The Oxford American - Spring 2002
Lost Issue (not available in print)
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Hank Williams: Timeless (Lost Highway)

Tribute compilations exist on eggshells. They're often a musical equivalent of Festschrifts-collections of nostalgic, worshipful, and occasionally sycophantic essays prepared in honor of some luminary's body of work-except that in music, die-hard fans of the honorees often denounce the tributes as sacrilegious. Contributors' belabored homages are often seen as mere approximations, impersonations, or, at worst, misappropriations of the originals. The tribcomps are then bemoaned for their inherent unevenness and their tendency to end up in used-record bins. But: One could argue that even some of the most tedious high-profile misfires of recent years have contained at least a handful of enduring what-ifs, dream pairings of performer and performed. Hank Williams: Timeless manages to sustain its dreaminess even beyond its running time.

Hank gets revisited all the time; recent standouts include Jimmie Dale Gilmore's pristine version of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," and Hanky Panky, an entire album of Hank by British band (and search-engine-nightmare) The The. But Timeless works as a piece largely because, with a few exceptions, those charged with rendering the legend are legends themselves. To itemize: Bob Dylan's track brims with his newfound, nothing-to-lose swagger; Tom Petty is confidently confrontational; Mark Knopfler's "Lost on the River" offers quietude and sobriety; Johnny Cash acquits himself like the humble titan that he is; and Keb' Mo' crashes whitey's party, recasting twanging heartbreak as sparse, hotel-ballroom swoon. The find here is a guy named Keith Richards, whose soulful, bandleader persona shines on "You Win Again." Best Actress goes to Lucinda Williams, whose portrayal of "Cold, Cold Heart" is fittingly tragic and atremble; her agonized inflection escapes the singing-somebody-else's-song tribute-trap of having to evoke borrowed feelings, making her speaker's desire seem lived-in. Though Emmylou Harris's rather Celtic arrangement of "Alone and Forsaken" is fine, it spoils the record's Western-swing vibe.

Among the younguns: Sheryl Crow's offering, though a tad over-yodeled, makes one wish she'd do a proper country record, and Beck drenches "Your Cheatin' Heart" in atmosphere and accompanies himself in worthy faux-Chris Isaak tones. Ryan Adams's "Lovesick Blues" sounds like an audition, but it grows on you, despite how the odd juxtaposition of his hipster presence is like the Karate Kid attending a roundtable of tenured ninjas. Hank III's cut, although airy and tuneful, is less resonant, which-because he’s a literal rather than spiritual descendant of Hank I-is the album's chief irony.

The compilation multi-tasks as a nod to Hank's songwriting prowess and as a barometer of the richness of current songwriters' delivery. Though the album doesn't capture Hank's doomed enthusiasm-he wrote songs about jumping wholeheartedly into dry rivers!-it does communicate his transcendent earnestness. This album successfully restages songs that Hank sang from a place where prophecy was possible, and from a time when a dream could be a "treasure that I'll always keep" instead of a chaotic Freudian slide show brought on by pizza and Coke. Classily packaged, Timeless is like a museum for the father of a music whose roots are always showing, a museum staffed by giants of equal height-though Keith and Bob stomp around as if they own the place.

WILLIAM BOWERS