Customer Reviews

The New South: Original Classic Hits, Vol. 2

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Feelin Better is one of the great Hank Williams Jr. songs that never made it to the radio. You'll never find it on a greatest hits album, so pick it up on this cd. Like many Hank Jr. tunes, it's autobiographical, but this one ranks right up there with Family Tradition. A careful listen will reveal outlaw great Waylon Jennings adding his unique guitar sound to the track.

Although that song alone is worth the six bucks for the cd, you get a whole lot more. Hank Jr.'s cover of "Uncle Pen" puts Ricky Scaggs' to shame. Belting out Gordon Lightfoot's "Looking At the Rain" in a baritone voice, Hank Jr. proves he can make even a hippy song sound manly.

If you're like me and love Hank Jr.'s late seventies early eighties raw honky tonk rock-a-billy sound, then you'll love this cd.

A great album. Part blues, part country-rock, part acoustic. Pure heart. Pure Hank. One of the very few country albums I can listen to from start to finish.

The New South is an album about changes. The south changed and so did Hank. This album is the epitome of southern music a must have for the true fan, and truely a good c.d. everyone tries to steal from you when you play it!

I imagine I'll be taken to the mat by more than a few on this...But, Hank's upward trajectory really starts here with "The New South" album and not "Hank Williams Jr. & Friends"(I am reviewing the original New South and not anything that has greatest hits or whatever added to the title). This is simply due to the fact the earlier album, though it had fantastic songs and great guests, was marred by too heavy handed production. This album, while not rough, is the polar opposite. Everything here fits and rings true and doesn't sound forced in anyway. In fact, it sounds like a real talent from within finding it's footing without embellishment. I think the quantum shift in a career that looking back on would even make the "old man" a bit jealous, though "peacock proud", actually started with this somewhat underappreciated album.

When I discovered this album I was about 16 and still in high school. I was an open book to Hank. Strangely enough my earlier link to anything about him was that he recently moved to my hometown of Cullman, Alabama and my part time job as a furniture delivery boy took me to his house. It was a difficult time, I'm sure, as at first he wasn't even there, but in a hospital because of his now famous Ajax mountain accident. When he finally was able to come to his new home he was still bandaged and in the process of recouperation. Thus, I cannot really say I ever got to know the man, but I feel this album introduced me to him. In over 30 years it hasn't lost it's grip as it still sounds wonderful...Every track in fact.

I'll give Hank credit for knowing what he needed to do, but many don't know just how instrumental his new manager (at the time), James R. Smith was in providing the atmosphere and support that nurtured it. The very reason that Hank ended up in my small hometown was that he needed a "clean break" from not only the same old Nashville mentality, but actual people and habits that were hurtful to his health as well as his career. Mr. Smith was a successful business man with a trucking company as his cornerstone. I do not know how that was the best fit with Hank, but the proof is the amazing rise that followed. Unexpected? Maybe to outsiders, but if you were to know anything about James R. Smith you'd never bet against him and apparently Hank, like I said earlier, knew exactly what he now wanted and for the first time he had the perfect foil to help him achieve it.

Getting back to the album - I may be taken to the mat again on this, but I feel it's perhaps one of his two best if not the best. It's nigh well perfect for this kind of music. Hank asserts his voice, and it's recorded so well, you feel he sings as well as the "old man". Yeah, it's a baritone and what a baritone it is! It has enough range, but the resonance is just captured here perfectly as if he was singing in the room with you. Unlike Hank Williams Jr. & Friends, where the production got in the way, here it augments each songs needs and stays enough out of the way to serve the music instead of the other way around. Guitars ring true, embellishments are minimal, and the real heart of each great song, like cream, rises to the top. The programming is nigh well great too. It's got everything from rock to Gordon Lightfoot type folk with lots of gritty country earthiness underpinning it all. Not much "outlaw" like later albums, but truthfully it did not need it. I like the "outlaw" stuff too, but this album, in my humble opinion, stands alone as one of his greatest, if not greatest. If you have even a passing interest in Hank Jr., or later day soulful country influenced folk or rock, don't miss this release. As I stated earlier, it's a bit underappreciated in Hank Jr.s cannon, but like the first two Big Star albums in the rock category, it has achieved a certain "cult like" status that should insure as time goes on it will get its rightful accolades.

By the way, I've seen Hank in some of the least glamourous venues and he always gives a show that leaves you walking out knowing he's the "real thing". I saw him first in my high school auditorium with Merle Kilgore and later in a roadhouse type bar in Huntsville, Alabama. He wasn't yet the man who won untold "Country Entertainer Of The Year" awards, but he already had all the talent and drive that would later secure that status. As much of an icon as "the old man" was, and is, it's a fact that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There's no other way to explain Hank Jr.s success except, though different, he's got the talent gene from dad. Do not miss this album!!!

I am a big fan of hank jr and i have been getting all his CD's as i can. So i grabbed this one and boy am i glad i did, it's wonderful with a good blend of country and southern rock Hank does so well. SOngs like "New south" the title track i could listen to over and over for weeks....and in fact i do! if your a fan of Hanks or just good music then i can't see why you would pass it up...and the price is not bad either.

This is pre-Family Tradition, but after Hank finally embraced his own personna and got rid of those leeches in Nashville that just wanted to market him as the son of Hank Williams. In the early 80's I had 7 different Bocephus recordings, mostly on 8 track ;-). This one tested the waters for what was to become a phenomenon. If this had gone bad, there most likely wouldn't have been a Family Tradition, Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound, or The Pressure Is On, etc. This represents the day Hank said to himself, "sure, my name is Hank Williams, but I'm not my dad." The rest is country music history. Buy it.

This is one of the best cds ol hank jr ever did.Every single song is great.This cd will never get old,if your any kind of jr fan I would buy this one right away.

I bought The New South and Family Tradition at the same time. I listened to this CD First and it stayed in my CD player for a week solid. The songs are top notch. Feelin Better is my favorite song as it stands out just a little from the rest, but there are NO weak songs on this CD. This recording made me a Hank Williams Jr fan. I would encourage anyone looking to explore Hanks music to buy this CD. You just don't get music of this quality anymore. This is Hank at his prime as a performer and as a writer.

These are the three greatest country singers and songwriters, period: Hank Williams, Jr; Willie Nelson; and, Waylon Jennings of this period. Others will argue about previous generations (that included Hank Williams) and the newer generation (that includes Alan Jackson) but I am not familiar enough with either of those generations to be so dogmatic as I am with the three mentioned first.

I go back and forth whether I like to buy anthologies or collections of hits; I generally prefer the original album with all the "B" tunes that seem to improve with time, like Scotch and wine, I suppose.

But having said that, this is an outstanding album. In this case, since it is a collection, I suppose you could buy individual songs -- but artists generally have a reason for the songs they put together on an album.

Enjoy; you will not be disappointed.

This album is in my opinion stands out from other Hank Williams Jr. albums, not to discredit his various other great albums, but this stands out among them all as unique. The songs are all sung very well, you can hear Hank Jr. singing from his soul on this CD in songs like "Feelin' Better" and this album is full of creativity. I will list the best 5 songs off this album in my opinion :

Feelin' Better, Storms never last, You're gonna change (or I'm gonna leave), Montgomery in the rain, and The New South.