BDylan, JWhite, H

Subject: BDylan, JWhite, HWilliams
From: Mark Ross
Date: 26 Feb 08 - 03:58 PM

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

Subject: RE: BDylan, JWhite, H
From: PoppaGator
Date: 27 Feb 08 - 03:26 PM

refresh

This almost fell off the bottom of the page without my seeing it. I figure it'll be of interest to others, as well.

Woody's daughter judged The Bob pretty harshly for a single concret appearance. I really doubt that Woody himself would have been so judgemental.

Subject: RE: BDylan, JWhite, H
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 04:43 AM

My best guess is that if Woody had been invited to perform for the CEO of Vatican Enterprises, he would have grabbed the opportunity to give the old fellow a brisk lecture on several contraversial issues. Which may be why he never got the gig.

As regards the unfinished Hank Williams songs - the sooner they come out the better. Look at what an "unfinished symphony" has done for the reputation of Franz Schubert.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: BDylan, JWhite, H
From: PoppaGator
Date: 28 Feb 08 - 02:00 PM

Incidentally: One of Woody Guthrie's best-loved songs, "Deportees," was actually a poem/lyric of his put to music by someone else, in much the same manner as these current artists are about to "complete" Hank's unfinished songs.

Some have described "Deportees" as Woody's final composition; I take this to indicate that he wrote those words shortly before finally succumbing to his long final illness, never to put them to music and, also, never to write another lyric again.

(There are no rhyming lines in "Deportees," by the way. It took me years to realize this; the meter is so perfect, I suppose, that you don't readily notice the absense of rhymes.)

Subject: RE: BDylan, JWhite, H
From: Arkie
Date: 29 Feb 08 - 02:35 PM

I would certainly be interested in hearing this. Look forward to its release. Mark, thanks for calling this to our attention.

Subject: RE: BDylan, JWhite, H
From: Stringsinger
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 02:20 PM

There was probably a good reason Hank Williams decided not to finish those songs.

I didn't think Mermaid Avenue was evocative of Woody, either.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BDylan, JWhite, H
From: Mark Ross
Date: 01 Mar 08 - 08:19 PM

I agree with you Frank. There was a reason those never became completed songs. Also, I can look at some of those lyrics and infer what songs Woody was using as song models, and the musicians involved on MMAvenue obviously didn't have a clue.

Mark Ross