Jack White, Bob Dylan Rework Hank Williams Lyrics

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"Billy Bragg & Wilco - Man in the Sand (The Making of "Mermaid Avenue")" (Palm Pictures / Umvd)

Apparently, His Bobness has been listening to Mermaid Avenue, or watching the documentary about the collaboration between Woody Guthrie's lyrics, Wilco and Billy Bragg.

If Steppin' in It bassist Dominic Suchyta is to be believed, he's right in the middle of quite a bit of music history. Speaking with Paste Magazine, Suchyta explained that that Mr. Bob Dylan is spearheading an initiative to set some of country legend Hank Williams' "lost" lyrics to music. (By "lost" he means "essentially, the lyric sheets Hank died with in his briefcase.") And Jack White of the White Stripes is involved.

So how does Suchyta know all this? Apparently, Jack is his "oldest friend", and asked him to play upright bass on his contribution to the project, a take on the unheard Williams tune "You Know That I Know". Suchyta told Paste that "no one has heard" the song, "as it was a Hank Williams lyric sheet that Jack put to music and edited a bit. Jack was sent most of or all of the unfinished tunes and picked this one to finish.
[snip]
Suchyta hinted that Willie Nelson and Norah Jones may very well also contribute songs, and that Dylan "no doubt" recorded a tune for the project during the sessions for last year's excellent Modern Times. No word on just what the end result of all this will look like, but it's probably safe to assume it'll be wearing a bolo tie.
[From Pitchfork: Jack White, Bob Dylan Rework Hank Williams Lyrics]
I'd be interested to hear what emerges, if anything. Hank Williams wrote some spectacular lyrics during his brief time making records.


"Hank Williams - 40 Greatest Hits" (Hank Williams)

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Dylan mentions the Bragg/Wilco albums in his memoir. He tells a story about getting off the subway and trying to slog through a field to collect Woody's lyrics in order to write music for them, but getting frustrated by the mud and turning back. But he says it's ok because 40 years later other musicians did a great job bringing the songs back to life.

The Hank stuff will be interesting.

And I liked Dirty Pretty Things a lot too.

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