Hank Williams Jr. - Rich White Honky Blues (2022) [Official Digital Download]

Produced by The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and recorded over three days, Hank Williams Jr.'s 57th studio album is a set of mostly covers of songs by blues greats, backed up by a killer North Mississippi band: bassist Eric Deaton (who played with T-Model Ford on Fat Possum's Juke Joint Caravan), electric slide guitarist Kenny Brown (who R.L. Burnside called "my adopted son") and drummer Kinney Kimbrough (son of Junior Kimbrough), plus Auerbach. Williams has long flirted with what he calls "stripped-back blues," usually under the stage name Thunderhead Hawkins. Here, he sounds, at times, jubilantly playful—riffing and strutting like a Bantam rooster on Lightnin' Hopkins' "My Starter Won't Start" and getting deep into the rollicking, bottom-heavy grease of Burnside's "Georgia Women." ("All the way to Mobile, baby/ All the way to Birmingham!" Williams crows.) A particular standout is Burnside's sweltering-cool "Fireman Ring the Bell," a funky dance-floor call with Williams unleashing a fiery "whooooo!" He even adds his own unique wail at the end: "His name is Thunderhead 'cause he fell off that mountainside," a reference to the 1975 climbing accident that nearly killed the singer and led to his signature look of a beard, sunglasses and cowboy hat, all to cover his scars. Other bits of improv are more cringeworthy, like when Williams announces "I ain't gonna be here crying after you, bitch" on Jimmy Reed's "Take Out Some Insurance." Too bad, as the song is a corker up until that point, with Williams twisting the word "insurance" into some language of his own and borrowing a bit of his dad's famous yodel for the line "if you e-e-e-ver say goodbye." Likewise, a muscular take on "TV Mama" swings and sashays so much you don't miss the piano rolls and powerful elegance of Big Joe Turner's voice . . . but Auerbach could've cut the ad lib "I must be having one of them wet dreams." Williams also rolls out a few of his own numbers, including the chugging title track and "I Like It When It's Stormy," which is the most country of the bunch and has a real outlaw feel: sun-leathered and don't give a damn. His "Call Me Thunderhead," a growling junkyard dog of a song, is almost parody with its list of self-referential bona fides, warning of "imposters": "They got no scars" and don't know nothing about being whiskey bent and hell-bound (the title of a classic Jr. country track). It all closes out with a super soulful, shambling spin on Hopkins' "Jesus, Won't You Come By Here" that exposes the twisted and overlapping roots of country, gospel, and blues.

TRACKLIST

1 .44 Special Blues
2 Georgia Woman
3 My Starter Won't Start
4 Take Out Some Insurance
5 Rich White Honky Blues
6 Short Haired Woman
7 Fireman Ring the Bell
8 Rock Me Baby
9 I Like It When It's Stormy
10 Call Me Thunderhead
11 TV Mama
12 Jesus, Will You Come By Here



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