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Hank Williams III
It might be a reach, but one could argue that Hank Williams virtually invented country music before he died from a life of excess. After his passing, American ‘rural’ music had found its home base in Nashville. In the process, the music changed drastically, resting in the hands of session musicians and producers who were more adept at maintaining a professional, business-like means of recording music than Hank had ever known. So, before there even was an industry to rebel against, Hank Williams was the first, and probably best, of the country ‘outlaws’. Genetics are a weird thing, though. After Hank’s passing, his son, Hank, Jr. inherited the mantle left by his daddy, but he never came anywhere near the plaintive, honest means of singing and songwriting that made his father such a legend. Instead of "Honky Tonkin’," Hank Jr. was watching Monday Night Football with all his rowdy friends. Hank Jr. had a son, though, and it turns out that he has the same hard-edged, bare to the bone, rebellious nature as his grandfather. He looks like him, too, but more importantly, he also sounds like him.
Needless to say, times have changed since the late forties and early fifties, so Hank III’s rebelliousness takes on a contemporary edge that parallels the nature of his lineage. Hank III is familiar with alternative music and can rip out a sweaty punk-influenced rocker just as easily as he could wrap himself around a great country tune. His lifestyle so resembles that of his grandfather that it seems only too likely that this boy is living on borrowed time, too, which is all the more reason why you ought to familiarize yourself with this album now. Hank III pays no mind AT ALL to contemporary Nashville. He doesn’t sound like Vince Gill, Alan Jackson or Toby Keith. Williams’ brand of country skips that portion of its history. Instead, he sounds like what might have happened if Hank Sr. was born in the sixties. Actually, I should correct that – he is what would have happened if Hank Sr. were born in the sixties. He combines a deep respect for the real roots of rural music, while adding a healthy dose of contemporary attitude.
Lovesick, Broke & Driftin’ showcases Hank III as both a performer and songwriter. He sings like it’s 1948, but he writes like it’s 2002, from the perspective of a young but battered old soul with a sense of destiny shaped by his genetics as much as his sensibilities. He lives the life of a hard drinking troubadour, and that’s what he writes about. "Mississippi Mud" is an ode to drinking whiskey straight out of the jug. "Trashville" takes a pointed knock at ‘Music City’, comparing it (unfavorably) to Texas, while "Whisky, Weed and Women" and "Five Shots of Whiskey" speak for themselves. There’s not much mystery to his choice of topics, but the playing is fine, utilizing some of hard country’s best musicians around. For good measure, he even throws in a countrified cover of Bruce Springsteen’s "Atlantic City", with a perspective that sounds almost matter of fact instead of desperate. And hey, the kid can yodel like his granddaddy. It’s a very, very rare thing when a style that was perfected fifty years ago finds new, vital life, but Hank III does it just by waking up in the morning.
Grade: 
 
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