how it’s done.
The Best Of Hank Williams
Artist: Hank Williams
Release Date: 2002
After Creedence broke up, John Fogerty turned up the “country” knob, first with his one-man bluegrass band, the Blue Ridge Rangers, and later in his solo albums. (It had always been there, but the band wasn’t the best place for it.) And if you’re going to be country, your work will bear echoes of this inventor of modern country music. Williams was the first to add a personal touch to his lyrics, a result of hearing a lot of blues in his youth; this innovation propelled him to the stardom which would long outlast his death at age 29. He also wrote compelling melodies to fit those lyrics, which saw his songs covered by pop artists and even rockers like Fats Domino, whose version of “Jambalaya” was the first many people heard. His small body of work is a cornerstone of American popular music, and alt-country types are still finding out how difficult such simplicity can be.
Classic Sides
Artist: Jimmie Rodgers
Release Date: 2002
Before Hank Williams, there was Jimmie Rodgers, a Mississippian who’d been schooled in the blues and then gone on to hone a repertoire which deftly mixed them with a broad streak of sentimentality. Country’s first superstar, his “blue yodel” and use of the Hawaiian steel guitar in his recordings would form a template for country that lasted until Hank Williams’ innovations expanded the genre’s vocabulary. Nor was it only country musicians who were influenced: Howlin’ Wolf famously said that his trademark “Ah-ooo” was his