragged folk-spiritual-singer on CD1; urban mountain-boy-going-on-rock star on CD3..."