SIMPLY HANK WILLIAMS        SIMPLYCD237

Hank Williams wrote over 700 songs that are still performed today more often than those of any other country musician, and his unforced stage persona and heartfelt delivery formed a blueprint for country and western artists worldwide. Although he achieved near-legendary status and recognition in his own time as a pioneer of the honky-tonk style, Hank Williams’ personal life was marked by adversity and upheaval. Domestic instability and lifelong, severe back pain increasingly led him to self medicate with alcohol and painkilling drugs such as morphine. On January 1st, 1953, hours before a scheduled performance in Ohio, he was found dead in the back seat of his brand new Cadillac outside Oak Hill, West Virginia. He was just 29 years old. Hank Williams epitomised the ‘live fast, love hard, die young’ image, and his music is both poignant and raucous, bittersweet and wry. This 2 CD compilation features over 50 of the greatest songs from the man who changed country music forever, including classics such as Lovesick Blues, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Cold, Cold Heart, Hey, Good Lookin’, Take These Chains From My Heart, The Blues Come Around, Crazy Heart, and You Win Again. This is timeless, often heart-breaking music from a performer who rose from humble hillbilly origins to superstardom.

EASY COUNTRY     UNION SQUARE MUSIC EASYCD203

The term ‘country music’ embraces several different genres: the Nashville sound (most popular in the 1960s); bluegrass, a fast mandolin, banjo and fiddle-based music popularised by Bill Monroe and the Foggy Mountain Boys; Western, which encompasses traditional Western ballads and Hollywood cowboy music; Western swing, a sophisticated dance music popularised by Bob Wills; the Bakersfield sound (Buck Owens and Merle Haggard); outlaw country; Cajun; Zydeco; gospel; oldtime (generally pre-1930 folk music); honky tonk; Appalachian; rockabilly; neotraditional country and jug band. Each style has its unique rhythms and chord structures, though many songs have been adapted to the different country styles. Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have a nationwide hit (May 1924, with ‘The Wreck of Old 97’) and modern country music was greatly influenced by Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. In the 1990s a new form emerged, sometimes known as alternative country, neotraditional, or ‘insurgent country’. This richly varied compilation takes in the best of traditional country artists and contemporary performers who have so imaginatively developed the genre. From Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams, through Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, up to Emmylou Harris, Lonestar and Ryan Adams, Easy Country’s songs all share a deeply resonant honesty. The 45 well-chosen tracks on this excellent three-album box set feature some of the finest country music ever recorded and show why this vibrant form of music remains so popular. Highly recommended, especially to anyone yet to be convinced that country music is for them.

LIZ ZORN - THE TRUTH ABOUT ME     DOO BUG RECORDS 5648-1

This stylish debut album by the painter, multi-media artist and poet Liz Zorn was two years in the making. It’s an eclectic mix of folk/blues and adult alternative music that shows the influence of such contemorary songwriters as Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin. All the songs were written by Zorn, who lives in Morrow, Ohio. She also produced the record and plays small body Martin Acoustic and Liberty Resonator guitars. The highly distinctive sound was achieved by meticulously working in layers of guitar and vocals. Rock and country music are fused with blues and jazz to produce a winning brand of Americana. The singer went through around two hundred songs to come up with the eleven on this album. Standout tracks apart from the title song include Cold Black Night, the bluesy Giddy Up Baby, Knife to the Bone (a spare and brutally honest response to abuse), and the wonderfully plaintive So Long. Expressive vocals throughout, sometimes shaded with echo and ambient sounds, take the listener on an emotional journey filled with delightful surprises.

THE CARTER FAMILY - COUNTRY LEGENDS  RCA NASHVILLE/BMG 82876 59266 2

Probably the most influential group in country music history, the Carter Family switched the emphasis from hillbilly instrumentals to vocals, made scores of their songs part of the standard country music canon, and made a style of guitar playing - ‘Carter picking’ - the dominant technique for decades. The group comprised of a shy gospel quartet performer called Alvin P. Carter and two reserved country girls - his wife, Sara, and their sister-in-law, Maybelle. Together they sang a pure, simple harmony that influenced countless other groups of the 1930s and 40s, as well as folk, bluegrass and rock musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Doc Watson, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris. A.P., the family patriarch, collected hundreds of British/Appalachian folk songs and sixteen of the most popular feature on this excellently produced CD, including Worried Man Blues, Lonesome Valley, Wabash Cannonball, Wildwood Flower and Keep on the Sunny Side.