Customer Reviews

Hank Williams: Revealed

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The second in a series often is a disappointment. Not true here. This second in the series of Hank Williams live radio broadcasts from 1951 reveals the country music legend at the peak of his performances. The live versions of many Williams hits on disc one actually sound better than the studio versions in some cases. It is incredible that this wonderful collection had to be rescued from the trash so we can enjoy it today. Hank not only performs well, he clearly enjoys himself. Hank's addictions and other health problems are well known and it's amazing to think that this man who would be dead from his life style choices in less than two years could perform so well. Not only is he performing well, but his chatter reveals a very active mind and a very good command of the English language for a man who had little formal education. Each of the three discs concludes with an entire Mother's Best program. Disc three features Luke The Drifter, Hank's pseudonym for his narrations. The set includes a wonderful 40 page booklet. Do we really have to wait until next November for the third volume in this series?

If you are a Hank Williams fan, this set is a must!!! What a hidden treasure! If you haveThe Unreleased Recordings, then you know what you are getting. Some of the songs are Hank's songs that you have already heard, but they are not the same as previously recorded. The literature that comes w/ the set, gives the background origin of each song. It is amazing that these recordings have survived over 50 years before they were found and released. The quality and clarity could not be better if you were sitting in the same room w/ them. The clips from the mother's best shows are simply priceless. I hope they will continue to record these sets until all recordings have been released.

WHAT CAN I SAY, TIME LIFE HAS DONE IT AGAIN WITH THIS GREAT RELEASE ON HANK. LONG AWAITED FOR YEARS BY HANK COLLECTORS AND FANS, THIS IS ONCE AGAIN A SUPERB COLLECTION OF THESE TREASURES AND VERY PROFESSIONALLY PUT TOGETHER PACKAGE ON THIS, TO ME- "KING OF COUNTRY MUSIC" FIGURE.

The Time-Life "The Unreleased Recordings" series of Hank William's work shows more revelations. In this case the "Revealed" set presents his hits in a brand new light from the Mother's Best acetates. In this case his hits are presented along with three complete Mother's Best shows.

What's interesting about this set is how the Mother's Best shows allowed for more banter between the host and the musicians. That and there's something abut hearing Hank just sing on-the-spot with no safety net. His voice does strain in mid-yodel in a couple places but that only adds to the charm.

The only fault I can find in this set is that it needed better remastering. I'm very aware of the nature of analog recordings. Here the mastering wizards could've applied a bit more EQ to take full advantage of the medium as well as removing a bit more of the analog hiss.

That's not a big deal for me since I do my own remastering and rips. I took these discs and ripped them at 48kHz. I then tweaked the bass levels to better compliment the high-end while adding some more warmth to the audio. I also sampled the audio hiss and digitally removed it. Finally I re-EQed the audio to use the full bandwidth while listening to make sure that nothing was clipped (checking the waveforms visually also helped). All of this is then tagged and stored as FLAC master files.

I may have to revisit Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings and see how I can get more out of an outstanding collection with my own remastering skills. Combine "Revealed" with that previous Time-Life set along with Mercury's The Complete Hank Williams set and you have, as of this writing, 16 discs that are definitely going to satisfy Hank's fans (such as myself).

All three of these sets are masterpieces in their own right. They're beautifully packaged and come complete with lots of liner notes. So listen, read and enjoy! I certainly hope that more will be revealed soon.

UPDATE 2010-04-18:

According to the liner notes there are 18-hours worth of Mother's Best material that was found. "The Unreleased Recordings" to me has transformed my impression of the man known to moan the blues and bend them guitar strings to someone who had a great sense of humor and enjoyed playing with his fellow musicians.

I'm going to get on my soapbox for a few lines now: The ultimate tragedy is that Hank Williams is STILL not reinstated into the Grand Ole Opry yet they keep his likeness outside their doors. For such a legendary performer I find that to be a grave injustice. The irony is that he has received many posthumous awards and recognition for his work.

Hank III, his grandson, has put a petition online. I'm going to place this link in the forums here as well but for anyone who cares please sign it:

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The personal sounding audio of this radio studio sound brings you in touch with truly timeless music. You can hear the depth and dimension to the music not heard on the MCA studio recordings. Two of the three discs are mostly gospel oriented songs and they do shine. For me, one of the great vocal triumphs is Hank doing his yodel on "Where the Old River Flows"....It's out of this world great. That one song alone is worth the price of this collection.

This was a Christmas present and the recepiant was very pleased and that pleased me. It arrived in perfect condition and exceeded my expectations

I guess if you're at this product page you know about how great Hank Williams is. If you're unfamiliar with him and looking at the reviews to see if you want to buy these discs then in both cases be assured that these discs are worth a lot more than their purchase price. For what you get here is the ability to be in the presence of one of the pillars of American music, and I mean all forms of American music, at his finest. Because here you get to enjoy the product of a genius that was forged in less than an ideal life. Get over Hanks premature death, self medicating to overcome health problems and those that sought to use him as their personal golden goose and just listen to the music. It's so perfect in all respects it will just make you cry. It is a very rare convergence of talent and opportunity that allows for art as great as this to be produced. The Drifting Cowboys play circles around anybody today. Bob McNett, Cedric Rainwater, Jerry Rivers and the awesomely superb Don Helms and Hank created an art form that is unequalled today. Their songs are funny, sad, introspective, joyous and in all cases uniquely American. They are our songs, just as relevant today as 50 years ago. The Band improvises somewhat from studio versions of songs and the results are just terrific. Hanks banter with Cousin Louie Buck and comments to the band show us a guy who was completely at ease in his role as Hank Williams and in love with his music. Many thanks to the Hanks Williams estate , especially Jett, for persevering over many legal hurdles to get us this gift from the beyond human talent of Hanks Williams.

I bought this for my husband for Christmas, but of course I could NOT wait. He absolutely loves it. The volume seems to be played louder for this CD than his others !!! Could it be that is because it sounds so good ?? The delivery was very quick and the CD is all it was offered to be. Thank you for the excellent music filled with old-time memories. Gene in Penn Yan

Hank Williams Revealed is just as good as the previous set, re-mastered superbly, the big difference is fewer singles and 3 complete shows in their place. I have supplied a link to an older release from Readers Digest that also includes 3 complete shows. It's titled The Legendary Hank WilliamsThe Legendary Hank Williams - 4 CD Set It's a 4 CD set. The first 3 are identical to the CD's in the first box set "Unreleased Recordings". The fourth CD is three complete shows. No new material except that the shows are complete and include all the dialog and all three are different than any of the three in the new box set "Revealed". I don't know how many copies are still available, so if you're interested, I would act fast. Thanks to all who had a hand in this Mothers Best project, I think they got it right on this project.