Hank Williams Jr. Album: “New South, Vol. 2”

I imagine I'll be taken to the mat by more than a few on this...But, Hank's upward trajectory really starts here with "The New South" album and not "Hank Williams Jr. & Friends"(I am reviewing the original New South and not anything that has greatest hits or whatever added to the title). This is simply due to the fact the earlier album, though it had fantastic songs and great guests, was marred by too heavy handed production. This album, while not rough, is the polar opposite. Everything here fits and rings true and doesn't sound forced in anyway. In fact, it sounds like a real talent from within finding it's footing without embellishment. I think the quantum shift in a career that looking back on would even make the "old man" a bit jealous, though "peacock proud", actually started with this somewhat underappreciated album.

When I discovered this album I was about 16 and still in high school. I was an open book to Hank. Strangely enough my earlier link to anything about him was that he recently moved to my hometown of Cullman, Alabama and my part time job as a furniture delivery boy took me to his house. It was a difficult time, I'm sure, as at first he wasn't even there, but in a hospital because of his now famous Ajax mountain accident. When he finally was able to come to his new home he was still bandaged and in the process of recouperation. Thus, I cannot really say I ever got to know the man, but I feel this album introduced me to him. In over 30 years it hasn't lost it's grip as it still sounds wonderful...Every track in fact.

I'll give Hank credit for knowing what he needed to do, but many don't know just how instrumental his new manager (at the time), James R. Smith was in providing the atmosphere and support that nurtured it. The very reason that Hank ended up in my small hometown was that he needed a "clean break" from not only the same old Nashville mentality, but actual people and habits that were hurtful to his health as well as his career. Mr. Smith was a successful business man with a trucking company as his cornerstone. I do not know how that was the best fit with Hank, but the proof is the amazing rise that followed. Unexpected? Maybe to outsiders, but if you were to know anything about James R. Smith you'd never bet against him and apparently Hank, like I said earlier, knew exactly what he now wanted and for the first time he had the perfect foil to help him achieve it.

Getting back to the album - I may be taken to the mat again on this, but I feel it's perhaps one of his two best if not the best. It's nigh well perfect for this kind of music. Hank asserts his voice, and it's recorded so well, you feel he sings as well as the "old man". Yeah, it's a baritone and what a baritone it is! It has enough range, but the resonance is just captured here perfectly as if he was singing in the room with you. Unlike Hank Williams Jr. & Friends, where the production got in the way, here it augments each songs needs and stays enough out of the way to serve the music instead of the other way around. Guitars ring true, embellishments are minimal, and the real heart of each great song, like cream, rises to the top. The programming is nigh well great too. It's got everything from rock to Gordon Lightfoot type folk with lots of gritty country earthiness underpinning it all. Not much "outlaw" like later albums, but truthfully it did not need it. I like the "outlaw" stuff too, but this album, in my humble opinion, stands alone as one of his greatest, if not greatest. If you have even a passing interest in Hank Jr., or later day soulful country influenced folk or rock, don't miss this release. As I stated earlier, it's a bit underappreciated in Hank Jr.s cannon, but like the first two Big Star albums in the rock category, it has achieved a certain "cult like" status that should insure as time goes on it will get its rightful accolades.

By the way, I've seen Hank in some of the least glamourous venues and he always gives a show that leaves you walking out knowing he's the "real thing". I saw him first in my high school auditorium with Merle Kilgore and later in a roadhouse type bar in Huntsville, Alabama. He wasn't yet the man who won untold "Country Entertainer Of The Year" awards, but he already had all the talent and drive that would later secure that status. As much of an icon as "the old man" was, and is, it's a fact that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There's no other way to explain Hank Jr.s success except, though different, he's got the talent gene from dad. Do not miss this album!!!