Complete Hank Williams Jr.

Product Description:

Personnel includes: Hank Williams Jr., Hank Williams Sr., Hank Williams III, Mike Curb Congregation, Johnny Cash.

Producers include: Hank Williams Jr., Terry Woodford, Clayton Ivey, Ray Ruff, Jimmy Bowen.

Compilation producer: Mike Curb.

Includes liner notes by Jimmy Guterman.

This 45-track, three-disc box set is not in fact a complete set of everything Hank Williams Jr. recorded for the Curb Records label. Instead, it's a solid overview of all sides of the man's musical personality. The weepy pure country ballads mix with the party manifesto country-rockers (including Williams's signature tune "All My Rowdy Friends Are Comin' Over Tonight," which he later reworked into the ABC Monday NIGHT FOOTBALL theme), and the defiant outlaw-country tunes and statements of regional pride ("If the South Woulda Won," "A Country Boy Can Survive") sit next to sincere religious tunes ("All for the Love of Sunshine") and covers of songs associated with his late father. (The latter include some of the re-engineered duets with Hank Sr. that purists found so enraging.)

Taken as a whole, this is the best encapsulation available of Hank Williams Jr.'s career. For many, it might be not only the best starting point, but also the only Hank Williams Jr. they need.