Hank Williams

The Complete Collection (Universal)

They may have called him the “hillbilly Shakespeare”, but fans such as Keith Richards have recognised that, in attitude, Hank Williams was pure rock’n’ roll. As this triple box set illustrates, the hard-drinking, pill-popping, feckless and philandering Williams rivals Woody Guthrie as the father of a modern songwriting tradition that stretches from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash to Beck and Bruce Springsteen.

The first disc contains 20 of his biggest hits, from Your Cheatin’ Heart and You Win Again to Jambalaya and Honky Tonkin’. What distinguished Williams was the blue note in his voice, a high lonesome sound that sends shivers down the spine. It is heard to fine effect on the second disc: live recordings that, despite the variable sound quality, convey a sense of the wildness that was always just below the surface of his more polished artistry. That rawness is also evident on the third disc, which contains rarities, particularly where his voice is left unadorned except for a simple acoustic guitar. A couple of decades ago these 50-year-old recordings might have sounded like period pieces. Today, when we have come to value authenticity over artifice, they sound more contemporary than ever.