Rolling down route 24, headed for Fall River, Mass., and listening to Hank Williams (24 hits, volume 2), I was struck yet again by how great a couple of his sidemen were.

His fiddle player plays double-stop solos almost exclusively (unless there were two fiddles) -- wonderful, simple, direct solos.

But I think the swingin'est musician ever to pick up the steel bar is Hank's steel player. Against the chunka-chunk two-step rhythm, he lays down solos worthy of Johnny Hodges -- it's hard to sit still when you're listening to him. So...what I'm wondering is:

1. What were their names, fiddle and steel?

2. The steel is an old "single six" or maybe 8, but no pedals, right?

3. How many of Hank's recordings did Mercury mess with after his death? And which ones? All of them, or only the giant hits? And what, exactly, did they do to them? Some of the time, I can hear a tic-toc electric bass that seems to be a posthumous "improvement". Did Mercury add high-strung "ching" guitars, or is that Hank's D-18 all the time?

I figure there might be some Hank nuts who are up on this stuff.