http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0, 2260075, 00.html

Dylan gets Jack White to bring Hank Williams to life

Bob Dylan has set his favourite musicians loose on a pile of Hank
Williams's lost lyrics

Sean Michaels
Tuesday February 26, 2008
guardian.co.uk

Bob Dylan is spearheading a project to record a series of incomplete
songs by the late, great Hank Williams. "He came upon, somehow, 20-25
unfinished songs by Hank Williams: just the lyrics, no music," the
White Stripes' Jack White told MTV News. Dylan has enlisted the help of
various contemporary roots musicians, including White, to write and
perform music - taking these lost songs and making them found.

"I think it might come out this year," White said. "It's a cool record."

Jack White recorded a song called You Know That I Know at the Blackbird
Studios in Nashville. Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams and Alan Jackson
have also been invited by Dylan.

It's an initiative that recalls the Mermaid Avenue albums by Billy
Bragg and Wilco. On those records, Bragg and Wilco "finished" songs
that had been left uncompleted by Woody Guthrie.

According to some reports, these Woody Guthrie lyric sheets were
originally going to be given to Bob Dylan. Woody's daughter, Nora,
changed her mind after hearing that Dylan had appeared at a concert for
the Pope - an act she deemed contrary to her father's politics. Bragg
was approached instead.

The Pope is clearly not a pressing concern for the Hank Williams estate.




Mark Ross